No water pressure from any hot faucet

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rklyon

rklyon

Active member
Joined
Sep 4, 2016
Posts
39
Location
Moro, Illinois
I have a 2002 Itasca Horizon 39QD, Freightliner Chassis. After being parked for a number of years, I am going throught the process of putting it back on the road. You kind folks have helped me through two hurdles so far!! I am getting no pressure on any hot water faucet in the rv. I have seen discussion of a check valve on the water heater that may be clogged and/or broken. Does anyone know how I can access that valve on this rv? Thanks.
 
The check valve, if there is one, is right at the tank outlet (and maybe at the inlet too). If the bypass system is the 2 or 3 valve configuration, it could be one of those valves is set wrong too.

To have no water at all from the hot faucets, the tank has to be fully shut off. If it was just bypassed, you would have cold water.
 
rklyon said:
I am getting no pressure on any hot water faucet in the rv. I have seen discussion of a check valve on the water heater that may be clogged and/or broken.
Click to expand...

Do you have any water flowing at all. Is it just a trickle?
 
I get a slight trickle for a couple of seconds and then nothing. I will double check my handles but the only one I can think of is the one that switches from tank to city water. So far I have not been able to access the hot water outlet area. There is a panel that I will remove and see if I can reach there.
 
Very typical for the two water heater check valves to self destruct. Download/print your plumbing diagram and follow the water path with a highlighter marker.
 
rklyon said:
I get a slight trickle for a couple of seconds and then nothing. I will double check my handles but the only one I can think of is the one that switches from tank to city water. So far I have not been able to access the hot water outlet area. There is a panel that I will remove and see if I can reach there.
Click to expand...

The bypass valves will typically be in the piping right on the backside of the heater. As stated, you may have 2 check valves. One in the inlet (bottom pipe) and one at the outlet (top pipe). Now if you have a three valve bypass system, you probably will not have any check valves.  You can buy the check valves at Home Depot.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Watts-1-2-in-Brass-FPT-x-MPT-Service-Check-Valve-1-2-SCV/203804502

 
And... many RV faucets have a basket type filter/screen under the faucet seal assemblys. Over time, scale & sediment particles from the action of heating water*, can build up on the Hot water side.. and plug, or slow the hot water flow.

You might want to check those too ?

Joe

* why we should drain and flush our Hot Water Heater tanks.. Now & Then ?
 
I found an access panel and this is what I see. I just looked it up and it is the elusive check valve. Now if I can get it off without breaking something!!
 

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Okay any tips on how to actually disconnect this thing? There is not any room to move in that space. I am sure this is the problem. I opened the pressure relief on the water heater and a lot of water under pressure came out. The pump was off and I was not hooked up to a water hose.
 

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The two white compression fittings with the closely-spaced rubs should be only hand-tight. They are designed for hand-tightening and should unscrew without major effort, though you might need a wrench on the brass part to steady it.

If that doesn't work, get some pliers on the other fitting with the wider-spaced ribs (the ones that connect direct to the brass) and back those off. They will be usually be tighter than the two outer ones, though.

Remember, righty-tighty; lefty-loosey!

The rest of it is just knuckle-scraping and cursing over the limited access. Good luck!
 
By the looks of that plumbing job I think it was not factory installed. Might want to remove the check valve and see what happens.
 
I unscrewed the two white compression fittings with the closely-spaced rubs. Is there a secret for getting the pipe off of the fitting. I keep twisting and pulling but due to the tight space I can't get any leverage. I have done some "knuckle-scraping and cursing" as Gary said I would. lol
 
I've found that it's sometimes easier to just remove a long section wherever I have decent access and then reassemble with new pipe and fittings. That plastic pipe gets really hard and difficult to work with when it's a few years old.
 
Okay, I am officially stumped. I removed check valve and replaced. It turns out that it was on the cold water side but it needed replaced. I found where the hot water line exits the heater and runs up into the rv. There are no check valves on that line. To summarize - I have water flowing into the heater but not exiting. If I leave a hot water faucet off for a while and then turn it back on I get a trickle that slowly fades to nothing. That tells me blockage . . .  but where?
 
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