I screwed up!!!

[Rene T]

The worst water screw-up I ever saw was a couple with a new Cardinal 5W. He hooked up the city water hose to the black tank flush inlet (by mistake), turned on the water and went about enjoying life. Black valve was closed, of course. Wife went into the bathroom and heard strange noises from the toilet, so she stepped on the toilet flush peddle to check it out.  Yucky water surged out like a geyser! It was also running down the outside from the roof vent, but they hadn't noticed that.

I did something on the same lines. I was flushing my black tank with the flushing hose. I always do it with the drain valve closed.  I had done it a couple of times and I wanted to do it one more time before leaving the campground. I turned the flushing water on and then was distracted and walked away and forgot about it. About 10 minutes later, my DW started screaming. I immediately knew why and ran over and shut the water off. Water was just starting to run out the bottom of the rig. What happened was the water filled the tank then ran up the vent pipe and then ran down the outside of the vent pipe and ran out from behind the vanity in the bathroom. We were actually lucky because it was fairly clean water. Luckily she didn't open the toilet valve.  I make it a point now to never walk away while flushing.

 

[Rstrahan]

First time I took our Winnebago, we were parking next to a creek with a sharp drop off.  Lost sight of wife in the dark, dang near backed off the edge of the creek.  The screaming finally alerted me to the issue...and everyone else in the park. 

 

[motojavaphil]

Mistakes in front of others is almost as bad as the mistake.  Having the DW in the seat next to you as you commit the misdeed can be just as bad.  Murphy demonstrated the force of his law on our first RV.  Leaving early in the morning from Dallas we pulled onto I-20 with confidence and a strong desire to return home.  Accelerating to merge the fifth wheel detached from the hitch and bent my tailgate before I could slow down.  We raised the 5r and reattached it to the hitch and I held my head down in shame for not doing a proper hookup.  The rest of the trip was uneventful and contact with my insurer made the whole event right although I had a profound learning experience about hooking up.  The story does not end there.  We decided to take another trip to southern NM and left early in the morning.  I double and triple checked the hitch after hooking up in light of our last recent episode.  We traveled slowly for the first part of the trip due to being on a rural road and finally came to a straight away.  Accelerating to highway speed I'll be darned if Murphy did not reach out and the rig detached again taking out the tailgate and starting a grass fire.  Locals came out to save their homes extinguishing the fire and making sure we were OK.  We had the disabled 5r towed to a garage and we went on our way, making motel reservations.  Our insurer dispatched an agent to our RV dealer to get an idea of what was happening.  It turns out the hitch was defective, exactly how I do not know as it seems idiot proof.  A new hitch and we have never had any further problems towing that 5r or any subsequent 5r.  My lesson from all this is to not judge yourself too harshly and if you "screw up", learn from it and move on.  Finally,  Murphy is always present and to do our best to make sure his law is not imposed.  Watch RV or Long Long Trailer for the RV experience.