The plumbing of this Van Leigh Beacon is the worst I’ve ever experienced. The two manifolds is a jumbled mess that a kindergartner would be honored to tear apart and improve it. I have been three days trying to stop a drip leak at the cluster of plumbing behind the manifolds for the hot water low point drain and the outside shower hot water. I have tried to squeeze the clamps on the t’s and elbows but one in particular I have had to put the old time screw clamp that may solve my drip problem. I am waiting to see if for sure it has stopped leaking.
This is only one of the many leaks I have had since I purchased the beast. For a good moisture detector I have purchased 10 ring detectors that love to wake my wife up at 5:00 am then she gets to wake me up (bad hearing) and I get to find out which one is beeping!!! I must say those moisture detectors are an RV’ers best friend especially if you own a VanLeigh!!
Yep, gonna open up Amazon right now and purchase several for our 42RDB. I had been thinking about it after pulling the wall in the basement and seeing the jungle of pipes, flex duct, wiring, pex, etc. Your post has spurred me to action, so thank you!
Plumbing leaks are the most annoying and difficult issues to track down. One the source has been identified, it’s usually fairly easy to just replace the PEX tubing and connector. I bought a bunch of PEX supplies, crimper, assortment of crimp rings, multiple PEX connectors (straight, 90°) and some short lengths of PEX tubing.
I also just recently had to replace the water manifold which was a big PITA. I needed a bunch of flair it swivel seals that had to be replaced when repairing those PEX connectors like these:
I had a lot of leak issues the first year we were full time on the road but fortunate for us and thanks to Govee water detectors we never had any kind of saturation. Once I received the alarm every time just had a drip or two and opportunity to make the correction. I had around 15 sensors in the rig at every point where water could gather or under high opportunity areas. Nice thing about Govee is you can adjust the volume level of the alert or completely silence it at the device and depend on the phone alerts both while in the rig or out to dinner. Not promoting the Govees just saved our behinds many times. The screenshot I attached demonstrates my leak alert at 2:38 AM one morning.
I always had a plan to redo all of my plumbing to PEX but got to a point where we had a great handle on it and fell down the priority list. I removed a lot of the unnecessary flex pipe with additional connections and made a few changes to some of the longer runs of flex to PEX.
Leaks are for sure frustrating and good to have the sensors for the alerts. On any of the flexible hose where often the most opportunity is Vanleigh used the 18.5mm ear clamps. Harder to find that size at the local big box store but of course a worm clamp works as well.
Thanks guys for the response !! I will admitt I was more than just slighty aggravated when I posted that & my wife was not awakened this morning so we got to sleep in. I have not ventured out yet to check if still leaking because my wife suggested we put a lid or something to catch the water just incase it still dripped. So after coffee and a breakfast I will check it and remove the lid and let the moisture detector do its job. I am praying & hoping the worm clamp stopped the leak.
I pretty much replaced everything in the basement with brass fittings and pex pipe. So far, no leaks down there. Sinks, replacing as we go. Kitchen done when I installed the dishwasher, bathroom sinks done when they started leaking. I seamed to have issues every spring if the trailer was not used in the winter. I think plastic fittings expand and contract more with temperature change and loosen up especially with road vibrations.
