Water pump woes and learning curve.

[d2reid]

The water pump is not priming. Dang, what could possibly go wrong.... how about no water in the tank. Duh, DA. Ok added water, still not priming. Hmmmm! This makes the second time I have seen this in the 4 years we have owned out Momentum. I have read about feed hoses falling off in the tank, could be, but end result that was not the case for me.

First step, do you have water in the tank? Gauges are not reliable, so opening up the inner bay and visually inspecting the tank. Darn, it's empty. Add water. See water, attempt pump again. Again a fail. No water. Dang it. But primary simple cause resolved.

Frozen sand filter leaking air? Took it out of the equation, still not priming/pumping. Hmm. Ok, I have the new pump from AMZ, Take it all apart, add new pump, put it all back together again. Test (this time with known water in the tank). Yahoo, I have pressure and water flow. Didn't order the best pump, was kind of guessing in the specs. New pump will be sufficient, just not the same specs as old pump.

So what went wrong, I mean, once every two years with minimal use the pumps go bad? Not a real expectation. Curiosity being what it is I took the old pump to the work bench and tore it down. Nothing wrong, in really good shape, except, there was a lot of algae build up in the pump ports. Those ports are not very big, you could put a needle through them, but not much else. I tore the old pump down. Wow, there was a lot of algae build up in the tiny holes the pump used to transfer water.

So I am studying to shock my water system to kill built up alage. I am refreshing my memory on shocking the water system to sterizlize it. i have added a pressurized accumulator to the system to keep the flow even. And I won't know the total benefit of what i have done until our next boondocking adventure.

[Yoda]

The water pump is not priming. Dang, what could possibly go wrong.... how about no water in the tank. Duh, DA. Ok added water, still not priming. Hmmmm! This makes the second time I have seen this in the 4 years we have owned out Momentum. I have read about feed hoses falling off in the tank, could be, but end result that was not the case for me.

First step, do you have water in the tank? Gauges are not reliable, so opening up the inner bay and visually inspecting the tank. Darn, it's empty. Add water. See water, attempt pump again. Again a fail. No water. Dang it. But primary simple cause resolved.

Frozen sand filter leaking air? Took it out of the equation, still not priming/pumping. Hmm. Ok, I have the new pump from AMZ, Take it all apart, add new pump, put it all back together again. Test (this time with known water in the tank). Yahoo, I have pressure and water flow. Didn't order the best pump, was kind of guessing in the specs. New pump will be sufficient, just not the same specs as old pump.

So what went wrong, I mean, once every two years with minimal use the pumps go bad? Not a real expectation. Curiosity being what it is I took the old pump to the work bench and tore it down. Nothing wrong, in really good shape, except, there was a lot of algae build up in the pump ports. Those ports are not very big, you could put a needle through them, but not much else. I tore the old pump down. Wow, there was a lot of algae build up in the tiny holes the pump used to transfer water.

So I am studying to shock my water system to kill built up alage. I am refreshing my memory on shocking the water system to sterizlize it. i have added a pressurized accumulator to the system to keep the flow even. And I won't know the total benefit of what i have done until our next boondocking adventure.

You have all the luck
First question - did you have one or more faucets open when trying to prime the pump - the air/water needs to go somewhere. How full did you have the tank once you knew the tank was empty. I make sure I have at least 1/2 tank to start - more if sanitizing. Pumps don't normally go bad just sitting.

Sanitizing instructions are in the manual, but I usually double the concentration they recommend.

Last - did you have your docking station (Nautilus) panel set correctly to dry camping - if not that could have been your issue

Hope this helps

Keith

[d2reid]

You have all the luck

Keith

One of the reasons I post in the forums is to share information. If it happens to me you can be assured it will happen to someone else also.

I only filled the tank until the 1/3 mark came up on the monitor, confirmed this by eyeballing the side of the tank.
Water control panel was set correctly.
Opened kitchen faucet, let it run a bit, closed kitchen faucet, repeat.

Now I have to go find my owners manual and do some reading.

Thanks for the advice....

[Yoda]

One of the reasons I post in the forums is to share information. If it happens to me you can be assured it will happen to someone else also.

I only filled the tank until the 1/3 mark came up on the monitor, confirmed this by eyeballing the side of the tank.
Water control panel was set correctly.
Opened kitchen faucet, let it run a bit, closed kitchen faucet, repeat.

Now I have to go find my owners manual and do some reading.

Thanks for the advice....

I just thought of something. Was your hot water tank full? If not it can take a very long time for a pump to run and not reach pressure (not prime) and shut off. It would be trying to fill the hot water tank or if a hot water faucet was not open working against the air volume in the hot water tank if it was empty.

BTW there are numerous threads on sanitizing for you reading enjoyment and manuals are on line too. Menu bar above far right below the red banner.

Hope this helps
Keith

[Jlawles2]

I will attest that it seems like 1 hr to fill the conventional HWH if it's dry. 6 gallons at maybe 2 GPM, plus all of the tubing in the camper. I bet it takes 5 minutes to fill everything.

[d2reid]

Hot water tank was full. We had been using the RV. Water line at the RV park broke. As a matter of habit I usually leave about 1/3 of the fresh water tank full for this reason. I now remember that I had dumped the tank because the water in there had been sitting for several months and I wanted to put fresh water in. Should have gotten round to it sooner.