RV Water Pump Leaking?

Is your RV water pump leaking? The following guide will show you what to do if your RV water pump is leaking. 

RV Water Pump Leak

Question: We think the water pump in our travel trailer is leaking but we can seem to find out where the leak is coming from. Any ideas on how to find the leak? Nothing seems to be wrong with the pump itself. The pump is located under the couch–and the carpet there is wet. We have a 25ft. Fleetwood travel trailer.

Answer: Leaks are very difficult to diagnose without being on site, so our help is going to take the shotgun approach and ramble on as we think of things to check.

Here are a few things we would try. We suggest that if you do not see the leak itself (we assume that the pump is visible) coming from the pump then the leak has nothing to do with the pump. Try tightening the waterline connections, then dry everything as best as possible and feel around the pump and waterlines going into and out of the pump for signs of moisture or water. If the lines are wet then you will have to trace the lines to the next connection point and so on until you find where they are leaking. You may have to do the trace multiple times. If the pump is wet then you may have to replace the pump since the housing may be cracked.

If the lines and the pump remain dry but the water is still accumulating on the rug, then turn off your water supply and depressurize the water system by opening a faucet until no more water comes out. Go back to the pump, and again dry everything and check the lines and pump for moisture. If the lines and pump are dry but you still have water accumulating then it is not the pump or the water lines. You may have had a leak that was in the same general area as the water pump. You never want to give up on a leak since they can cause an amazing amount of damage. If you cannot figure out where the leak is coming from then it is time to call in a professional.

We had a leak that stumped us for over 3 months. It manifested in two of our storage bays. The leak would leave watermarks on the bay doors and felt moist right where the bottom of the floor met the belt line. I resealed all my belt lines, the skylight directly above the leak, the refrigerator vent near the leak, and two windows within 4 feet of the leak. It made no difference – we still had a leak. We were desperate so we started to look inside the refrigerator vent and found a hairline crack inside the opening that houses the refrigerator coils. We sealed that and waited for the next rain. Still had the problem but it had diminished. We then looked further and found a few more areas that had voids. We resealed them and the problem has gone away. It was only luck that we found the problem and was able to fix it after many false starts and a lot of effort.

By the way, if your owner’s manual does not mention it you should be resealing all the belt lines (anyplace it seems there are pieces joined where water could get in), windows, and penetrations at least once a year. This is something we do religiously to prevent leaks before they happen. Even with all these precautions, we’ve still had leaks. We are lucky that we learned this early on and have been able to proactively maintain the watertight integrity of our RV.

Hope this is of some help, and wish you best of luck on fixing the problem. Please let us know the outcome.

Water Leak on Underside of 5th Wheel 

Question: After staying at a RV Park in Texas for 2 months, and when pulling out for the return trip home, water came out of the bottom of our 5th wheel. We had no problem with water leaking for 2 months while sitting. It was fresh water and a lot of it. How do we go about finding where the leak is? We have never used the holding tanks. Never have had a problem with the sewer holding tanks. Any ideas on how to find what caused it and fix it?

Answer: It is difficult to diagnose this problem without actually duplicating it. A couple thoughts come to mind. One is that it could be run off from the AC that didn’t drain until you changed the incline on the vehicle by moving it.

Another thought is that it was caused by rain, meaning that there is a leak somewhere. You would have to try to duplicate this to troubleshoot.

Another possibility is that you have a leak somewhere in your water lines. You could try to check this by filling your fresh water tanks partially, then turn on the water pump. With the water faucets all turned off, listen for the water pump cycling on and off. If it continues to do so, it indicates that there is leak in one of the fresh water lines. (In essence the water pump cycles on, trying to maintain water pressure in the lines, which it can’t do because of a leak.