2015 LS37CKLS hot water lines

The outside of the furnace under the cover on the outside of the 5er needs a good silicone seal to deep out any drafts and keep out any water from the pressure relief valve or rain that finds its way in.

The large rubber seal on the frame under the full length of the slide (as seen from the outside)may have a fold in it that allows cold air in. Use your fingers to roll it back into place. A hair dryer to warm it up will help in this task.

The furnace must run to warm the space under the floor where the pipes run back (toward the front of the 5er) from the hot water heater to the bathroom or center island sink. Keeping the living space warm with the fireplace and electric heaters won’t do this. Fine above 30, but furnace needs to move the air through the subfloor area when colder, or if it never gets above 30 in the day (cold air sinks).

You are correct in thinking how pipes are run. Cold goes somewhat straight to forward sink, shower and toilet. Hot needs the cold to go rearward to the hot water heater, then back forward to the bath shower and sink. The kitchen cold rises straight up from the inlet side of the hot water heater.

Could be one more thing. The hot water to the shower and bath sink travels in a flex line up by the hot water heater where it goes into the subfloor area. Flex is needed because the slide goes in and out. In colder weather traveling, that flex may hold a kink. It really should not given that warm water should warm it up, but worth looking at. All cold to the hot water heater has a similar flex line between subfloor and hot water heater. This entry to the subfloor area is behind a thin wall by my garbage can. May be in a different location in your model.

Rick

JohnD222 wrote:Do you have hot water at the kitchen sink? I ask because this is usually the closest to the hot water tank. If you have the problem here, try leaving the cabinets by the hot water tank open. This area is always cooler, and just a few degrees cooler at the source is all it takes sometimes.

The outside of the furnace under the cover on the outside of the 5er needs a good silicone seal to deep out any drafts and keep out any water from the pressure relief valve or rain that finds its way in.

The large rubber seal on the frame under the full length of the slide (as seen from the outside)may have a fold in it that allows cold air in. Use your fingers to roll it back into place. A hair dryer to warm it up will help in this task.

The furnace must run to warm the space under the floor where the pipes run back (toward the front of the 5er) from the hot water heater to the bathroom or center island sink. Keeping the living space warm with the fireplace and electric heaters won’t do this. Fine above 30, but furnace needs to move the air through the subfloor area when colder, or if it never gets above 30 in the day (cold air sinks).

You are correct in thinking how pipes are run. Cold goes somewhat straight to forward sink, shower and toilet. Hot needs the cold to go rearward to the hot water heater, then back forward to the bath shower and sink. The kitchen cold rises straight up from the inlet side of the hot water heater.

Could be one more thing. The hot water to the shower and bath sink travels in a flex line up by the hot water heater where it goes into the subfloor area. Flex is needed because the slide goes in and out. In colder weather traveling, that flex may hold a kink. It really should not given that warm water should warm it up, but worth looking at. All cold to the hot water heater has a similar flex line between subfloor and hot water heater. This entry to the subfloor area is behind a thin wall by my garbage can. May be in a different location in your model.

Thanks JohnD222,
All of the cold water to each fixture is working. The cabinet the water heater is in is actually warm so no freezing there. Seal is good. Furnace is on set at around 62. Not using any electric heat.
I’m thinking its either the cold line to the water heater or the hot line from the water heater.
I’m probably looking for the flexible line. Just not sure where access is for that. Any ideas?
I did find a red pex hot water line that runs directly through the lower frig vent. Looks like the hot water line for the washer.
Also thought about putting a recirculation pump/line at the bathroom sink area. It takes forever to get hot water there. This would keep it from freezing and get hot water to the bathroom quicker. Any ideas would be welcome.

If there is no water coming out when only hot is on,maybe someone winterized the RV, but did not open up for sumer use properly.

Look at hot water valves on the hit water heater under your cabinets. There should be. Three. The two parallel ones should be in the open position. The vertical one should be closed. These valves wrong can result in no water at hot faucets or no water at hot faucets.

Everyone’s water takes forever to get hot in the bath. It is the low pressure and the low flow faucets. Do a search. Several have posted ways to install circulators.

Cliff

I think that the water lines run between the outside wall and an internal wall behind the pantry and washer dryer closet. Found a large hole behind one of the pull out drawers in the pantry but didn’t feel like unloading the pantry to remove the drawer. At this point I’m sure we could not go through a winter without some modifications to that area. Which is not going to happen until we get to warmer weather. 0 to 10 is not normal here for December.

On a side note the rig appears to have come with a factory manual. BW do you need that one? Shoot me a email and when I get time we will try and help out.

Thanks to all who have helped or may help.

The area where the cold water supply lines start is in the compartment where the fresh water tank is located. and is accessible thru a sliding door on the front wall of the pass-thru on the off-door side of the trailer. That door will be just inside on your left side.
This is the same area where the water pump is located as well as the connection assembly for ‘city water’ supply. The lines from both the pump and the city water assembly connect together then go to the water filter cartridge. The outlet line of the water filter goes 2 places: 1. a line goes into the front basement (more on this later) and, 2. a line goes the opposite way (towards the rear of the trailer) into the area behind the false wall in the pass thru. The water filter assembly is located in the overhead of the pass thru on the off-door side so the water lines described here are also located in the overhead.

Ok, back to the first line described above that goes into the front basement. This line is the cold water supply line to the water heater. Between the fresh water tank area and the hot water heater, this cold water line is paired and routed with a hot water line (red) which is the hot water supply from the hot water heater. So for the purpose of supplying cold water to heater and getting hot water from the heater, these 2 lines go everywhere together between the area where the fresh water tank is located and the hot water heater.
Both lines are run into the front basement area along the roof then go up thru the basement roof into the flooring above. They penetrate the flooring in the trailer under the bed. If you raise the bed you should be able to see them. There’s a small covered compartment in the under-bed area you may have to take the cover off to see them; can’t remember. This area is also where the pex lines have a flexible connection section added to allow for slide movement. After the flexible sections, the pair of lines go into the side wall of the bed assembly where the bed meets the trailer wall. From here the lines are routed thru the bottom of the washer/dryer compartment where lines are tapped off to the washer connections. They then pass behind the frig and stove and finally into the water heater compartment. As they extend from the washer/dryer compartment to the hot water heater compartment I couldn’t see how to directly access them. They seem to run in a cavity of some sort between the 2 locations. I used a boroscope to try and get a better understanding of how they were run, but all i could really tell is that they were continuous runs of pex tubing between the 2 locations.

BTW; the little compartment in the area under the bed that has a cover is where the travel limit switches for the long kitchen slide are located.

All the above covered the origin of the cold and hot water supply lines. The cold originated in the area of the fresh water tank and the hot originated at the hot water heater and was routed to the area of the fresh water tank. From there, both hot and cold supply lines will run across the over head of the pass thru compartment and go behind the false wall where they will branch off to various locations as needed: toilet, bath sink, shower, and kitchen sink. If you remove the false wall you can trace the distribution of these lines. The most convoluted are the ones going to the bathroom sink. They pass through an enclosed space in the overhead of the pass thru so are not easy to access.

One of the tell tale signs of a water leak is residue on the flooring in the area behind the false wall where these water lines are located. So if you’re ever in that area for some reason, keep in mind to have a look around for any water residue. Two of our leaks were in this area and both were hairline cracks on pex fittings.

Partimewages wrote:Shadow,
That was just what I was looking for. I’m thinking of adding a small hot water circulator and that would keep hot water in each of those lines when it gets cold. Have you ever had freezing issues? We can’t always be where it is warm because of work.
Thanks,

We’ve never used the trailer in colder/freezing temps so don’t know if we’d have any issues or not. What you might try is to put a small electric fan in the washer/dryer closet aimed at the area where the 2 water lines go thru the wall of that compartment. It may help to force warm air into that cavity. I’d also plug in a droplight in the front basement area to keep that area warmer. The LED lights that are in there don’t throw off any appreciable heat so can’t use the installed lighting.