Grey Water Tank Overflow

[matilsky]

Last night, Someone Who Isn't Me left the bathroom sink on for about 4 hours. When discovered, the bathroom floor well had naturally completely filled with water, but miraculously, the rest of the trailer flooring was dry! When SWIM went out to dump the tank (at 2:30 am) it was clear that the tank had vented to the ground; water everywhere. But none in the trailer (other than the bath)!

Our 2014 19' does not have any wheel well vent, but does have a grey tank roof vent on the passenger side. However, it seems to me that there would have to be (miraculously!) an overflow vent (or leak) at precisely the height of the bathroom floor well, in order for the rest of the trailer to have remained dry. Is that possible, or is it just that the connection between the drain piping and the tank was not sealed, and water just ran out the top?

I checked the previous grey water vent threads, but they mostly addressed the sewer gas smell issue, which, by the way, we don't have.

[davidmurphy02]

I don't know if things were different back in 2014, but now at least there are channels under the floor and several drain holes so that in the event of any kind of leak, water would have a way to run out. Perhaps when your bathroom floor well filled up, as water got to the top of the opening at the bottom of the doorway it was able to leak into the wall at that point, ran down under the floor, and got out through one of the drains in the bottom of the shell.

Again, don't know if it has always been this way, but there are usually pieces of clear plastic tubing protruding down from the drain holes in the bottom of the shell at several points. You might look under the trailer and see if you can spot one of those in the area where the water outside seems to have been concentrated. If that's what happened, then you can thank Escape's design feature for saving you from having a much worse flood inside the trailer by allowing a way for the water to exit.

[matilsky]

Thank you! That makes sense. I'll check under the trailer later today....

[sclifrickson]

Some of the older trailers had a tank overflow valve inside one of the wheel wells. I’d think this is more likely than all the overflow leaking into the door jamb and then through the weep channels.

[matilsky]

I checked that. We don't have that valve on ours....

[rubicon327]

Was the shower drain plug in tight? Just wondering if the water in the bath was from an overflowing sink or the full gray tank pushing water backwards up through the shower drain.

Also how much water flow? Was the sink left on full or just a trickle?

[matilsky]

We always leave the shower drain plug loose, just to get an idea if the grey water tank is too full. So what happened is that the bathroom sink drained into the tank, and with the water continually running, eventually overflowed the shower drain and began filling up the bathroom well. SWIM does not remember how strong the flow was from the sink, but it is clear that at least 50 gallons (and probably much more) came out of the faucet until it was discovered....

[barry]

As someone else said the older trailers used to have an overflow vent in the wheel well and the really old 17B ones (2005/6) it was on the passenger side of the trailer, it came up through the floor in the closet and then outside by the door. The weep holes in the lower channels of the floor are way too small to drain large amounts of water as they are really only meant for condensation.

The only plausible reason for water to exit the grey tank and not flood the trailer would be one of two things in my mind, 1) There is an overflow drain built into the grey tank that goes into action when the water volume in the shower well or trailer pipes reaches a certain height, 2) The grey water drain dump valve was left in a slightly open position allowing it to drain.

My thinking is that Reace was always improving the trailers and if he made allowances for a grey water overflow drain in the earlier trailers then he wouldn't take it out in later trailers, he would just hide it better so it wasn't an eyesore.

Think of this scenario; If the shower drain is in the closed position with the trailer being used normally and a happy camper was not keeping track of how full their grey water tank was getting, as it filled, without some kind of overflow drain, it would start filling up the pipes leading up to to bathroom and kitchen sinks. Underneath the kitchen counter in the trailers is an open vent pipe, which is slightly higher than the bottom of the sinks, water would then start flowing out of that vent pipe and all through the lower cupboards. I've never heard of that happening and I can't see Reace designing a trailer where that would be allowed to happen. That aforementioned happy camper would not be a happy camper anymore.
Barry