Hello and welcome back i am jason with imagine your odyssey and i like to bring you rv related
tips reviews and how to's based off of my experiences and today i wanted to talk about
your fresh water pump specifically to talk about how your pump works that way you know how your
system works and if you need to troubleshoot it you have a little bit of information to
go with it now wait to the end because we're going to give you some troubleshooting tips
but first let's talk about how the pump works now inside of mine i have a sure flow water pump my
water pump pumps about three to three and a half gallons a minute at approximately 55 psi or pounds
per square inch now the way that my water pump works is it pulls water from the freshwater tank
up to the pump and then from the pump it pushes it out to the rest of the rv now how all that
works in the middle of all that that's what we're going to get into so how that starts you have a
tube that comes from your freshwater tank it comes up to a filter slash strainer what that's for is
to keep any debris that may be inside of your tank from getting inside the pump and ruining the pump
once it gets past there the water gets into the pump and has little diaphragms inside
those diaphragms push in and out and that's what actually creates the pressure that pumps all the
water also inside of there is a check valve to keep the water from going the wrong direction
and it has an adjustment on it so that you can set pressure as well as a setting on there so
that you can set a bypass we'll get on all that in just a second now also part of your water system
is your city water connection and how that works is that it comes from the outside of your rv
from your spigot or whatever on the outside and it pushes water in now you don't want that water
going through your pump and back into your fresh water tank and that's where the check
valve inside of your pump comes in how that works is that when your water pump is running
and pulling water from your tank you have a little ball inside and as the water comes in
it's going to push the ball out of the way and go through the pump and get to the rest of your rv
now when you use your city water connection that ball is sitting there and the water's coming the
other direction it's going to push the ball and seal it and then start going up to the rest of
the rv and preventing itself from going backwards through the pump and back into your tank for the
adjustments on the face of the pump those are for the bypass and for your pressure typically when
you get your pump from the manufacturer they're not going to need to be set they're already done
by the manufacturer and what the capability of the pump is and already tested and tuned another part
about the pump is how does it actually turn on and run now the pump itself is powered by 12 volt
which is off the battery of your rv that way you don't have to have shore power to have water right
if you put water in your tank and you have 12 volt power off of your battery and your battery is good
then you'll be fine you run the pump and you'll have water pressure inside of your rv
now just like anything else inside of your rv that runs off electricity it needs to be protected
so on mine i have a fuse in between the power coming into the pump and the pump itself by the
manufacturer's recommendation off of the label of the pump it recommends that i have a 10 amp fuse
so that's what i have in the middle of it is a 10 amp fuse so if something goes wrong with
the pump or something goes wrong with your system then the fuse will blow and cut off
power to the pump and protect your rv now a little full warning there if it does blow
the fuse you need to do some troubleshooting the fuse should not blow for just any reason at all
especially this fuse because it's a 10 amp slow blow fuse what that means is that it can handle
a little higher than 10 amps for a short period of time and all that without blowing so let's
get to talking about some tips about your pump first we'll talk about some general tips and then
we'll talk about some troubleshooting tips first for the general tips let's talk about your fresh
water tank now i recommend that you flush out your freshwater tank periodically now if you're going
to go to the campground or if you're filling it up from home or wherever that may be you need to
at least once a year to open up the drain to your fresh water tank now mine happens to have a cap
on the bottom of my rv and i took the cap off and it will drain all the water out of the tank yours
may have a slide or a pull handle or something like that but nevertheless if you fill it up a
little bit of water and let it slosh around and then go ahead and drain it and do that a couple
of times at the beginning of each season then if there's any sediment at the bottom of your tank it
should flush that out or at least get most of it the next tip is the little filter strainer that's
right before your pump at least mine has one it's this little clear container and it screws off and
inside of it it has this little mesh screen also at the beginning of every season it's good to take
that off and clean that screen now be very very careful with that screen because it is delicate
now take a really soft bristled toothbrush and kind of lightly brush that screen as you're
rinsing it out once you get it all rinsed out it'll look nice and clean you can put that back
on and you should have all the water flow that you need and then the last general tip is that
when you fill up your fresh water tank make sure you use some kind of filter on your water hose
don't just hook up the water hose and start pumping it directly into your tank put some
kind of water filter on your hose that way whatever water that you put into your tank
will be as clean as it can possibly be now that leads me to troubleshooting tips if you don't
have any water flow then you need to check to make sure you have power to your pump check that fuse
and make sure that fuse is good that way you know that you have power going to your pump now inside
of your power distribution panel that's where all your circuit breakers and stuff like that are
you may have a fuse for that pump there also so check that fuse as well if the pump is coming on
and you still don't have any water pressure then take off that strainer to make sure that it's not
dirty and restricting water flow now for a tip about the pump itself if you turn on your pump
and you're getting little to no water flow or the pump is shaking like crazy it just doesn't sound
smooth then on the face of your pump you can take a little allen screw and you can turn the pressure
setting on it now as mine is made by sureflow i looked up the manufacturer's details about it
and it told me that i could take the little set screw and i could turn it counterclockwise
now what that's going to do is reduce the water pressure now that's okay in this case because we
want to make sure that we're not over pressurizing what i would do from there is turn it about a
quarter of a turn counterclockwise and then get the pump to start now to do that is i turn the
pump on and then i go over to my water faucet at my sink and i'll turn it on slightly just to let
it run really slow that way the pump will activate from there i'll go back to the pump and when the
pump activates i'll turn that screw clockwise an eighth to a quarter of a turn wait for the pump
come back on and see if the pump has settled if it has not i'll go another eighth to a quarter turn
until it levels out you'll hear the difference it'll go from this real rumbly shaking sound
to a nice smooth settled sound now you want to make sure that the pump is cutting off yet the
sound or the smoothness of the pump is right now the reason for going those eighth and quarter
turns as you're turning up the pressure is to get right to the moment when it's sounding good go
about another eighth of a turn and then leave it there the reason for that is that you don't want
to allow the pump to be able to over pressurize itself which comes into the bypass section the
bypass section of itself is a little set screw on there that you don't want to mess with the reason
for that is because the manufacturer is going to set that so that the pump itself will bypass
and not over pressurize and mess up your rv so make sure that you're not going to tune that one
itself so that's about the overview of the pump and how mine works if you have a different type of
pump or you have other troubleshooting experiences please leave those down in the comments below
because not everybody may have the same kind of pump that i do or even the same kind of pump you
do but if we share those down in the comments below we'll all get informed together also if
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from imagine your odyssey and until the next time enjoy your water enjoy your rv trips and god bless