Plumbing problems, PLEASE HELP!

[jemmett]

Yesterday while preparing our 1992 16' for the first camping trip of the year I noticed the following:

With an exterior water line hooked up to the trailer I was only able to get a trickle of water from the bathroom faucet when the hot water was turned on and the cold water turned off. Cold water pressure was not a problem. The hot water tank was full but not turned on to heat.

No water will come out of the kitchen faucet when the hot was on and the cold turned off. Cold water pressure is fine out of the faucet but the water is milky colored and is full of small white grainy chunks, (calcium?)

Upon further inspection of the plumbing system I found a leak where the outside water line enters through into the trailer underneath the side dinette. I think I pinpointed the leak to the compression fittings on the "T". The sub flooring is trashed but I don't think the leak was significant enough to rob the rest of the trailer of water pressure.

Is there a problem with my hot water heater? What caused the milky water?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Jeff

[Dan Meyer]

If you open the water heater drain and then turn on the city water, what happens?

-- Dan Meyer

[Roger H]

Do you have a winterize bypass kit on the water heater?

Roger

[jemmett]

Dan,

When I took the drain bolt out of the water heater a trickle of water came out. I knelt down and poked a screwdriver in the drain hole and got blasted in the face with water and little hard chunks of calcium. My wife and the neighbors got a good laugh. I then took apart each faucet and found that they were packed full of the small granular chunks. I flushed the lines and cleared them. No more milky water, but a few small calcium grains come through.
So what caused the large calcium build-up and how do I prevent this from happening again?

Jeff

[jemmett]

Roger,

No bypass kit. What exactly is it? If you havn't noticed I'm very new to rv-ing.

Jeff

[Dan Meyer]

I am not a plumber, but the first thing that came to my mind is thay the white granular stuff isn't calcium, but aluminum oxide that built up from the lack of use of hot water.

If your water heater doesn't leak, I'd be tempted to simply sanitize the water system and use it. I wouldn't worry about the build up of solids too much unless it happened again.

-- Dan Meyer