Well, we decided to sanitize our fresh water system today and boy, did we have trouble. First, I did what Dave suggested, putting some chlorox in the hose and connecting it to the Barth. Problem was that it came out all the spigots fine but would not fill up the two fresh water tanks we have. Our sysem is set up with a water heater on the drivers side and one 25 gallon tank under the fridge and another 25 gallon tank under the curb side twin bed. So then, we decided to fill the tanks from the curbside fill portal and quickly realized that the front tank wouldn't fill until the rear tank was full and then only at a very slow rate. Almost blew up the rear tank by putting water in too fast. It started to buldge, like 6", and Tere screamed something prophetic, and I pulled the hose out of the fill hole and about 10 gallons of water came out like a fire hydrant. Got pretty wet. We finally accomplished the task but have some questions. Is it possible that we don't have one of the famous auto fill valves? Our control panel has a rocker switch that says "tank fill" but switching it on didn't seem to make the campground fill connection fill the two holding tanks. When I finally got those two tanks full, when I pushed the "tank fill" switch, a little red light above it came on that said "full". I see no selenoid valve in the area where all the piping is. That's underneath the curbside bed. Seems to me that there has got to be some way to fill those tanks other than the way we were doing it.There are a bunch of manual valves, two for draining the two tanks, one for "cold water drain", and one that lets water into the pump. Could we have been doing something wrong? We opened the two tank drain valves, drained the tanks, then closed the valves, kept the "cold water drain valve closed and the valve to the pump open. There are also two cold water drain valves under the kitchen sink. Kept both of them closed. Sorry for the long message but we're a little mystified.
Jim

When filling the gravity port, you need an EZ Filler. http://www.campingworld.com/browse/products/index.cfm?prodID=594&src=SRQB

When filling the pressure fill, the electric fill valve has to open. That lets the water go into the tank.

It sounds like your electric fill valve is not opening. Or is not even there. A previous owner may have removed it and eliminated the lines , or replaced the solenoid with a manual valve. There are people who only go where there are hookups, and never need to fill. And there are people who only use gravity fill. Gravity fill is often on the curb side, so is much handier. Neither of those users need a fill valve of any kind.


Dave's method is sound either way.

Well, the best half went to the Barth while I went to work. She didn't change a thing, just hooked up the shore city water and guess what? Holding tanks filled right up! Go figure! Of course, they didn't stop filling up, but I'm sure she'll figure that out tomorrow. While I try to make money figuring our if a house has mold in it.

Most of these coaches, (I feel very comfortable saying most) have done away with the autofill switch and just have a manual valve somewhere. You'll get there, we all went through this, it's all apart of the FUN!!!!

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All is well with Barth. This weekend, we finally determined which valve allows you to fill the tanks with ciy water. It's a simple thing, once you figure it out. There are at least 6 different valves in our Barth, all I think for draining, except one, so it was just a process of elimination. The street side hose hook up check valve does leak a little, but not so bad that I need to replace it yet. So next project on the list is fixing a few leaks in the front windshield. Also will be removing the header wrap on the Thorleys and replacing it with a header blanket from Thermotec. Thermotec reccommende that on motor homes rather than header wrap. Don't know what Thorley thinks about that. Also will use some of Thermotecs products on the spark plug wires, and various other hoses and wires to protect them against heat.

Jim, if your check valve leaks you can put a threaded plug in the inlet. My city water connection does not have a check valve and I rely on the plug completely. I would recommend eveyone carry the plug anyway, just in case the check valve starts to leak. They do that.
Thorley's lifetime guarantee is voided if heat wrap is used. Call them and ask about the blanket.

ALL campers should invest in a regulator, for the water, as pressure can be detrimental to your water system.

Ditto on the regulator, however, itis my understanding that your plumbing is designed to take 40-50 psi but the standard brass and plastic regulaters can be giverned to much less than that. You can buy from a camping world an adjustable valve with a dial indicator. I haven't doen this but it sounds great.

Hy the way out autside water filter go after the regulator. It's interesting to watch all of that black charcoal go down the toilet.

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That charcoal makes nice black ice cubes, too.

Was in a park a few months ago where the owner told me to be sure to use my regulator because they had 100 lbs of pressure on their lines.