Excitement early Sunday morning

  It wasn’t even 7 a.m. yet this morning when Benno lifted both dogs into our bed. I was barely awake, contemplating to fetch my iPad, when we heard a loud pop. Benno thought it came from a truck tailgate slamming shut somewhere. I thought it rather sounded more like a tire burst from our truck, which is parked next to our trailer. So I got up, opened the door and heard water gushing. It was coming from under our trailer. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news in the morning, but my discovery had Benno jumping outside in a flash and after a quick look I saw him dashing to the service post to turn off the water faucet in a hurry. 

So no water to the travel trailer and water dripping from every crevice in the under carriage. Just great. In order to source the problem we have to open up the under the frame bolted membrane or cover to see what is happening. We decided to get dressed and I took a jug to get some water from the vacant neighbour faucet for coffee. 

After making sure there was no leak or water inside the trailer we had breakfast before Benno unpacked his tools to tackle the opening of the cover. Once it was off I handed him my good Lithium powered Quantum flashlight and damn the pushbutton for the two settings of high and low beam is “On the Fritz” (kaputt, no good, broken etc.). What is going wrong next I thought but didn’t say it. Luckily we have two other flashlights. 

Benno had me lying under the trailer on a piece of cardboard he had hurriedly fished out of the park’s garbage dump bin to see where the water was coming out while he turned on the faucet. I got a full dose of cold water sprayed right in my face and jacket and now knew where the problem was located. I suggested he take a look while I turned on the water and (haha) after a little morning shower he quickly found the culprit, a popped factory installed PEX hose clamp. But the connection to the hot water is also loose. (More detail from Benno at the end)

Although Benno brought a whole box of PEX assortments and such incl. PEX clamps and crimper, it is not enough. Ken, our nice neighbour lend Benno a small adjustable wrench that we need, so we don’t have to purchase that, but Benno decided to drive to Harbor Freight and Home Depot to get the rest of what was needed. He changed into a decent shirt and took off. When he returned it’s almost time for lunch and afterwards he slipped again into a working t-shirt and set out to do the repairs. While he explained to Ken the problem, he discovered that he lost one of his hearing aids. Oh man, that had us on our knees looking through the gravel under the trailer, in the truck and everywhere else. Luckily I found them resting on the carpet, blending in with the design. Thank god we hadn’t stepped on them.

According to Benno, the factory installer used a plastic reinforced 1/2 inch soft hose that was too large on the inside diameter to fit the PEX fitting properly. Even the correct PEX clamp swaged on would not give a good watertight fit. He resorted to fasten two adjustable stainless hose clamps of USA manufacturing that you can tie up with a screwdriver or socket driver and that solved the problem for now. When back in Canada he will change the plastic hose to a better size on this application for the hot and cold side. It would be too complicated to do here as the hoses are foamed in.

So much for today’s excitement. Thanks for dropping in again.