I have a new 8.1; camped for the first time this weekend. When hooking up the city water connection, the instruction manual says: just hookup the hose you will be using. I connected the drain and city water hose. When you turn the sink on, water comes out the faucet and the other holding tank hose. I didn't have the holding tank hooked up, but i would guess it would fill up and leak.
Does this sound familiar? I would have thought there was a stop valve to prevent water coming out the pump side when using the city connection? Am I doing this right? or is there something worng with the sink?
Thanks.
Our 8.1 is 5 years old and on her 6th season this year. We have never even tried to hook up the sink because so far as we are concerned we are still tenting, just up off the ground. But back on the old Yahoo forum there were many, many, many discussions of those darn sinks, mostly the pump valve thing. It sounded to me as if something in the plumbing was being factory-installed backwards or something. Whatever it was it certainly never encouraged me to try to hook it up. This link (I hope) should get you to the discussion: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/livinlite/search/messages?query=sink
I may be misinterpreting what you said about a "holding tank;" so far as I know that big blue jug is for fresh water when otherwise "dry camping," i.e. no city water hookup, but we don't use that either. I have the big jug stored for if we ever give up our camper. I could never lift 7-1/2 gallons of water. In the spirit of tenting I carry a 2-1/2 gallon jug, and if I ever think I might need to be far from a hydrant I have a 5 gallon I can sort-of lift.
It is certainly arguable that if the thing has a sink it ought to be useful and used, but we just don't want the headache of a possible leak. :)
Thanks for the link. I Guess I am not the only one with this problem. It seems the city pressure may be too much for the stop valve if there is one. I had a regulator on the spigot and didn't open it very much. I ended up going out to Home depot and bought a FIP gate valve to stop the water coming out the second hose and into the camper. It works ok now.
We are old tent campers too. We actually used the same blue 7 gal jug for water at the picnic table to wash for years. I removed the LL blue jug and replaced it with my old one. I would never use the fump sink; If i am at a place with no water I go back to lugging the big jug. However it is convenient to wash in the camper at the sink, plus I don't have to schlep that jug around. It drains into the same bucket i used to use.
Incidentally, I read your post about the mattresses and bought the 4inch memory foam top at Wally's. Thanks for the tip. We were comfortable all 3 nights. Best sleep I have ever had at camp.
I'm delighted that you got that mattress and are pleased with it! :D
YES!!! I had so much trouble with that tank. Water would leak into it and water splashed all over the place too. A pressure nozzle did no good, still too much pressure. This is what I did.
I disconnected the tank and took it out completely because we will never use it. I put a cut off valve on the hose to make sure water did not leak from that. Then I went to Menards and got extra hose and connections so I don't have to spend all that time connecting them and disconnecting them at camp ground. Now I just pull the sink up from the floor and I am ready to go. I use the 7 gallon tank to collect the grey water that drains from the sink, instead of letting it run on the ground where I camp.
Before hooking up your white hose to camp faucet, adjust the water so it comes out steady and not gushing out. Then you can use the faucet in the camper without it splashing all over the place.
I may do as you did and hook up the sink permanently. I will not use the holding tank/manual pump either.
Thanks for the tip.