WATER LEAK FROM UNDER SYMPHONY VAN

Hello, my name is Norie and am very new to the auto-sleeper camper-van world. I have recently bought a 1996 symphony and have experienced a host of problems. Stupidly, I never insisted on everything being tested in front of me (never trust the man selling it when he says everything working fine). I have water pouring from the underneath the van just beside exhaust when filling up fresh water tank. It appears to me to be coming from the hot water tank. I can't see how I can access this through the bed box or if this is even how I get to it to find out if any pipes or hoses have burst.
I have another problem with constant air coming from the taps even after water flowing - they just keep spluttering with air.

I would greatly appreciate any advice and please excuse my ignorance of how things work. (I've had so many problems to deal with but am getting there) 

sounds l ike the drain tap is open will be close to the water heater unit

Hello and welcome to this most friendly and informative forum. There you are, advice already forthcoming. 

Hi Norie

As mentioned above, sounds like a drain valve is open.  You probably have two, one directly connected to the fresh water tank, which should be visible from outside the van and another to drain the water heater - this is more likely to be out of sight somewhere inside the van, possibly under a seat or inside a storage area.  This will probably have been opened to allow the system to be drained down to prevent frost damage in the winter.

Until these are closed, the tank and heater will not fill up hence why you are just getting air through the taps.

Hopefully someone with a Symphony will be along with exact locations of these but as mentioned the drain valve should be near the water heater.

Thanks Roger, I did see a drain valve for the heater under outside cover - it is closed also.

I was wondering if there were any hoses attached to actual water tank located under driver side bed unit. I have no idea how to get in there. I can see the heater in there ( i think) 

if you can see the heater you need to folow the pipe from the heater and you will find the drain  tap that we are talking about untill this is closed the heater will not fill and you will keep getting air out the tap as you have said .the drain tap (lever) is always fiited close to the heater

Thanks Glyne, I can only see the front of the heater and can't see anything else under the bed unit. If there is another valve/lever under there - I will need to find out how to access under the bed unit. On the symphony the is a drain valve under a cover on the outside panel of van, It is closed because I have used that to drain the water tank previously. Even when it was fully closed - water was still pouring out from beneath the van and this made me wonder if there was another valve or hoses attached to tank located under the bed box.

One of the problems with A/S is that they changed the components that they used frequently, and at different times from model to model, so it's very difficult to guess what make and model of water heater you have. Can you confirm that you have a Carver Cascade water heater?

If so, there will typically only be a drain outside, at the bottom of the vent cover, and also (probably) a quarter-turn air bleed valve at the top of the vent cover, directly above the drain hole - though early versions of the Cascade did not have the bleed valve.

If it's a Carver then the most common failure in my experience is for one of the water supply spigots to shear off - they simply become brittle with age. If that's happened, water will pour into the inside of the unit it's fitted in, but most will go around the edge of the floor and out the bottom of the van. However there are other possible failure modes for the Carver - especially if it was left with water in over winter.

The simplest way to examine the water connections on a Carver is to look inside the interior unit, but if you actually need to work on it, the simplest approach is to unbolt it from the outside and slide it a short way out, which gives easy access to both water and gas connections. Make sure you disconnect any electrical connections inside that might prevent the water heater from sliding out, though.

Hello Roopert, it is indeed a carver heater. It does have a drain valve under vent outside. This is definitely closed. The real problem i have is seeing any of the heater from inside the van. I will try sliding it out from outside and see if anything is obviously wrong. Thanks for advice.

One other thing to check - how full is the fresh water tank? It's worth noting that when you fill the tank, if you get to the top it won't back up the filler pipe - it will simply pour out of the vent holes in the tank top! So worth checking that the problem is not just that the tank is already full...

Hello again Roopert, I have noticed that when tank is full that water comes out of vents. The water is coming out almost immediately after starting filling process. I emptied tank to prove this to myself . I am leaning towards spigot or something like that.

TBH, those symptoms point more to an issue with the cold tank than the hot tank. The thing is that all of the hot tank is above the level of the cold tank so - assuming you are not filling the cold tank with the pump turned on - there's no way that water can get that high up. So I would suspect a split in the pipe from water filler inlet to the fresh water tank or (less likely) a split somewhere else in the fresh water tank or the pipework to it.

I didn't mean the water was coming out of the heater vents - I was saying I knew when tank was full that the excess water came out of tank vents.

My initial thoughts were that there was a split in the pipe from water filler inlet to the fresh water tank .
I wonder if they are easy to replace? I notice the water appears to be coming from underneath filler cap & behind the sills and down in direction of hose that leads to fresh water tank(which is located further to rear of vehicle).


Anyway Roopert, thanks for all of your suggestions.

nor2368 wrote:My initial thoughts were that there was a split in the pipe from water filler inlet to the fresh water tank

Yes - it's not uncommon, because the ribbed tubing tends to get weak between the ribs. It's not hugely difficult to replace one, but you often find that the filler itself is quite hard to free from the side of the fan (we're having a second go at the one on the Trooper later this week, as we failed at the last attempt!) and matching the size of the hose may not be exact, as I think at that age A/S were still using Imperial sizes. But you'll find something close enough (LeisureShopDirect, O'leary's, Jacksons, etc). Good luck!

If some welding has been done to the cills the filler tube might have a hole melted in

Hi Jerry, there's a very high possibility of that.