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Old 04-09-2005, 08:13 AM   #1
Montana_3539
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M.O.C. #3539
Water Pressure

One of the points my wife & I were really interested in was the ability of the Montana plumbing to handle city water pressure. Hate taking showers where the water just "drools" on you. Was assured that the Montana plumbing was "guaranteed for 10 years" but the salesman could not find any info on max PSI or regulation... was this intentional or is he stalling around. This is a sore spot with us as friends had their pipes "explode" with a lot of water damege when they didn't buy a water pressure regulator for their RV (NOT a Montana). Anyone had any experiences with this topic they would like to share?
Bill & Sharon Coale
2005 Montana 2980 (getting)
2000 F250 SD PSD
 
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Old 04-09-2005, 11:20 AM   #2
fulltimedreamer
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Every RV I have owned came with a recommendation to use a regulator (my stick house has a regulator as well). Some campgrounds do not have very high pressure and I have removed the regulator in those cases. You may want to try an adjustable regulator available from your local home center. I seem to remember that some have set their pressure at around 57 PSI without problems. Try using the search feature on the forum and use regulator as the search term.
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Old 04-09-2005, 01:32 PM   #3
stiles watson
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In my opinion, it is important to have an inline regulater to prevent the blow out your friend experienced. While there may (or may not) be a ten year guarrantee, trying to recover from a fiver full of water isn't even worth the risk. Every reliable thing I have read on the web or elsewhere lead me to believe ther is significant risk to my fiver without a regulater on the "city" water supply.
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Old 04-09-2005, 02:29 PM   #4
Glenn and Lorraine
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I'm one of those with a regulator bought at Lowes and I have it set at 57 psi without a problem.

Here's a rather hurried picture.....


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Old 04-09-2005, 02:43 PM   #5
sreigle
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We also have an adjustable regulator but bought ours at Camping World. I experimented and ended up setting it at 57 psi. That's plenty for a good shower. However, you tend to run out of hot water more quickly because we do use the higher pressure. The biggest reason I settle on 57 is anything higher than that caused the toilet to splash the flush water out of the bowl when you step on the pedal. At the moment I'm not using our adjustable. Periodically it gets crudded up and I have to take it apart to clean it out. With the standard regulators you just throw it away and buy another but the adjustables are not cheap so you clean them out. I just haven't got around to cleaning it out yet this time. About twice per year (fulltiming) I have to clean it out. Also keep in mind some parks won't have enough native pressure to reach that 57 psi. But we've also had a number with pressure over 100 psi so I feel a regulator is mandantory, for us anyhow.
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Old 04-09-2005, 04:32 PM   #6
azstar
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Bill,

We did have a line blow off, even using a 35 psi reg. It happened one Morning at about 5am. You should have seen me coming out of sleep mode, running around trying figure out what that sound was under the cabinet, and then getting the outside faucet turned off. It had to be quite humorous sight. This was after we had our Rig. for about 6 mos.

We were so lucky to have been there. The water stayed away from the Carpet and after sweeping about 5 gal of water out the door and using every towel we had we had, there was no long term damage. Very fortunate no cabinet damage.

Wouldn't be without a Reg. We still shut the outside valve off (when we can remember), if we are going on a Day Trip.

I hear what your saying, would love the added pressure, but not with the flood potential.

Happy Camping
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Old 04-10-2005, 01:32 PM   #7
trukdoc
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On one of my first trips out in our 05 Mountaineer I called my dealer to ask why my shower pressure is so low. He asked me if I had an inline regulator on the hose, I said yes. "Take it off", he said that I had a built in regulator and was good to I think he said 140PSI. What I was doing was regulating the regulator.
So I went against everything I had been told about always without exception to use the regulator and hooked up without it...so far no problems. Am very glad for the 10 gal water heater because at full flow it goes quick. I have found that by just turning down the hot water just a bit my shower lasts a lot longer.
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Old 04-11-2005, 10:48 AM   #8
Montana_2779
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Someone made an interesting point a while back (may have been on this forum). They forego using the direct city water connection and use water from the holding tank exclusively. A couple of points of interest here:

1) The max pressure in the line is that which the internal water pump sends. As such, the lines should see no overpressure.

2) Consistently using water from the tank should help to keep it fresher and reduce the bad "plasticy" taste when you need to use it boondocking or when city water is otherwise unavailable.

3) We find that the fresh water from the tank runs low about the same time that the grey and black water tanks start to fill up. As such, our routine is to start adding fresh water to the tank and then begin our dumping process. Once the tanks are dumped, we check the fresh water level, and it's usually within just a few minutes of being full. Total time for this task is about 15 to 20 minutes, two or three times a week. All in all, not too bad when you consider that we're adding little if any time to our "fresh in/waste out" task AND it's a nice little insurance policy against potentially damaging pressures.

We do realize that we are using the water pump considerably more than those who use city water. To us, the purchase a new water pump sooner than usual is just one of those trade offs in life. We've been using the 5er since January and fulltiming about a month. I'm interested to see how long the stock water pump lasts under a fulltimimg load (2 showers per day and regular kitchen use). I'm guessing that we'll go to one of the fancy low noise pumps when it's time to replace.

By the way-- We've had no issue with the water pressure or flow rate at the shower or sinks using this method. Don't get me wrong, you will not get a "massaging" shower!! On the other hand, neither nor Cheryl have any complaints about the pressure. It definitely provides an acceptable shower.
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Old 04-13-2005, 10:52 AM   #9
tollmann
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Do Montanas have a built in water pressure regulator?? I haven't seen anything about it in the printed material that came with the unit.
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Old 04-13-2005, 12:35 PM   #10
melnjoy
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I have always used a regulator, but not the ajustable kind I think I will pick one up, the wife is a manager at Lowes so I get the discount pretty cool eh? I went and looked at my rig and I can't locate a pressure regulator. The city water goes straight in to the main plumbing.
Mel
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Old 04-13-2005, 02:28 PM   #11
Treecounter
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We asked our dealer if our Montana had a built in regulator he said no. As far as I can tell he was right. We use an adjustable regulator in our line. As for low pressure like we have in Mexico and some parks in the U.S. We bought the lowest priced Surflo pump with a pressure switch and put it in the hose line pumping water into the trailer. (old fire fighter trick) This year twice park managers came around and said "the water is back on". We didn't know it was off as we were sucking the water out of the pipes. Seems like I read some where in our stuff "Montana plumbing will take 60 PSI.
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Old 04-13-2005, 02:55 PM   #12
HamRad
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The question about the built-in water regulator was asked during the factory tour last September at the first annual MOC Rally. The answer was "no". So unless they have changed their policy the Montanas do not have them. Don't know about the Mountaineers.

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