Wet bay issues

[Bierp]

Ok, so first tell me if I'm just wrong in my thinking here. I'm of the impression that my wet bay is designed to safely get wet. I have various hoses and connections and, you know, wetness. It has a big drain at the bottom.

So my belief here is that if the white box that I call my wet bay gets wet, no big deal.

But I could be wrong about this.

This line of thinking has resulted in a problem in my new 2018 3950BR. Various recent work I've done has caused water to hit parts of my wet bay. I considered this to be ok, but this afternoon I discovered more than a little water in my basement and evidently this has been a bigger problem than I thought. We've noticed small amounts of water after big rains and had figured that there were issues with the seals on the passthrough doors. That may still be the case, but that's not what I was looking at today.

I cleared out the basement and dried the floor off. I also removed the access panels to be certain that I didn't have a bigger problem.

Basically what seems to be happening is that I had water pooling behind the wet bay, near the water pump.

Naturally I suspected a plumbing leak of some kind, but there was zero indication of that and we ran everything trying to find it. The hose was connected to the rig and no leaking was happening there. I ran the black tank flush and nothing was leaking there. I ran the blue squiggly hose from the wet bay and no leaking there. Finally I had the wife actually spray around the wet bay. That's when I realized that the switches for the water heater bypass, winterization and fresh tank fill weren't sealed at all. Water quickly came in and gathered right at my trouble spot.

Is this right? Seems like a major design flaw.

Below are front and rear pics of the switch mounts, as well as the damage to the plywood at the rear base of the wet bay. I tore back the laminate to expose the damage. (Any tips on how to kill/clean that without replacing it would be great. We're on the road for a few more weeks still.)

[mazboy]

'wet bay' is a new term for me. but for sure you have a leak.


if this is a 2018 i'd get it into the dealer under warranty work asap.

[DQDick]

We've full timed in Montana's for over 7 years now and none of them had those switches sealed and we never had that problem. I even have holes drilled in the wall of the convenience center for electronics run thru the pass thru and haven't had a problem. You just haven't found your leak yet, but in my opinion, you have one. Have you tried filling your fresh water tank and see if it could be in that line.

[jcurtis934]

Several things on the back of that area have hand tightened only connections and a lot of mine were loose right from the factory and allowing water to pool in the passthrough.

[richfaa]

We have not had the issue you describe in both our Montana;s since 2006 . However in our 2006 3400 we did get water in the underbelly and we found that if you feel around the drain hole it was not caulked and water was seeping by into the underbelly. That was not the case in our 13 3402

[Montana Man]

That convenience bay may look like a water friendly place, with a drain and all, but it isn't.

Try running the shower/sinks and look for leaks.

[Phil P]

Hi

To rebuild that and the basement floor caused by Keystone not caulking anything behind the basement wall was the second $10,000.00 I spent on an 11 month old trailer.

The basement and convenience are now water tight and when we failed a water line behind the basement wall a few years ago hold water quite well. LOL

Make sure and get pictures of the convenience center wall so you can re-label correctly when finished with the repair.

Phil P