Water Tanks ?

From the literature that I have, it states that the TM's have a 20 gallon fresh water tank, 30 gallon gray. Somewhere I read that the 26 ft. TM has a 40 gallon fresh water tank. And in some of the "for sale" ads I found, they mention a 30 gallon water tank in some of them.

Does anyone know if the different size TM's offer different size water tanks?

[mjlaupp]

20 gallon is the standard tank size. Some TMs have an optional 2nd 20 gallon tank for a total of 40 gallons. 30 gallons could possibly be the total water on board counting the 6 gallon water heater, the 20 gallon fresh water tank and the associated plumbing. The older TMs had a 12 gallon tank standard.
MJL

Just crawled under my unit since getting it several days ago. Wanted to familiarize myself with it some more. Noticed 3 drain petcocks and wondering what they service.
Two of them are located at the area where the gray/black outlet is located. The other one is up forward more under the area of the fresh water tank and hw heater.

I presume the last one referred to is to drain the fresh water tank since it is in the same area as the hw heater. Is this correct? Also, noted the hw heater's drain plug appears to have been permanently installed; with teflon tape and now rust. In my former rv van, it's hw tank was drained by removal of this plug. Wondering, before I do something wrong, if this plug should be removed and serviced. At the same time, does or does not the petcock drain I refer to drain both units; ie, the fresh and hw heater????

Then, what are the 2 towards the back adjacent to the drainage pipes serving?

Thanks

Originally Posted by Texas_Camper

The TM is designed for quick and easy winterizing. My 2002 2619 has 4 petcocks. Two up front and two at the rear near the screwjack. One at the front empties the 20 gal fresh water tank. The other one empties the water from the plumbing ( fresh water from the "high pressure camp water connection". The two at the rear empty the remainder of the water in the hot and cold water pipes. This is what TM calls the low point drain system. To empty water from ALL my pipes, I simply go inside the trailer, open the hot and cold faucets in the kitchen, bathroom lavatory and bath tub. This prevents a vacuum and lets the water drain freely. Now I go outside and open the front petcock and hot and cold water begin flowing. Then I open the 2 rear petcocks, open the hot and cold faucets at the outside shower and watch as the remainder of the hot and cold water in the pipes drain.
If you're draining the pipes for winterizing, you need to remove the hand held faucet from the outside shower and stow in your garage or home, so It wont freeze, and add a little anti-freeze to the kitchen, bathroom lavatory and bath tub drains. That's all there is to winterizing. I think. And if I've left something out, some one will come along and tell us what I missed.
The water heater has an annode rod that needs replacing on a regular basis, It takes a 1 1/4 inch socket to remove this. When you remove it, you will also get some water draining from the heater.
Since the 2720 has different plumbing runs than the 2619, perhaps some one else has better info on the 2720
hope this helps

Thanks: So far I've only found 3 valves on my 2720sl. The water tank is underneath the kitchen sink rather than the couch like my instructions booklet states ... and I presume the other 2 valves I mentioned in my posting are the low point drains you mentioned.

Will have to get back under there tomorrow and squirm around some more to see if I can find the 4th one. Not that much fun what with a recent back operation.

In the meantime, any ideas on the hw plug I mentioned before. Think it should come out for draining... as the last one on my other rig??? Not sure because as I mentioned, it has teflon tape around it and looks like it has never been removed ... as in rusted threads.

When it comes to winterizing the TM, there are many people who take extra precautions and do far more than I do. I have had no problems in Colorado winters by just opening all faucets and then the four drains. If you have an outdoor shower, you can remove the head. This should take care of the hot water heater, the water storage and the water pipes Because of a fear of freezing experiences of other owners I am going a bit further. For example I will run the water pump with all faucets open to expell any water that may remain inside the pump. Some run consumable antifreeze into their system. As to taking the plumbing apart where possible, I feel this is beyond the call of duty. Above all, there seems to be a number of people having pipes freezing as a result of not draining the shower system. This repair is more difficult due to the fact, the break is less accessible.

Any hot water heater plugs are more difficult to remove. Just by their nature of being recessed and as you pointed out "welded on" by age it takes a socket (1 11/16") and a strong arm to get it to turn. You may even need a cheater on the end of your socket handle. Every couple of years, you should loosen this plug to examine the anode rod. This also may prevent its being welded to the water heater threads. If the rod appears badly pitted with huge areas missing, this might be a good time to replace it. A new rod will cost about $10.00. As for removing this plug to drain the heater, I don't think that if you have done the above mentioned draining, that you will get much water out of the tank. But as I said, there are many possibilities ofthings you can do to to winterize your TM, so if you think something worked before I am not recommending that you do it any differently.

Hal

[Denny_A]

Originally Posted by hal

-----------snip------------
Any hot water heater plugs are more difficult to remove. Just by their nature of being recessed and as you pointed out "welded on" by age it takes a socket (1 11/16") and a strong arm to get it to turn.
Hal

Small, inconsequential point Hal. The required socket is 1-1/16". As chance would have it, I bought a socket yesterday and changed the anode.

BTW, it was quite pitted. But after 2 yrs, not too bad. It is recommended by Suburban that the hot water tank be drained when not in use. Otherwise deterioration may be accelerated. I have adhered to that advice since purchasing my TM new.

Denny_A

Originally Posted by Denny_A

Small, inconsequential point Hal. The required socket is 1-1/16". As chance would have it, I bought a socket yesterday and changed the anode.

BTW, it was quite pitted. But after 2 yrs, not too bad. It is recommended by Suburban that the hot water tank be drained when not in use. Otherwise deterioration may be accelerated. I have adhered to that advice since purchasing my TM new.

Denny_A

As I said in my earlier posting, the plug in my 98 unit displays lots of rust; along with some teflon tape. In a rv we had earlier, it also had the same type of plug that I removed to drain the tank for winter. With this TM unit, I have 2 remaining questions.........

#1. Does the drain plugs under the TM, have now found all four (4), actually drain the HW tank also????

#2. In the former rv, when I removed it's plug, it 'apparently' sheared off any anode rod or whatever ... as it came out as merely a plug. HW heater appeared to work ok. But am wondering what that would cause, if'n the same thing occurred here with the TM. Should I remove the plug and chance it shearing off; or leave it alone? What importance is the so-called anode rod? Will my HW heater freeze up if I don't drain it accordingly?

Wow! That's more than 2. Sorry about that.

Well... we tried all the above suggestions, and still couldn't get it all of the way in. I believe it is the right part number. In my Suburban water heater instructions, it only shows one part number for the anode which is 231624. It looks just like the old one too, so we'll see if it leaks when we start flushing the tanks. Thanks for all of the suggestions.

One last question... was the old one supposed to look like that? Having never changed one before, we were shocked at what it looked like, and how there was almost nothing left of it.

Thanks again,
Shannon
'02 3023 and '99 Ford F250 superduty

[Leslie & Nick]

[QUOTE=2kids2dogs-n-us;35985]One last question... was the old one supposed to look like that? Having never changed one before, we were shocked at what it looked like, and how there was almost nothing left of it.

FYI
I too was also amazed with how little of the anode was still left when I changed it out. To answer your question though, check out the picture I took a while ago. But as someone else already said - this is what the anode is supposed to do. I need to go ahead and check mine again to see what has happened in two years.

http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...ead.php?t=4811

Nick

That is the whole idea behind having the anode - it dissolves instead of your heater tank being eaten away. Water and dissimilar metals don't get along and pretty soon electrolysis sets in and the "weakest" (softest) metal is the one that suffers. By having an anode to eat away the electrolytic action is minimized on the aluminum water tank.