A new RVer asked me this question: Do you turn off the water supply when away from your RV?
Hmm?
Even though I’ve heard about this practice, we’ve never followed the well-intentioned advice. Advocates of this procedure explain that if something untoward happens to your RV’s indoor plumbing lines, like a leak, the water damage should be limited.
But wait…
Not two days after talking to the new RVer, my husband and I went for a walk. As we returned to our rig, I noticed water pouring out of the side of an RV. We quickly notified the owner, who had just returned to his site. He’d been grocery shopping, but upon hearing about the waterfall, the groceries were forgotten as he hurried around his rig to see for himself.
Turns out, a water line ruptured and the leak caused water to pour into his RV. He quickly turned off the campground water spigot, but I’m certain that the damage was already done. The RVer declined our offer to help, thanked us, and dialed his insurance company.
What about us?
Continuing our walk, I asked my husband, “Should we learn from our RV neighbor and turn off the water supply line every time we leave the campground?”
“It’s something to consider,” he replied. “We always use a water pressure regulator, but that won’t prevent a leak or stop the water supply should a leak develop.”
You turn
How about you? Answer our poll and add a comment below if you like.
I’ve had a washer water line break in my basement. Good thing I was home, it was the hot water side.
Next door 90yr old lady had an upstairs sink line break. Her kids live miles away, and she asked me for help.
Just a few minutes can cause a lot of $$$$$ Damage. The same with your RV rig.
I have a simple knob at the campground faucet. On-off, no big deal but sure saves a mess & $$$$$,
I have read articles about water damage, so I what I have done is got a 10′ hose, put an inline valve on it, run it to my steps and connect that to the water supply. Now I can easily turn the water off when we leave. Also being there makes it easier to remember.
I made up a placard for the dashboard of my tow vehicle which states “Turn off water if leaving” and a smaller second placard for the inside of the RV door with the same wording. It reminds me to do so whenever I leave the campsite.
I have a 90 degree valve on the hose at the water tap end. That’s far faster than turning off the valve
Same here.
We always turn it off if we’re going to be gone for a long period. Whether still in the campground or away.
I put a shut off on the hose bib on the supply. It also protects your hose from blowing out. I don’t trust most campground valves.
We’re probably a minority but we always run from the tanks and refill as needed. The water pump is on only as needed.
That’s what we do also. The bonus is if you develop a leak you’ll know pretty quickly from the pump noise.
I do that too for the most part.
We do that too! It has provided us with clean water when a broken city water line shut down the water to an RV park for 3 days. It also adds weight to lower the CoG of the RV during our frequent windstorms in the West. I carry an extra new water pump just as precaution.
For us, it depends on how long we will be away and if we will be away from the campground or just away from the rig. An hour or so, usually not. But away from the campground or away for a few hours, yes.
Here’s a friendly reminder: when you turn off the water supply also turn off your water heater.
Here’s an idea for some entrepreneur. A blue-tooth controlled solenoid on the water line to the RV that senses when the phone is out of range and closes. When you return it senses the phone again and turns on. I had a Nest thermostat that would go into away mode when I left the house and turn down the heat or raise the cool temp using that principle
Electronically controlled solenoids fail. Mechanical valves, not so much. I’ll just go to the campground spigot and manually turn it off.
I wired in a 12v valve and put the switch in a closet by the door. Easy to just flip the switch on the way out.
From a Plumber of 56 years experience- TURN THE WATER OFF!!!! Haven’t washed the interior of the MH in 25 years of RVing.
Ask State Farm, Nationwide or Travelers. Their #1 claim is a burst washing machine hose.
I always turn the water off no matter if we are going to be away from the rv one hour or all day. It only takes a couple minutes to walk over and turn off and back on.
I also make sure to turn the gas off as we had an incident years ago when the regulator on our very first rv blew apart while we were gone and emptied one of the propane bottles in the front compartment. Thankfully there was no fire.
Seems to be a pretty straightforward: what’s the potential downside to not doing?
Yes I do. About 30 years ago I had the waterfall coming out the door phenomena. We went out to dinner and upon returning both sink and bathtub were overflowing, faucets turned on full. The story gets weirder. Took us hours to clean up, had to tear out carpets and more. Later, sitting at the table, I watch the faucet turn (by an unseen hand) and on comes the water again! No ruptured water lines. The park had no explantion. We turned the water off outside each time. But wait! The story gets weirder. A year later we go back to the same park They put us in the same spot, but we have a different trailer. We are not there 5 minutes when the water turns itself on again. We left!
One other note, there were pressure regulators both built in AND external, we ALWAYS used that.
Where the park was is now part of Disneyland. The park claimed it had never happened to anyone else. And we never had it happen anywhere else, with either of those trailers or any RV I have owned since.
Not only did we turn the water off after that, we would actually disconnect the hose just to be sure.
Weird, weird story, but true. To this day I have no explanation for it, but I sure never forgot it. Prior to that, no I did not turn the water off, but I ALWAYS have since.
Weird Occurrence, must have been a ghost.
Orlando Florida: You may have parked over an old Indian grave. It would be interesting to try it the third time.
If the water pump fails it can reroute the city water into the fresh water storage, fill up the bath tub and continue into the living quarters. It happened in my Outdoors RV. Luckily it was caught just as it crested.
I have had the water pump check valve randomly fail 3 times over the last 10 years resulting in overfilling the fresh water tank and spilling out the overflow. Always caught the issue before any damage was done. I have added an external check valve to the pumps outlet as a backup but I try and remember to shut off the water supply when leaving now.
How does water routed to your fresh water holding tank fill your bathtub? As in Dennis’ case it filled the fresh water tank coming out the overflow, which makes sense. The only way a bathtub could overflow is by having the spigot on or the grey tank filling and it backs up through the tub drain.
Curious how they plumbed your RV.
Not only shut off all water connections, but turn on any spigot to take off residual pressure in the lines to reduce any other leak that might happen after you return.
Going to a campground pot luck or similar, no we don’t. Gone all day or more? Yes we do. And yes, I use both a pressure regulator and a pressure gauge – at the park faucet.
When we leave the rv
for overnight or longer…Always!
We don’t just turn off the supply, we disconnect. During the winter months, We’ve had the blue Camco filters break open 3 times! In fact, if temps are due to drop to freezing at all, we fill the tank and disconnect.
An ounce of prevention as the saying goes…we always turn water off. Our rig is 25 years old and the older it gets, the more chance of things wearing out. It’s so much of our routine we don’t even think about it…walk dog before leaving and turn it off. Arrive back….walk dog and turn back on!! Haven’t heard any negative about turning it off .
I didn’t answer at all because we never use the campground water. Since our Class B is also our vehicle for local exploring, we have to “break camp” to go anywhere. Thus we only hook up the electric to keep things simple.
Same here; no water system in our class B.
And same here in our class B. KISS
We generally fill and disconnect. Because we found a small drip leak (I was the only one up, reading quietly), and kept hearing a single wet drop sound every few minutes. Turned out to be a loose connection under the kitchen sink. Not enough of a leak for the pump to activate. I never would have heard it once others were up and the sounds of life took over. So, we turn off the pump for driving and when we’ll be away for more than a short while.
Every time, including propane!
We do if we remember. I’d say we do turn it off 75% of the time when we leave for the day or a long drive.
We rarely hook up to cg h2o anymore. I have a weird metabolism & can only drink purified water. Regular tap water leaves me even thirstier. We get water directly from the hosebib for washing dishes or watering the cats.
Sometimes = When I remember.
Turn it off if we leave for the day. If we’re around in the CG or a short errand, running to a store or something, I probably wouldn’t turn it off.
That is the same for us
Yep, same here.
I turn the water supply off, just like I turn the water supply off to my house when I leave on a trip.
Always and disconnected.
I’ve read a number of stories about water damage due to not turning off water before leaving our site. I’ve mentioned this to my hubby but so far he hasn’t seemed concerned. I think this will be my priority from now on.
Thank you, Gail! 🙂 My answer was, “no.” But this article has convinced me to turn the water off at the hydrant when we leave the RV. Thank you! Safe, sunny travels! 🙂
Like so many others have said, we turn it off if we’re going to be gone for most of the day but if we’re going to be in and out throughout the day we don’t. Something I like to share is, if you have plumbing going into or through a slide, inspect for leaks regularly. About 80% of leaks these days are attributed to something rubbing or flexing as the slides go in and out.
I turn off the water but leave the electricity on. Close the awnings too.
Campground water gets turned off when we leave.
Boondocking, the pumps gets turned off as well.
Yes, I try to remember to turn the water off outside each time we leave the MH. We have a cat that loves to rub up against anything, including the water faucets in the kitchen and bathroom. She has turned on the water in our kitchen by rubbing up against the faucet handle.
I use an angled attachment on the end of my hose with a quarter turn shut off valve that makes it easy to turn the water off. I have had an internal hose connection let loose once but fortunately was there when it happened so I was able to respond quickly with minimal damage! This was enough to teach me to shut the water off when I’m not there!