My Camper Water Problem Finally Solved

My camper is very precious to me. Well, it should be. I'm not even halfway to paying it off, and I need it to be awesome way past the day that I make that last payment. But then again, I don't remember a time I waited to pay off a camper before trading it in and buying another. Got to stop that routine or I'll be broke forever. Story of my life.

Several weeks ago, when my brother was visiting, he noticed a puddle of water on the concrete pad underneath my camper. Since the camper has a corrugated cardboard underbelly and insulation between it and the floor of the camper, I knew it would not be an easy task to find the source of the leak. I had a couple of people slide under the camper which is a task in itself, open up a portion of the underbelly, pull out some of the insulation, and try to located where the leak was coming from.

Both times, we were able to locate the general area of the leak due to water soaking into the insulation, but didn't see any issues with the water lines that we could see. It's like working underneath a car, but with layers of insulation, metal framing, water tanks in the way, while lying on a creeper looking up into all that.

Last week, one of my friends at camp - Dennis, who knows a lot about campers and the plumbing, came up with the brilliant idea of using an endoscope camera to search for the leak in areas we could not see. It took him a matter of a few minutes to locate the source of the leak which was on the line that provides water to my toilet.

He determined what it would take to replace the line, bought the materials and within one hour, had the problem fixed. A problem that has haunted me for about two months. I am so indebted to him, and kind of pissed at the camper manufacturer. It appears, although I can't confirm it, that when the camper was being built, they ran short of the water line. So to make a quick fix, added more line with a plastic connector and a couple of clamps. That worked fine past my warranty of course, and then began to separate, causing the leak.

One line I love to refer to, is "Never time to do it right, but always time to do it over." And it cost me money with labor and parts and was indirectly related to my multiple bee sting incident that sent me to the hospital resulting in a couple thousand dollars in medical bills.

Sure, things wear out and break sometimes, but this should have never happened. Makes me wonder what my other water lines look like. Well, time will tell, but for now my water leak nightmare is over. Thanks to my buddy, Dennis. Lots of beer to come his way.

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