Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Quieting the Water Pump and Freeing up Space for Storage under the Passenger Ottoman


 The factory installed water pump is located under the passenger side ottoman and it solely occupies that area. To create a space for extra storage, the water pump was relocated and mounted vertically into the wall facing the bathroom. I fabricated an acrylic enclosure for the water pump that can be easily removed by unscrewing few screws. I like the clear acrylic enclosure so I can easily see any leaks that would develop around the pump or the fittings. 

 I also added a tee after the accumulator tank to feed an outside hose with a sprayer. The sprayer will be stored inside the small cubicle by the sliding door where the city water fill valve is located. Don't mind the brown/yellowish envelope resting against the wall in the picture, that is where I keep my spare LPG regulator.
 

 To minimize pump noise and vibrations, a steel braided flexible hoses to water pump and accumulator tank water inlet and outlet ports were used. The adjacent rigid PEX tubing's were covered with pipe foam insulation. I also fabricated a padded water pump mount. The mount is made of 2 acrylic plastic sheets lined with rubberized pad (from old mouse pad) sandwiching a piece of high density foam pad.
The new storage space is now used as a hamper for our dirty laundries, it can hold at least a few days worth of our dirty clothing.

The outside water sprayer comes handy for a quick rinsing of feet/ sandals after a walk on the beach, etc. I prefer using this rather than the outside shower sprayer which is located on the other side of the RV, your feet/ sandals picks up more sand and dirt as you walk back to the sliding door entrance.
An inline ball valve is installed to manually shut the water flow. The sprayer hose can easily be detached using the quick disconnect adapter. I can connect a longer water hose if needed-which I did a few times to rinse-off the awning.

The 120-volt AC outlet cover in that area was replaced with a weather tight cover just in case it gets sprayed with water.
 Storing the water sprayer. The HotelSpa stainless steel shower hose is very flexible and easy to store. The sprayer head with manual shut-off is also nice, no leaks when it's off. 


6 comments:

  1. Love the sprayer at the sliding door. How did you get past the shower with the PEX? Guessing that you have a PEX crimper.

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    1. I actually used a long flexible steel braided water supply hose with ½” (FIP x FIP) female connectors on each end. I do have a PEX ring crimper, but routing a PEX line to the sliding door area would be more complicated as it has to pass a small opening and clear the bathroom drain piping’s thus requiring several bends.

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  2. Can you also tell me about the step light shown in the picture? Is it motion sensitive? Wired in or battery powered?

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    1. It is motion sensitive battery powered LED night light. It works well to automatically illuminate the steps when it gets dark. I got it on Amazon; here is the short link to it: http://amzn.to/2qtw19I

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  3. You do not have to go through all this trouble to make the water pump whisper quiet. Just apply Dynamat or Hushmat underneath and surrounding area after removing the 4 screws holding down the pump. I also applied it on the half wheel well as well while I had the cover removed. Now I can hardly hear the water pump when running as majority of the vibrations are suppressed by Dynamat.

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    1. Thanks for the suggestion. No I did not made the enclosure to quiet it down. The addition of flexible braided hoses did the trick. The clear acrylic enclosure is there to protect the motor/ hoses so I can use the area as an extra storage for our used/ dirty clothing.

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