You might recall in one of my previous posts I was talking about a recent trip we took to Wilderness State Park in the northwestern portion of Michigan's lower peninsula.
If you want to go back and check it out, you can find it here.
At the end of that post, I talk about the fact that our water system developed a leak and we needed to quickly cut the trip short so I could get the trailer home and look at it.
Of course, leaks like this are always in the worst location and you don't often even locate them until after they have been leaking for quite some time. By that time you have zero clue the extent of the damage done.
That was the case in this instance. The other problem is, Recreational Vehicle companies these days are cutting as many corners as they can just like other businesses and manufacturers. This means lower quality components and less quality control.
Those two things usually add up to trouble...
As you can see in the two previous photos, the cold water line, hot water line, and electrical all run through that small hole in the wall. It's actually a cavity between two walls and the covering is a wood paneling that has some jagged edges.
My assumption is that over time the PEX tubing rubbed against the jagged edge of the paneling on the hot water line and it rubbed away the plastic as you see above. Eventually, that rubbing led to a pinhole leak that was squirting water into the wall cavity for what I am guessing was a good portion of the day.
With the water drained out of the tanks and the trailer safely at home, I got to work trying to fix it.
The first order of business was getting the damaged portion out of the way. I was trying to remove the clamp rings and get the tube off the joint cleanly, but I wasn't able to do that, so I just had to cut the line.
While it was leaking, there was water pouring out the underbody of the trailer, so I had to pull the covering down in our driveway to try and see what kind of damage it did.
As you can see in the photo above, a ton of water poured out of the underbelly when I pulled the covering down.
Unfortunately, in addition to the covering, there was also an insulation layer that I wasn't able to get past. What I ended up having to do was just point a fan at it and let it blow on it most of the day to try and dry it up.
I also had a fan running on the inside kind of pointing towards the hole to try and dry up any water that had gotten in between the two sections.
After everything was decently dry, I buttoned the bottom back up and waited for 
It's almost comical how easy it was for him to fix it. He was there and gone from my house in less than 15 minutes. It was a hot day when he came over and even with the trailer opened up it had to be at least 90 degrees in there.
I felt bad for him.
Again, luckily it was a quick fix. As you can see, we changed out the plastic elbow with a brass elbow. He said the plastic joints tend to get damaged over time and they don't hold up too well, so he switches them all to the brass ones.
It's good that I have friends like him. We had a quick turn around to go on the trip we are currently on an if we would have had to take it in to the dealership to get it fixed, there is no way we would have gotten it back in time.
I actually think I could have fixed it myself, but I don't have the correct tools to crimp the rings.
Along with the 90 degree elbow he replaced, he also had to splice in the line like you see above.
There is a cover that goes over this portion, but we left it off to make sure it wasn't leaking on our next trip.
After a week of using the water, I think we are safe to finally button it up when we get home.
Here is a closer if not blurry (an upside down) photo of the splice that he put in.
Finally, after he left, I went down to the hardware store and I picked up a $1.99 piece of pipe insulation to wrap around that area to keep it from rubbing in the future.
Isn't that sad?
The pipe insulation was six feet long. I only used about two feet of it and the six foot length was $1.99 USD. They could have easily put that in there and saved a lot of trouble.
This is where cutting corners just doesn't make any sense to me. They could have gotten three uses out of the $1.99 length and it would have cost them virtually nothing.
I went ahead and added a piece around the cold water line too, just to be safe. It isn't the prettiest job, but it gets the job done if you know what I mean.
As I said, we have had zero issues so far this trip (knock on wood), so I think the fix is going to hold.
My friend ended up doing exactly what I was thinking needed to be done to the line, so given the right tools, this probably could have been a 100% DIY project or me.
As it stands, it was more of a DIWYFH (Do It With Your Friends Help) project!
I only wish all issues were this easy to fix!
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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or 