Plumbing

	Seemed like a strange place for the line to rupture until I checked the rest of the line, and found the entire run had swollen due to freeze damage. That’s the street side battery access door (under the center bed) in the background.
If you look closely, you will see two patches; a compression fitting patch, and a radiator hose patch. I replaced all the swollen copper line with new copper line. Many people use “Pex” line & fittings. I did not because, to do it the right way required a rather expensive tool that I did not care to purchase, Pex plumbing looks bulky to me, and I enjoy working with copper plumbing. Although I did not run a cost analysis, going with Pex was probably going to get expensive. But the ultimate bottom line is that any style of plumbing will burst if it is not properly winterized.
		While you are checking your regulator pressure, take the opportunity to clean the regulator’s filter screen located under the RH plug on the bottom. Although that’s a spiffy picture at left, I ended up having to drag the setup out to my yard’s sprinkler water meter because my house’s pressure regulator was set at the same 40-45 psig pressure I was trying to verify at the sink. I was pleased to find that the Airstream’s regulator had not drifted. Compressed air was used to verify that the over pressure relief valve had gone bad. Rated to pop at, I believe 65 psig, it took close to 120 psig before the valve released any pressure. Then, when it did, it would not completely reset (it dribbled). It is important to have a working relief valve because the water heater raises the line pressure when it is heating water. The Airstream’s check valve will not allow this pressure to return to the campground, and your water pump has a similar checking arrangement which will not allow the pressure to be vented back to the fresh water tank.
After making my own special tool out of an old galvanized pipe top remove the bath tub & sink drains, I noticed the home improvement stores sell one. Mine was a lot cheaper!
		I had planned to install a rebuild kit in the kitchen faucet. Unfortunately, due to freeze damage, the hot water line had swollen too much to reconnect to the new plumbing. In a bit of a surprise, I found that Delta still sells this style of faucet. So, other than having a white sprayer instead of a black one, the faucet looks original although that was not necessarily the goal. The aft plumbing did not appear to be swollen. Strange thing ,though, was that the toilet supply line twisted out of the supply line’s soldered tee fitting without much effort. I do not think it was freeze damage, but I am not sure what the reason was. So, to be on the safe side, all the tees were heated to re-flow the solder in case a given joint had loosened over time. Six trips & 3000 miles later, the plumbing is still happy.