Every spring, there comes a moment that makes me a little nervous.
Dewinterizing.
No matter how carefully I winterize in the fall, there's always that split second when I turn the water back on and think, “Please don't let there be water spraying where it shouldn't be.”
This spring was no different.
I left Pennsylvania in March, pointed my Flying Cloud toward Florida, and made my first stop just over the South Carolina border. Since it was still cold at home, I booked a pull-through site at a big rig resort so I could stay hitched, dewinterize, and head south without wasting time.
Everything started off perfectly.
I filled the fresh water tank, began flushing antifreeze from the plumbing with city water and added bleach to the tank to sanitize it.
City water worked beautifully.
Then I turned on the water pump.
Nothing.
The pump ran…
…and ran…
…and ran.
It would never build pressure.
I tried everything I could think of.
Eventually I admitted defeat and decided I'd just find a mobile RV technician once I reached Georgia. I had full hookups on the trip, so I could survive on city water, even though I much prefer running from the fresh tank. It gives me much more consistent hot water from my Girard water heater.
Once I arrived, I called a couple of friends.
Brad and Vinnie are real experts who patiently walked through every possibility with me. We were stumped. We checked valves. We traced lines. We pulled apart everything we could reach.
Eventually that night, I disconnected the suction line from the fresh tank and tried drawing air through it.
It felt exactly like drinking through a cracked straw.
Somewhere, air was getting into the system.
The problem was…
I couldn't actually see the plumbing.
Over the years I've developed a troubleshooting technique that probably looks ridiculous.
When I get stuck…
I stare.
Seriously.
I'll lie on the ground and just look at something for fifteen or twenty minutes.
Sometimes your brain starts noticing things it missed the first dozen times.
This time, staring eventually turned into unscrewing panels.
One thing I've learned about Airstreams is that you can disassemble a surprising amount of one with nothing more than a Phillips screwdriver.
Before long I had opened the area beneath the refrigerator and lowered my phone down into the space near the fresh water tank.
That's when I saw it.
Whoever had installed my ShowerMiser had connected one of its hoses to the outlet of the fresh water tank instead of the inlet.
That created two problems.
First, it's not how the system is intended to work.
Second—and far more important—it allowed air to collect in the ShowerMiser hose. Every time it emptied, that trapped air kept my water pump from creating the vacuum it needed to pull water from the tank.
Mystery solved.
The plumbing itself looked like something out of a nightmare.
Within about five inches there were four separate PEX fittings connected together.
More connections.
More places to leak.
The next morning I disconnected the offending hose and temporarily capped the fitting with a rubber cap and a hose clamp.
It wasn't elegant.
But it worked well enough to keep traveling.
I figured I'd eventually need to find a plumber.
Then, later that afternoon…
I stared at it again.
The more I looked, the less intimidating it became.
The repair was actually pretty simple.
I had never worked with PEX plumbing before.
Not once.
So I drove to Lowe's.
A helpful employee explained the basics, pointed me toward a cutter, a crimp tool, some fittings, and a few feet of PEX tubing.
I came back to the campground, took a deep breath…
…and ten minutes later the repair was finished.
Not only was it working again, but I'd eliminated several unnecessary fittings and actually simplified the plumbing.
The next day I ordered one additional fitting from McMaster-Carr that allowed me to reroute the ShowerMiser return line correctly into the fresh water tank inlet.
Problem solved.
Here's what surprised me most.
PEX is actually very forgiving.
The tubing is flexible.
The fittings are straightforward.
As long as the connections aren't under tension—pulled sideways or forced into place—the system is remarkably simple to work with.
Honestly, the hardest part of the whole repair wasn't the plumbing.
It was squeezing the crimp tool into the cramped space under the refrigerator.
Would I recommend rebuilding your entire plumbing system yourself?
Probably not.
If you're opening walls or tackling major repairs, there's real value in having an experienced RV technician involved.
But replacing a fitting?
Repairing a damaged line?
Fixing a small leak while you're on the road?
Those jobs aren't nearly as intimidating as most owners imagine.
The biggest hurdle usually isn't the plumbing.
It's believing you're capable of learning something new.
That little repair reminded me of something I seem to keep learning over and over.
Most RV systems aren't nearly as scary once you understand how they work.
They're just another puzzle waiting to be solved.
Want to learn more?
If PEX plumbing still feels intimidating, I put together an Introduction to PEX Field Guide specifically for owners who have never touched RV plumbing before. It walks through how PEX works, the tools you'll need, common fittings, and how to make simple repairs with confidence.