Grantos Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 Hi, Just trying to get to know my CI Riviera 171. I've been reading through the instruction manuals, in the most ok!, but although it mentions about emptying the fresh water tank the manual is not very clear with the details on how to do it. I have looked around the tank where it says the emptying valve is located but I'm at a loss in finding how it's done. Please help somebody. :-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted August 10, 2020 Share Posted August 10, 2020 Grantos - 2020-08-09 9:28 AM ...although it mentions about emptying the fresh water tank the manual is not very clear with the details on how to do it. I have looked around the tank where it says the emptying valve is located but I'm at a loss in finding how it's done... So what does the manual actually advise about emptying your Riviera’s tank? How a motorhome’s fresh-water tank is emptied varies from converter to converter. Sometimes the method is self-evident (eg. there’s an external hose that is plainly connected to the tank’s underside and there’s a simple tap at the hose’s end) or the method is far from obvious. In the latter case, if one is lucky, there will be clear emptying instructions in the motorhome’s owner’s manual, but that’s definitely not always so. Putting to one side the visible external hose & tap, two other arrangements are commonplace. The 1st method involves a drain tap inside the motohome (usually somewhere close to the fresh-water tank). My Rapido has this arrangement with the drain tap in a little niche accessed from within the motorhome’s rear garage. Fortunately there’s adequate guidance in the Rapido owner’s manual. The 2nd method involves the motorhome owner first removing a ‘cleaning hatch’ from the fresh-water tank’s top. The tank is then emptied by the owner sticking their hand into the tank and removing a ‘bung’ (which might be on a chain) or there might be a more complex mechanism. Knaus used to use a vertical ‘overflow’ pipe that was screwed into the tank’s base and needed to be unscrewed to empty the tank. This was sufficiently non-intuitive that some Knaus owners never discovered it and emptied the fresh-water tank by pumping its contents into the waste-water tank and then emptying the waste-water tank. Obviously you know where your Riviera’s fresh-water tank is and I assume it is inside the vehicle. If you look underneath your motorhome in the area beneath the tank, you (probably) should be able to spot a drain tube emerging from the floor and this might provide a clue as to where a tap or draining mechanism is located. The tube might not be large diameter. My Rapido’s fresh-water tank drains through a narrow-bore tube and the tank is consequently very slow to empty - but, unlike the Rapido’s waste-water tank, the fresh-water tank needs to be emptied much less frequently. A forum-member who knows what tank-draining method was used on a 2005 CI Riviera 171 (or by CI generally then) may be able to provide informed advice, but otherwise you’ll need to do some more detection yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gman Posted August 10, 2020 Share Posted August 10, 2020 Hello, on my Carioca 694, the fresh water drain is a small blue tap sited close to the water pump and tank, on the O/S of the hab area, near the cab door pillar, it can also be drained by opening the frost valve on the Truma heater unit, this way is faster. (water pump on). sorry can't post pictures. Hope this helps. Steve. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grantos Posted August 10, 2020 Author Share Posted August 10, 2020 Hi, Thanks for your help, my Riviera seems to have a different set up from your Carioca, but opening the heater valve and turning on the taps with the pump running seems to be the best way for me at the moment, but I don't think it can be good for the pump to have it running too long Thanks, Grant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted August 11, 2020 Share Posted August 11, 2020 Grant This 2014 MotorHomeFun forum thread discussed draining the fresh-water tank of a Knaus Sun Ti model and it should be apparent that (as I mentioned above) different motohomes have different ways of carrying out this task. https://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/emptying-fresh-water-tank.94476/ I don’t think Steve has ever mentioned the age of his Carioca 694, but it will be evident from the images below that its design differs significantly from your Riviera’s, and there’s no certainty that CI used the same draining method from year to year or even model to model in the same year. I’m doubtful that any right-thinking major motorhome converter will have installedl a water system where it is intended that the water-pump be used to empty the fresh-water tank. As you’ve rightly observed, if the vehicle has a large tank, this method would place a heavy load on the pump (my Rapido has a 120 litres fresh-water tank and a 7 litres-per-minute pump, so emptying a full tank would require the pump to operate at maximum output for over 17 minutes). Opening a Truma heater’s anti-frost valve may drain the tank by siphonic action without the pump running, but that would depend on the type of pump fitted. It’s much more likely that (as your handbook suggests) your Riviera should somewhere have a tank-emptying drain-valve (Truma example image below) and you’ve yet to find it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grantos Posted August 12, 2020 Author Share Posted August 12, 2020 Hi Derek, Thanks for getting back to me in such detail,I agree that some further detective work is required, I have come across a long piece of metal 1ft approx flat and has a T shape to the top tucked away between the wall of the water tank and the outside wall inside the motorhome, I will need to see if I can find out what this is, yet again there is no mention of it in the manual. Sucks eh! 8o| Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted August 12, 2020 Share Posted August 12, 2020 It’s an Italian motorhome... I remember (years ago) a forum-member trying to make sense of an elderly CI motorhome’s control panel. Finally, when all else had failed, I contacted Auto-Trail (who are the UK importers of CI motorhomes) who sent me an Italian-language copy of the relevant instructions - and those instructions were full of technical errors. The mysterious piece of metal you’ve found may have nothing to do with your motorhome’s water system, but the fact that it’s been stored by the water tank suggests that it might be used to operate a ‘valve’ of some sort inside the tank. If there’s an inspection hatch in the tank’s upper surface, have a look inside the tank (with the tank empty if possible) to check if there’s anything in there that the T-shape tool might be used to open/close. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grantos Posted August 17, 2020 Author Share Posted August 17, 2020 Hi Derek, I have finally got there! It empties through the valve you showed me which is attached to the water heater. So both use this valve for emptying. Thanks for taking the time to help me with this issue. Best, Grant. :-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.