Your RV low point drain valve serves the key purpose of allowing your RV’s water lines to drain completely, as it’s located at the lowest point of your RV.
Despite it being a relatively simple mechanism, RV low point drain valves generate a lot of questions from RV owners, including how to open low point drains on an RV, how to close a low point drain, and where to locate RV low point drain valve.
We’ll cover all those and more in today’s guide.
What Are Low Point Drains On RVs?
An RV low point drain valve is a valve (usually one for each hot and cold water) located at or near the lowest point of your RV that allow the water lines to be completely drained for safe RV storage and winterization.
Water pools at the lowest point and can freeze, causing damage to your lines if they’re not emptied, so an RV low point drain valve enables your potable water lines to be fully emptied for RV storage, RV winterization, or even cleaning of the water lines.
Your RV drain system is meant to drain the water lines or pipes only, not your tanks.
Where Is My RV Low Point Drain Valve Located?
So many campers ask us: “How do I find my RV low point drain valve?”.
The answer is: that depends.
Typically you’ll find travel trailer drain valves, motorhome drain valves, camper drain valves, and RV drain valves on the underside of your rig.
Follow these steps to find your RV low point drain valve:
Look for the plastic (pex) lines hanging down, which may or may not have a cap or valve on them.
One of these lines will be the freshwater tank drain line, and the other will be the entire water system’s low point drain valve.
Another way to find your RV low point water drain valve is to look for your main fresh water tank – the lines should be around or below it.
If you still can’t locate it, start at your fresh water fill valve, follow the line under the rig and you’ll see two lines hanging down: one with a valve on it, the other without.
The valved line is your freshwater tank drain and the other is your overflow/vent line.
You will likely also have two more lines sticking down elsewhere under your RV, many are located near the steps or near the axles – these are your low point drains.
Most are red and blue, but some are white. They should both have valves on them.
Here’s a good video of someone modifying their travel trailer low point drain valves, but it also does a good job of showing you where the low point drain valve(s) may be located:
How To Open Your RV Low Point Water Drain Valve
This varies by the make and model of your RV, travel trailer, motorhome, or camper, but many low point drain valves can be opened and closed easily by hand.
Sometimes your RV drain will come with a screw-on cap that you may need to loosen with a wrench or pliers.
You should open your faucets and run your outdoor shower when opening your low point drain valve to allow the air pressure to work in your favor in getting as much water as possible out of your lines so you can safely store or winterize your RV.
Typically your RV water pump and RV toilet will not fully drain, so it’s important to use RV antifreeze in your RV’s water lines to protect these pieces of your system against damage caused by freezing water.
How To Close Your RV Low Point Drain Valve
Just like opening your low point drain, you can close it by reversing the hand-operated valve or screwing the cap back on after water stops coming out of the lines.
Make sure all of your RV low point drain valves are fully closed before storing your RV, being sure to tighten any caps if you have a capped-end line.
What To Do If Your Low Point Drain Valve Is Leaking
If you’ve got an RV fresh water tank drain valve leaking it’s going to cause some headaches because it can cause a loss of water pressure, causing a situation where your RV water pump keeps running or may affect the operation of your RV’s plumbing fixtures.
Once you locate the RV drain, try tightening the valves or the RV water line drain caps depending on which closure your lines have.
If your low point drain lines use caps, also check the gasket or O-ring inside the cap (if applicable) to make sure it doesn’t need replacement, and you can also consider using plumber’s tape on the cap ends and plumber’s grease on the O-rings to help you get a tight seal and stop the RV low point drain valve leak.
Also note that if you don’t have a water pressure reducer in your system, sometimes the city water pressure can be high enough to make your low point drain valve leak, so try detaching from any external water source to see if that first clears up your problem.
If those don’t work, it’s time to move on to how to replace an RV low point drain valve.
RV Low Point Drain Valve Replacement
Occasionally your travel trailer drain valves will fail and need replacement.
Fortunately, most RV low point drain valves are made from pex and are very easy to repair or modify.
Here’s how to replace an RV low point drain valve:
- Step 1: Open your RV low point drain valve(s) and allow all water to be drained. These lines are going to be open for this repair anyway, so you might as well get this step over with first.
- Step 2: Identify the camper low point drain valve that needs to be replaced (whether one or both).
- Step 3: Cut the valves off just above the existing crimp.
- Step 4: Use a crimping tool to crimp two new shutoffs on the lines. You can use pretty much whatever you like here, but many RVers swear by Sharkbite ball valves. Others have used a threaded end that you can cap off, or something else that you prefer. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s easy to operate and closes tightly.
- Step 5: Fill some water back in your lines and test your new RV low point drain valve to make sure they work as intended.
Here’s a great example of how to replace an RV low point drain valve:
RV Low Point Drain Valve Mods
Plenty of RVers have added valves to their low point drain lines where there were none before or have made changes so they don’t have to get under the rig to open these valves.
Change Your Low Point Drain Caps To Valves
Here’s a video showing how easy it is to change over your RV water line drain cap to a valve-style closure:
Add Levers To Your System
Assuming you have the setup that allows this, you can add a lever system higher up in your low point drain lines so you don’t have to get under the rig to open the lines each time.
These levers are shown installed on a Fleetwood RV low point drain valve.
Swap Out Your Low Point Drain Hardware For Something Totally Different
The nice thing about working with pex plumbing commonly found on RV low point drains is that it’s very easy to work with, even for those with very little or no plumbing experience.
Here’s a mod someone made for a more heavy-duty low point drain shutoff:
Extend Your RV Low Point Drain Valve Lines
You can extend your lines to where they’re easier to reach so you’re not constantly crawling under your RV.
Make sure that your extension lines still slope downward to ensure proper drainage:
Camper Low Point Drain
The low point drain on your camper should be similar (if not identical) to the ones found on RVs that we covered in this guide, and all advice given here applies the same to your camper low point drain.
Travel Trailer Low Point Drain
Your travel trailer drain valves have the same function, operation, and location as RV drain valves, so you can use all the information in this guide on your travel trailer.
Motorhome Drain Valve
All of the information contained in this guide will apply the same exact way to your motorhome drain valve including how to find it, how to operate it, and how to fix a motorhome drain valve leak or perform a replacement.
Jayco Fresh Water Tank Drain Valve
Most Jayco low point drain valves are located inside a cabinet or behind a removable plastic panel on the inside of your Jayco RV.
Look for a pull-up and push-down mechanism to operate your drain valve.
If your Jayco RV is equipped with a thermal package, the low point drain valve is located between the bottom of the rig and the interior floor, helping to insulate it.
Coachmen Freelander Low Point Drain
Coachmen Freelander low point drain valves are sometimes located in the back wall of the master bedroom and may be behind a removable panel.
Other times they are located beneath the rig like most RV low point drain valves.
The Coachmen Freelander 260DS has the low point drain valves behind a panel in the large rear cargo bay behind a black removable panel.
The Coachmen Freelander QBE low point drains are located in the bed platform under the wood piece the mattress rests on.
The Coachmen Freelander 21QB has their tank drain line and low point drain lines located under the drawer beneath the oven.
Other times they may be located below a panel beneath the refrigerator, which can be accessed by removing 4 screws.
As you can see, RV low point drain lines vary wildly by make and model!
Winnebago Water Drain Valve
Winnebago water drain valve locations vary by model – some may even be under the bed near the water pump and will be lever operated.
Other times, the Winnebago low point drain valve might be next to your storage bins on the RV’s passenger side.
For more information, consult your Winnebago owner’s manual or give your local Winnebago dealer a call and they’ll help you find the location of your low point drains.
Airstream Low Point Drain Valve
Finding your Airstream low point drain valve can be quite a challenge because not all Airstream models are equipped with them!
If you cannot locate them or have confirmed you don’t have low point drains on your Airstream model, you can clear the water by blowing compressed air through them.
If your Airstream does have a low point water valve, you’ll need to first empty and flush your hot water tank, then proceed with our instructions above on how to open your water drain valves.
Wrapping Up Our RV Low Point Drain Valve Guide
We hope you learned everything you need to know about RV drains in this walkthrough.
Ultimately, the low point drains on your rig are simple mechanisms that, once located, are pretty easy to operate and are critical when storing or winterizing your RV.
Where were yours located, and what make/model/year of RV do you have?
Let us know in the comments below.
While you’re here, check out our other helpful RV repair guides:
- How to perform RV toilet foot pedal repair
- Our guide to RV roof reseal cost
- What to do if your RV heater is blowing cold air
- How to fix an RV microwave not working
- Our guide to motorhome fuel pump replacement
- How to replace RV window glazing bead
- How to fix an RV toilet not holding water
- How to fix a sagging RV slide out
- Preparing for an RV one night freeze