If you’ve ever been woken up at 2 a.m. by your RV water pump because someone flushed the toilet or washed their hands, you already know the pain. For us, it got so bad that the first thing I used to do when pulling into a campsite was hook up city water—just to avoid the pump waking everyone up overnight.
This is a 2015 camper with the original factory water pump. Loud, clacky, and obnoxious enough that I almost replaced it with a $200 variable-speed pump. Instead, I tried a few simpler things first… and I’m glad I did.
In this video, I walk through four practical fixes, starting with free and ending with a ~$40 upgrade. The combined result took my pump from “wake the dead” to “barely noticeable.”
1. Free Fix: Tighten the Pump Head
Before you buy anything, check the screws around the head of your water pump. On older pumps, these can loosen over time and cause a plastic-on-plastic clacking noise.
Tightening those screws alone completely eliminated the sharp clack I was hearing. Zero cost, five minutes of effort, and an immediate improvement.
2. Cheap Upgrade: Flexible Lines Instead of Rigid PEX
Rigid PEX lines transmit vibration straight into the walls and floor of your camper. That’s a big part of why pumps sound louder than they need to be.
I swapped the hard PEX lines at the pump inlet and outlet for short braided flexible lines. You can buy “RV silencing kits” online, but the same thing is available at Home Depot for a few bucks each.
This simple change stops pump vibration from rattling through the entire rig.
Link to Amazon kits: https://amzn.to/3YS6K71
3. Proper Pump Isolation (Big Noise Reduction)
From the factory, my pump was mounted directly to a thin wall with screws tightened all the way down. Every time it ran, it rattled the wall like a speaker cabinet.
I moved the pump to the floor and isolated it using rubber bushings. I also designed custom mounting spacers so the pump’s built-in rubber bracket could actually do its job instead of being crushed flat.
This step made a huge difference in overall noise and vibration.
I have created these bushings and spacers into a full turn key kit with all fasteners included on my website here:
https://creativeenterprisesllc.com/products/rv-water-pump-silencer-feet-complete-kit
4. The Game Changer: A Real Accumulator Tank
This one doesn’t make the pump quieter—it makes it run far less often.
Instead of a tiny RV-specific accumulator, I installed a house-style thermal expansion tank (the kind used on water heaters). It’s food-safe, inexpensive, and holds way more usable water.
I set the tank pressure to about 3 PSI below the pump’s cut-in pressure. For my system:
- Pump turns on ~31 PSI
- Pump turns off ~45 PSI
- Tank set to ~30 PSI
The result? I can get about six cups of water from the faucet before the pump even turns on. That’s multiple toilet flushes at night with zero noise.
Bonus Tips
- Foam isolation: Anywhere water lines touch walls or floors, add foam. Even small rattles add up.
- City water → tank fill mod: I added a valve so I can fill my fresh tank from city water without moving hoses around the camper. This is a DIY modification—do it at your own risk—but it’s been incredibly convenient.
The End Result
After all four fixes:
- The pump is dramatically quieter
- It runs far less often
- Nighttime water use rarely triggers it
- I’m no longer rushing to hook up city water at every stop
Most importantly: it actually made camping more enjoyable.
If you want to see exactly how I did this, the full video walks through everything step by step.
👉 Watch the full video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5RKmdSq9-0
If this helps you sleep better in your RV, it was worth making. Good luck out there.