by A common question I get from new travelers, is “How do I connect everything?” and “This part is so confusing!”
If you have never done this before it can be a little overwhelming, but have no fear I am here to give you a helping hand, and this time we got a short video explaining the whole process! Before we get started you need the know the difference between “Black water” “City water” and “Grey water” If your unfamiliar with those words please check out the following pages before moving forward.
Gear list:
Waste hose
90 degree hose end
Hose snake (black thing under the hose, optional)
When connecting your hose to the sewer its important to not over tighten the adapter to the ground, the adapter is plastic with plastic threads, going on to another plastic fitting. When I first started RVing I was so nervous about having waste everywhere that I over tightened these threads and broke the adapter. Man that was not fun, during that vacation we only had the RV for travel and I had to pack everything back up just to go back into town to purchase a replacement, not pleasant to say the least, BUT live and learn and hopefully you wont make the same mistakes I did.
Another thing I would HIGHLY recommend is having multiple waste hoses available to you, we normally carry three, ten foot long hoses with us for various reasons. First you just never know how far your going to be from the dump location, Second, things happen and equipment breaks. I once had a waste hose that had a crack in it, I didn’t see the crack and I was just seconds away from pulling the black tank valve, when my wife yelled “STOP, there is a crack in the hose!” I was so glad she saw that, our stay would have been very un-pleasant to say the least if I had emptied the waste all over the camp site…. yuck.
After connecting the hose to the sewer and to your RV your ready to flush, almost….. Confused yet? don’t worry this part is pretty easy, before you flush your black tank (always flush the black tank first) make sure you have at least some water in your grey tank, the reason is, you will want some water to flush out your hoses after the poo goes down the shoot, think of it like a toilet, water keeps flushing after the business has been completed.
Now its time to empty the tanks!
Step 1: Pull the black tank valve, wait till you don’t hear fluid coming out.
Step 2: close black tank valve
Step 3: open grey tank and flush out the hose
Step 4: Close grey tank valve.
But why do we close the valves, and not just leave them open so it works all on its own?
Great question, and one that was answered on a different blog, Read the full blog here.
but since your here ill sum it up for you, the hose is directly connected to a sewer or septic tank, all those smells will travel up the hose and into your RV, and trust me from prior experience, waking up to that smell at 2 AM is not the best way you want to wake up during your trip.
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Do you have a question? Do you have advice that I didn’t mention? let us know in the comments below.
