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A friend of mine emailed me a hilarious story :mail: of his escapades while towing his black water tote to the dump station. He was nice enough to let me post it on Love Your RV! for our reading pleasure. 🙂
Catastrophe and Panic on the Way to the RV Sewer Dump :wacko:
“Two ply TP leaves Tell Tale Trail”
Having been “bathed” in some of the contents of our black tank, I can attest to the “it’s not so funny at the time” thing! :negative: However, once the clothes were changed and the mess cleaned up… Let the hilarity begin!!! 😆 :good:
Thanks for the story Ray!
Guess that’s why they call them accidents. Over the weekend,was all cleaned up,heading for Chinqoteaqe ,while leaving camp ground,dumped grey water only. Make room for showers later. All went well until I dropped ,heavy metal cap on sewer ,it shot up a spray in my face and clothes. Even though it was dry before dumping we all know what has been going in there for years. Lesson learned always gently lower cap.
I guess it was a crappy weekend for a few of us. For our first shakedown cruse in our new Storm 28Y we went to Reno to watch our grand daughter at a HUGE volleyball tournament at the Convention Center (4 days). Everything went pretty well until yesterday. Her first game was at 9:00 so got up early to demob to get there by 8:00 (parking was a disaster). Got to the “dump black water part”… hookup was a little awkward running the hose up through the hole in the box and connecting to the spout. That went ok, seemed slow discharging. But when I pulled the grey water and sewage started overflowing the RV parks sewer system. I checked several adjacent sites and all were backed up !!
As if things weren’t difficult enough, somewhere in the process I got one of those phantom back spasms. Ok, I give up — I can deal with this at home. Then I discover that the toilet is also backed up. I suspect that the previous owners let the black water discharge real-time and now I have a “crap cone” to deal with.
(Continued in the “Help” section for some advice on how to deal with it)
In my old class C, I inherited a Mount Poo, just about reached the toilet base (leaky black valve, no cap). Lots of water, some enzymes, let them sit about a week and do their work. Before you dump. dissolve some dishwasher detergent fairly strong, dump in toilet, and go for a drive. Take a tank rinse wand with you, the discharge valve may need some “encouragement” to get things flowing, a plumbers snake isn’t a bad idea either. The tank is going to need a thorough cleaning anyway. Yes, I did fix the valve and install a cap.
All this assumes that you have a toilet that dumps directly into the black tank. If the unit has piping between the toilet and tank, I really don’t envy you the job of getting it flowing properly again. You’d probably have to use the snake from the discharge end. Oooooo!
This also a problem with units that sit stationary for a long time, like at a seasonal site, sludge builds up in the tank, and when you drive without water in the tank, it all moves down to the discharge valve plugging it. We were lucky, the rinse wand managed to push through enough to get it moving again. Of course, you don’t find this out until you are ready to dump!
Thanks Roger, this is real helpful. I was wondering about how to deal with clogs at the discharge end. Once I get it clean I am confident about keeping it so. The previous owners didn’t seem to understand the level of maintenance RV’s require. It looked like they never washed the awning and put it up wet, a lot of dirt and mold — after I cleaned it up, it appears to still be in good shape.
I appreciate the help.
Your more than welcome, this is what places like this are for. 🙂
Howdy Campers! I found this video on Youtube looking for some extra ideas for storing our “Blue” honey wagon. I not sure but, I don’t think this guys are “Fulltimers”. Most definitely not “Boondockers”!!!!!!
Obviously never lived/worked on a farm, like the way “Dad” does all the dirty work while everyone else minces around. Sad state of affairs!
[quote quote=10466]Howdy Campers! I found this video on Youtube looking for some extra ideas for storing our “Blue” honey wagon. I not sure but, I don’t think this guys are “Fulltimers”. Most definitely not “Boondockers”!!!!!! [/quote]
What the heck were they eating that made it smell that bad? They act like it is full of crab juice left in the sun for a week or something. :wacko:
I have read these and had a great laugh so here’s our laugh for guys.
we have a small farmstead in North Dakota and it has the old “NO DAK” system for sewage.This system leaves the house and then goes into a septic/holding tank of some kind and then the not so heavy stuff and diluted stuff and watery stuff ( you get my picture of the stuff I hope ) goes into another tank that has a lid you can open right there in the yard.In our case,the yard next to the driveway.Now in that tank sets a sump pump that takes the looseys out in an undergound pipe to the drainage ditch clearrrrr out by the road where the runoff waters meet up with it and it goes into a slew and eventually who knows where.You can’t replace thesesystems anymore but plenty of the old places still use them.
Well,the first year we had the place,the sump pump got clogged and quit so we learned this “pit with the cover needed to be pumped every few years.So we call an outfit and they come out for 68 bucks and pump her out and off they go.I found out later that they dilute this mixture and spread it on farm fields.Go figure.
Well,a few years later same thing happens so we call them again.Apparently they bought a new house by the lake or something cause now they wanted 368 bucks to come out and pump.
I look at Lisa and she looks at me with that Mr. Cheap look in her eyes and we go into town ( 30 miles ) and rent a sludge pump.
Now it just so happens they were calling for rain the next day,so I work the hose in the pit and Lisa works the hose on the other end and sprays that “stuff” out there on the front yard as good as any Mr. Green guy could.We clean up the sludge pump which I did by the way tell them what I was using it for and the next day it rained and rained and a few weeks later my neighbors were asking us what we used on our yard.We told em it was a natural product,lol.
We bought our own sludge pump at a farm auction and keep that tank clean and the sump pump clean and never had another issue.
I grew up in the city,what did I know?,but I learned all about living on the farm.Our place is surrounded by fields and we have a camper but we won’t go there.But if you see some guy dragging a 5er around a field like a crazy man,it just might be me.
Now we know as well why we never see anyone swimming in the slews in North Dakota.
A few weeks ago we take delivery of our new to us 5th wheel and yesterday I go out to drain the grey water as Lisa had wanted to try out that new shower head.I figure I’ll pull both tank handles as the thing just came from the dealer after a long winter.I pul the black tank and what do you think came outa there all over my driveway and darn near me?.I immediately pulled the grey to dilute that stuff.
Mental note to self,just cause you got it from the dealer don’t mean the black tank is empty.GRRRrrrrr
I bet you have the best grass in the area! 😆
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