Cruisers Forum
Main Forum => General Discussion => Topic started by: magnumiii on January 31, 2017, 05:32:15 pm
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How does everyone deal with the size of the holding tanks? Especially on the2552 with the 23 gallon tank for the gray water, sounds awful small to me. My current unit has a 40 black gallon and 50 gallon grey tank. I'm concerned about the small size of the tanks on this 2552 and how long you can go before you need to dump. Sounds like maybe only three or possibly four showers and it is full. I currently have a class a and are thinking of returning to another Phoenix cruiser
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How does everyone deal with the size of the holding tanks? Especially on the2552 with the 23 gallon tank for the gray water, sounds awful small to me. My current unit has a 40 black gallon and 50 gallon grey tank. I'm concerned about the small size of the tanks on this 2552 and how long you can go before you need to dump. Sounds like maybe only three or possibly four showers and it is full. I currently have a class a and are thinking of returning to another Phoenix cruiser
I have a 2551 so same tank sizes, we take 'navy' showers where you get wet, turn water off, soap up, turn water on and rinse. Takes maybe 4 gallons. So yea, we dump every 3 or 4 days. However.,you can "stretch" the capacity of the grey tank by transfering some into the black tank.
Do NOT turn turn macerator on!!!
Your black tank MUST be less filled than the grey tank! Just open the grey valve first, wait 10 or so seconds... Then open the black tank valve. The gray water will flow into the black tank until they are at the same level. Close black valve first, then close grey valve. Depending on how full the black tank was.. You can get 10 ir more gallons out of the grey and into the black tank.
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We do as most PC owners with small gray tanks. When the gray gets full, we flood the black tank with gray water by first opening the gray tank valve, then the black. Then wait about 15 seconds and close both. Doing so levels the waste water between tanks. Adding the soapy gray water into the black tank also helps when it comes time to drain the black tank.
It is surely not ideal, but it works. The pain of it is that one of us has to go outside to blend the tanks. It would be very handy and uneventful if those two tank switches were duplicated inside the house on the control panel. Within seconds it's done.....so quick and easy.
For us, our gray tank trouble happens when one of us is in the shower and the water stopped going down the drain. The other person just finished showering so they scramble to put on some clothes to run outside and play with the switches. That is if the second person showering....me, forgets to blend the tanks before I jump in the shower. My wife surely doesn't appreciate that.
The reason why the gray tank is the smaller of the two on many PC models is because of the floor plan. The black and gray tanks are pretty much locked in their positions underneath. The location of the toilet must be over the black tank.
I'll have to give duplicate gray & black tank switches some thought.
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Here is a solution I use occasionally if camped near water. I carry a 50' - 3/4" hose and connect to the discharge and route the hose into the water. There is no rule about putting gray water in water, just not on the ground.
In Mexico, I have run this hose to an outhouse once and emptied both tanks there.
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we have a 2016 2351 and came down from a Newmar class A with H-U-G-E tanks. I agree with all the comments above. We are good for about 4-5 showers. Generally, when we travel we will stop at a commercial campground every second or third night, dump and fill, and be on our way. Not a big deal. When boondocking, we will try to use the outside shower and carry extra water.
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One of the water conserving tricks we learned during our fulltiming was using Dawn Foaming Dish Soap Concentrate to wash dishes. By putting one pump application on a wet sponge, one can pretty clean everything used by two people for an average dinner. Scrubbing everything with the sponge, then rinsing with hot water, you will omit the use of additional water while washing, except maybe for a brief re-wetting of the sponge. If you have chili or something similar, your results may vary. 2o2
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The foaming hand soap is nice also..takes less water to wash the soap off of you hands.
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We get two showers and three meals out of one grey tank, IF we dump to the black tank once. Not ideal. I have wondered if it wouldn't also work to just leave both dump valves open all the time so the tanks could share the sewage.
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Concerning letting the 2 tanks merge via open valves all the time, would that perhaps create gasses / fumes that the gray tank isn't set up to handle ? Or would the gasses be shared as well and be vented appropriately ?
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You should know that letting both valves open to merge the tanks is a HORRIBLE idea. Think about why there are two tanks in the first place!
Just one example... The macerator would always have slop in it, and will leak out the hose even without turning it on. Under normal conditions, you dump black water first and close the black valve. Then open the gray valve and flush the relatively clean (with no solids) gray water out and in the process flush any black water out of the hose. You then close the gray valve and drain any grey water in the hose into the sewer and put it away. If the black and gray were always mixed.. No way to flush or empty the hose.
To the person who suggested flushing grey into a creek, MOST states, counties and town laws prohibit the dumping of ANY rv waste into anything except a sanitary waste line. Same reason you can't dump grey water into a street or storm sewer.
Both ideas... BAD in my opinion.
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Regarding the spaghetti comment, we carry a large scraper to clean plates and pans. After scraping the solids into the trash can, we use our used paper napkins to wipe the rest of the stuff off and trash those, THEN we go to the foaming Dawn dish soap and rinse water running into a tub trug that then gets dumped down the toilet. One caveat, you do have to run some water down the sink drain on occasion or it gets stinky so I'll do the soapy water down there every so often.
Regarding keeping both tanks open... if your tanks get full that stuff is coming up your shower drain... just saying.
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Here is a little water saver commonly used in the Class B world (where tanks are sometimes REALLY small)
https://www.amazon.com/Danco-88814-Faucet-Spray-Head/dp/B000MQTPGC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1486042827&sr=8-3&keywords=sink+dish+sprayer
Unlike the spray head in most rvs, these are positive off and don't drip water. I have used them on four different motor homes over the years and for boondocking they are big water saver.
Paul
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A few additional comments, besides the plate scrapping, when we sailed we never stacked any dirty dishes, thus less surface area to clean. However I could only do this when my wife wasn't in the galley.
After talking with Barry of Sue and Barry, we just bought a 12 gallon blue boy tote and a 5 foot tote hose. Once a day I train the gray tank via the auxiliary dump and pull it over to the dump station.
We just left Flamingo in the Everglades, which only has electrical hookups and after 4 days still had enough capacity in my black tank for a few more days, if you can trust the indicator lights.
I am being meticulous about keeping the tank clean and when traveling wrapping it in a construction grade black bag ind then wrappping in a blue tarp before it goes in the back of the car. Alternatively it is light enough that it could easily go on top of the P C.
I also have to agree with the comment about not dumping gray tanks anywhere but in designated dump stations. We've come so far in cleaning up our rivers and other bodies of water that we must guard against any action that could compromise them.
Bob
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How about for men going #1 using one to two gallon plastic container and then dumping at a vault toilet or campground toilet. It would take awhile to fill it up so would need couple ounces of pine-sol to cover the odor when you unscrew the cap.
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How about for men going #1 using one to two gallon plastic container and then dumping at a vault toilet or campground toilet. It would take awhile to fill it up so would need couple ounces of pine-sol to cover the odor when you unscrew the cap.
I don't know if we'll ever hit this level of conservation in the RV but it doesn't just have to be men. Female campers and backpackers can use this type of device: https://smile.amazon.com/Jobar-International-Travel-Urinal-Reusable/dp/B004ANM6C8/ref=sr_1_3_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1486143741&sr=8-3&keywords=lady%2Bj&th=1
Note that while this will allow you to pee into a bottle, it will not help you win the P*** up a stump contest - the guys ALWAYS win. There are also models with little hoses to make it even easier to use smaller bottles. I wished for one of these on many frigid nights camped in a tent in nowhere land but never bought or used one so I don't know if you can do a quick, low water rinse or if they smell. I must admit that if we are boondocking and I'm out in the woods away from everyone, I'll go behind a tree and pee on a rock before I'll bottle it. The bottle idea would work if our tanks are full and I need to go in the middle of the night but we hope to not reach that point.