Water Tank Drain Extension

**Cate&Rob** · 07-27-2017, 08:12 AM

Draining the water tank results in a big mess under the trailer . . . particularly if you are on a grass or dirt site. Crawling under the trailer to open the valve also usually means at least a partial shower . . . particularly on ours where the draining water hits the axle and comes straight back at the valve opener

.

After rummaging around in my bins of spare parts . . . and a few standard pieces from the local Lowe's . . . I came up with the following:

Routing the drain to the side of the trailer with 1 1/2" ABS was relatively easy. (There is a special glue for connecting the ABS to the PVC valve.) The hangers are from Lowe's. I ended with a standard 1 1/2 threaded clean-out fitting and plug and then created a couple of different "adapters" to allow me to drain away from the trailer through either a garden hose or a standard sewer hose.

The pull cable is a manual choke cable that I happened to have . . . and it took some "fabrication" to make this work for pulling the valve. There are probably better ways to do this, but I was determined to use "parts on hand".

Rob

**CManley** · 07-27-2017, 08:17 AM

Nice job!!! I see there are shinny new discs on top of the 5 leaf spring.

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**Cate&Rob** · 07-27-2017, 08:26 AM

Originally Posted by CManley

I see there are shinny new discs on top of the 5 leaf spring.

Oh yeah . . . that too

. I do seem to be spending an inordinate amount of time in the driveway under this "new" trailer

.

Rob

**offtohavasu** · 07-27-2017, 10:13 AM

Oh please tell me you're going to prank someone with that, making them think it's one of the other tanks.

BTW, nice job!

**TucsonJim** · 07-27-2017, 10:32 AM

Dang - I wish you'd posted this yesterday. I sanitized the water system yesterday afternoon and what a muddy mess. I never thought about routing it differently. BTW, I placed a copy of this write up in the reference library also.

Jim

**Canyonlight** · 07-27-2017, 12:50 PM

Rob - great idea and well done as usual. I suspect that you and/or others have shared with GDRV to do something like this to prevent the stooping and wet bath treatment.........surprised that GDRV has not improved this fresh water tank drain design.

Let us know about the looks you get/conversations you have when you drain the fresh water in a campground......folks will probably think do are dumping a gray water tank !

Dan

**RamGunner** · 07-27-2017, 04:05 PM

Originally Posted by offtohavasu

Oh please tell me you're going to prank someone with that, making them think it's one of the other tanks.

BTW, nice job!

That's exactly what I was thinking. You could totally freak people out at the dump station with that.

**cmillsbl** · 06-25-2018, 05:30 PM

Aren't dump stations designed for this? I've always had full hookup sites, so haven't had need to use the fresh water tank, but I've been eyeballing the dump stations are various places we have stayed. It seems they have a concrete pad tilted towards the sewer pipe, which is flush with the concrete. Its appeared to me that one would pull into the station and position the dump valve over the concrete pad. Sewer hose would be used to dump black and gray tanks, and fresh tank would just be dumped onto the concrete pad and drain to the sewer opening. Haven't really watched anyone using these stations.

**Bob/OlallaWA** · 06-26-2018, 10:35 AM

Well not exactly designed for that use but might work that way. The concrete pad is for cleaning up after the person that is using the station thinks close is good enough.