Portable tank

[GeoffnCheri]

First, it has a combined of 68 gallons since it has two grey water tanks. From what I gather the indicators in the RV are not correct. Wife and I shower (military style) and it says 3/4 full. I guess I could run them until it says 100% but not sure what will happen if it overflows. Does the sink/shower stop draining or does it have an over flow?

When dry camping for us, fresh water is the limiting issue. When camping with E and W without FHU, gray tanks are our limiter. If the gray tanks fills, it just backs up, be it kitchen or shower/sink.

Equalizing your gray tanks as suggested would certainly help.

[Ynot4me2]

Thanks all. I was just wondering what people use. I was thinking that maybe you were using a 100-500 gallon water buffalo.

There's many options available. Keep in mind, the bigger capacity the heavier. I've seen people with smaller ones just lift them onto their truck bed (young with good backs) I've seen others with larger ones hook them on their trailer hitch and slowly rolled them to the dump station. The latest I've seen which isn't bad, is a real large tote sitting empty in the truck bed position ready to dump and using a marcerator pump to transfer. This would give you the largest capacity and save your back.

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[Soundsailor]

We have the Rhino 36-gallon tank. Pretty heavy when full, we tow it behind the TV to the dump station. Showers are our biggest issue, a trip to the dump station is worth it.

[Mmullin]

We make it about 3-4 nights (2 of us showering, with water on and off to conserve while lathering up) before we have to dump the shower Grey tank. I think the tank is around 35 gallons - GD customer support wasn't sure and I don't really care.

We leave 41 gallon Barker tote in back of the truck. Macerator pump to transfer from Grey tank to tote. Drive to the dump station and the tote gravity drains in about 30 seconds.

I don't use it for the black, but could if necessary. We usually move before the black is full. I still need further testing (with full hookups) to see just how long we can go on black. So far we've only gone 7 days.

Kitchen Grey tank I've never had to empty before the black, so I just handle that at the dump station. But we could use the Barker tote for that too if necessary.

Two considerations - it's very difficult /imposs to use the macerator to tote system and not drop some fluid. I place a container on the ground to catch it, and the last time managed it to be less than a couple of tablespoons. When I first stated using this system it was a couple of cups!

So I'm not excited about draining the black tank this way. But would if I had too. Just practice on grey first.

Second, particularly if you intent on using the tote for black- if your tote is smaller capacity than the tank you'll need to be very careful about shutting the gate valve before overflowing the tote.

And when you do that sometimes "stuff" will block the gate....and it will continue to leak. That happened to me with our old trailer and I swore I'd never attempt to empty a black tank with an inadequately sized tote again.

Hence the monster sized Barker tote I now carry. The tools we select need to reduce the stress and minimize the complexity of using our trailers. A lot of it is trial and error.

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[jmbopp]

We can go a week or better on the black tank, the limiting factor is that it starts to stink!

I "calibrated" my gray tank sensors. When the sensors just read Full I have 6 gallons left before the tanks back up into the sink or shower.

My "tote" is a 30 gallon plastic barrel mounted in the truck bed. It's filled with a macerator pump and gravity empties with a 1-1/2" gate valve and a piece of sump pump hose.

For fresh water I picked up a 20 gallon rectangular tank off Craigslist. I built an elevated stand for it, and it's strapped in the truck bed. With the stand it's high enough to feed the gravity fill port on the trailer w/o needing a pump.

[NB Canada]

We can go a week or better on the black tank, the limiting factor is that it starts to stink!

I "calibrated" my gray tank sensors. When the sensors just read Full I have 6 gallons left before the tanks back up into the sink or shower.

My "tote" is a 30 gallon plastic barrel mounted in the truck bed. It's filled with a macerator pump and gravity empties with a 1-1/2" gate valve and a piece of sump pump hose.

For fresh water I picked up a 20 gallon rectangular tank off Craigslist. I built an elevated stand for it, and it's strapped in the truck bed. With the stand it's high enough to feed the gravity fill port on the trailer w/o needing a pump.

What causes us to dump the black tank often is the excess water I demand be used per use
I don’t mind dumping the black every 3-4 days if it avoids all of the issues caused by lack of liquids

I use my Rhino tank for black and gray. I don’t mind the job


2021 Imagine 2400 BH
2018 GMC Sierra 4x4 crew

[DragonDriver]

We bought a honey wagon when we had our pull behind. I think it held about 40 gallons. Not a lot of fun to pull to the dump station, but it worked well. Google Thetford honey wagon to see options. How big are your grey tanks? Needing to empty every day is really a chore.

Dakota is correct ... you'll see quite a few folks carrying the little "refuse totes" strapped to the back of their trailer for just that reason. One word of caution: I bought the 40 gallon, towable wagon but after you drain stuff into it you have to manually pull it to your truck and lift it onto a hitch ball and that much watery stuff is HEAVY! There are smaller units that you can trundle down the road like a little red wagon, but they don't hold as much. ALSO be advised that you have to fill the tank by "rough-guessing" how much is going into it.

[rpalmer110]

We make it about 3-4 nights (2 of us showering, with water on and off to conserve while lathering up) before we have to dump the shower Grey tank. I think the tank is around 35 gallons - GD customer support wasn't sure and I don't really care.

We leave 41 gallon Barker tote in back of the truck. Macerator pump to transfer from Grey tank to tote. Drive to the dump station and the tote gravity drains in about 30 seconds.

I don't use it for the black, but could if necessary. We usually move before the black is full. I still need further testing (with full hookups) to see just how long we can go on black. So far we've only gone 7 days.

Kitchen Grey tank I've never had to empty before the black, so I just handle that at the dump station. But we could use the Barker tote for that too if necessary.

Two considerations - it's very difficult /imposs to use the macerator to tote system and not drop some fluid. I place a container on the ground to catch it, and the last time managed it to be less than a couple of tablespoons. When I first stated using this system it was a couple of cups!

So I'm not excited about draining the black tank this way. But would if I had too. Just practice on grey first.

Second, particularly if you intent on using the tote for black- if your tote is smaller capacity than the tank you'll need to be very careful about shutting the gate valve before overflowing the tote.

And when you do that sometimes "stuff" will block the gate....and it will continue to leak. That happened to me with our old trailer and I swore I'd never attempt to empty a black tank with an inadequately sized tote again.

Hence the monster sized Barker tote I now carry. The tools we select need to reduce the stress and minimize the complexity of using our trailers. A lot of it is trial and error.

Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk

Agreed on your take about dumping black tanks into the tote. It definitely requires 100 percent attention and planning. We always waited for it to be about 80 percent full in the tote, we would shut the black tank then let some grey water push all the lines clear before we disconnect. Obviously you need a full grey to do this. We had to repeat that about three times to get the black all the way empty based on our tote size. No fun, but sometimes that's what it takes to stay certain places.

[Rovers]

Using a tote will certainly help with full gray tanks but I’m confused by the OP having to dump the gray water every couple of days with 68 gallons of capacity…

Our 2400BH has 76 gallons of gray water capacity between the galley and bathroom tanks (not sure if equally split or not) and we’ve never filled them to full before our fresh water runs out at electric-only sites. At E/W sites we can go at least 5 days and then the galley rarely even shows 1/3 full since there’s just a few dishes being washed; the bathroom typically shows 2/3 full by the time the black tank is full.

To the OP… The sensors on the tanks have notoriously poor accuracy. You’ll know your tank is truly full when the sinks or the shower don’t drain. I’m betting that you have plenty of space left in the tanks despite what the sensors say… unless the showers you’re taking aren’t quite up to military snuff

Bob

[traveldawg]

First, it has a combined of 68 gallons since it has two grey water tanks. From what I gather the indicators in the RV are not correct. Wife and I shower (military style) and it says 3/4 full. I guess I could run them until it says 100% but not sure what will happen if it overflows. Does the sink/shower stop draining or does it have an over flow?

This caught my eye..... the tanks sensors are sooooo unreliable; so I'm not sure 3/4 full means 3/4's full especially when I dump my tanks and the tank is still "3/4 full".

On my rig when the the main grey overfills it backs up in the shower. So maybe just not dump and see if your's does the same (I wouldn't try this unless I had full hook ups).

We've gone 4 to 5 days using the "navy shower" method. Years ago, when had to be really conservative and it took a long time for the shower water to get hot we ran the shower into a bucket until it reached the right temp for us. Then we used the bucket water to flush the toilet. Beside conserving fresh water, it kept the grey water tank from filling prematurley.

You can measure the amount of water you use when showering....

• First run the shower water for a minute into a bucket and measure how much water accumulates.
• Then, the next time you shower, time how long you run the water for wetting and rinsing (and remember - once you are wet, you are wet; you don't need more water to get "wetter").
• Once you know how much water is used in a minute (step one) you can just multiply the number of minutes you run the water to shower times the gallons per minute you calculated in step one.

Our DIL runs the water until the hot water gets cold - talk about filling a holding tank quickly! It drives me crazy.

Don't forget to take full advantage of those wonderful public showers in the campground too.