Sewer Stuff

Now this subject is not the most pleasant one to think about but it is like taxes in the fact that sooner or later you will have to deal with it. I choose the proactive route and tried to think through and anticipate what needs and problems we may have in the near future. Waste is not something to take for granted and to deal with the nasty stuff it is best to plan ahead. Our 5th wheel comes with a 40 gallon black water tank and a 75 gallon gray water tank. When we first started I didn't even know the difference between the two so my education has been fast.

We set up initially at Judy's fathers house and the plan was to drain into the in ground septic tank. The immediate problem was that the drain connection was over 75' away. I didn't think we could carry enough 3" sewer hose nor did we want to waste money on a lot of 3 " PVC piping. I read on the RV Club descriptions of a device called the Sewer Solution. This device attaches directly to  the 3" sewer outlet and reduces the hose size to 3/4" to allow the use of a smaller diameter hose to transfer the effluent. This sounded ideal so I quickly located one and began to put together the system that would solve our hookup situation. The Sewer Solution comes with a 10' section of 3/4" hose attached to it already. It was simple to modify the hose to accept a 3/4" diameter contractors water hose to the discharge port. I simply cut the hose in half and added 3/4" hose couplings. The contractors water hose came in a 75' length section so the distance problem was solved by adding that to the Sewer Solution. The Sewer Solution has a 1" to 3" or 4" discharge connector which made a dandy connection to the house septic cleanout to the RV. Now the question was how can the nasty stuff travel through that much hose. To our advantage was a slight downhill slope toward the house so gravity was our ally. The principle of the venturi effect by the Sewer Solution along with the water pressure from a garden hose attached creates a venturi action that liquefies the waste and pushes it through the hose to the septic tank. This venturi action uses water pressure to tear up the solids and liquefy the material where it is pushed on through the 3/4" hose to the sewer dump. Of course there are limitations to what can be pushed through. If you decide to drop a whole roll of toilet paper in the tank at one time it is going to clog the system. The waste needs time to start breaking down and liquefy for the Sewer Solution to work best. There is a back-flush valve in the control head where you can back-flow water under pressure to help clean out the lower 3" pipe. I always tried to use this feature to facilitate the next time I used the system. Notice the anti-siphon valve. It is important to use this to minimize the chance of waste water backing up into the water supply hose.  This effectively solved our immediate hookup dilemma but not our long term travel plans.

Another mistake made by RV novices when starting out we managed to avoid by doing our homework is to not leave the black tank drain open all the time. It is very important to begin using the RV septic system by allowing the tank to fill as you use it and add a bacterial culture to begin the breaking down of waste. You can obtain a bacterial agent at most RV stores. Resist the temptation to make your own because this usually ends up creating a monster that will want to crawl out at the worst time! Some stores will only have enzyme solutions but these do not work as well as the bacteria. 

Also, you don't have to use the special, and expensive, toilet paper for RVs. Use common single ply toilet paper in modest amounts and remember to never put in bleach or other chemicals in that will kill the bacteria. A test to see if the toilet paper is OK is to take a piece of tissue and put it in a jar with water. Shake the jar up some and set it down for a few minutes. If the paper falls apart easily then it is probably OK to use. Be especially vigilant when it comes to children using the toilet because they are notorious for dropping things down the hole that won't dissolve. ( Army Men, Space Guns and Barbie Dolls for example.) Or, as in our case, a daughter that likes to use half a roll of toilet paper per trip to the bathroom! Take time to teach them the proper amount of paper to use. They will catch on hopefully before you have to go on a fishing trip into the black lagoon! 

Avoid the deodorizers that have formaldehyde as the active ingredient. I don't think you want to preserve the poop! Also note that it is important to allow your gray water tank to fill before you empty the black water tank so you can use the gray water to rinse the lines through from the black water residue. Simple stuff, but if nobody tells you, you can create a real monster blob to deal with in a few days. An uninformed RVer that leaves the black tank open all the time can create a mountain of solid waste in a black tank in a short time. This mountain will not easily go away, much to their dismay, and will have to be aggressively dealt with using direct contact that we all want to avoid. To add woe to the situation some will resort to dumping in chemicals or other concoctions that will either make a dangerous gas or a brown blob that will grow out of the commode, such as bakers yeast, if that was thrown in. The best thing is to avoid these situations to begin with by asking questions and getting good instructions on how to use your system at the very start.

Another item that plagues most RVers is the tank level indicator lights that are stuck on all the time. RV manufacturers want to save expenses on building and equipment so they use the cheapest sensors that they can get away with. Most are all designed where the sensor gets covered with goo after the first time you use the bathroom. One method of reducing this problem is if your RV is equipped with a sewer clean out. Use it! The sewer clean out port is very effective in cleaning the sensors when it is used but has to be used often for it to keep the sensors clean. The higher the water pressure the better because it usually is pointed directly where the level sensors are mounted in the tank and will rinse them off. Don't worry about washing out all the expensive bacteria you've put in. Put new bacteria in just after each time you empty the tanks and it will have enough time to work by the time you empty the tank a week or so later. You won't wash it all out anyway and that's OK. On the other hand, if you empty and wash the tank every day then it probably would be a waste of money to use the bacteria anyway, but most of us aren't that excited about keeping the black tank empty.

Another old trick is to use ice! If you can't get the sensors to clear after you know the tanks empty add some water to the tank, maybe half to 3/4 full, and add several bags of cubed ice. Then drive around for half an hour to get the ice sloshed around good and melt. Hopefully the abrasive affect of the ice will scrape the sensors clean. Empty the tank as usual and hope for the best.

Once we were on the road a routine was established in dealing with the sewer disposal. Before we started boondocking we always had a convenient sewer hookup near by. I kept using the Sewer Solution because it was so easy to hookup and handle vs. using the 3" "stinky slinky". I didn't have to worry over using stands or rails to set up the sewer drain. I only used the water pressure at the end when the particulate matter became thicker to break it up to move through the 3/4" hose line. Of course I didn't always need to use 75' of line either. Often, the 10' section of hose that came with the Sewer Solution was sufficient. Other times I only needed a little more so I cut the 75' section into 50' and 25' sections using only the shortest section to connect. When doing laundry, it is simple to open the gray lines to constantly drain the water from the washer and let it gravity feed through to the sewer connection. It worked well for us until we got where water was not so abundant. We wanted to boondock so it quickly became apparent we would have to come up with a different approach.

The answer: a macerator.( Mass-er-a-tor or Mace-er-a-tor; You say to-ma-toe, I say to-may-toe - It doesn't matter.) ($161.00 at Camping World President's club price) Our RV didn't come equipped with one, as most do not, so I had to figure out how to adapt a macerator system to fit our needs. When people make a decision to have a macerator they first have to decide if they want it to be permanently installed or not. Some would ask how else could it be done? In our circumstance, we didn't order it installed at the factory nor did we choose to make the installation permanent. For the time being we felt it better to have the option to not use a macerator if we wanted not to. We can use the Sewer Solution when on full hook-ups which allows us to drain the gray water and laundry continuously. You can set up the portable macerator to be by-passed by the gray water if you want to but it involves making modifications to the current sewer pipe configuration or rigging up a elaborate split hose set up. In order to keep it simple, (KISS), I rigged up a macerator that is easily disconnected and serviceable. Others may choose to permanently mount the macerator which involves modifying the 3" piping to the RV discharge port.

A macerator is basically the same as a garbage disposal. It grinds any solids, ( a nice way of saying poop) into a liquid particulate that is then forced under pressure through a hose to a septic system. In an RV, most effluent discharge ports ( the poop shoot ) is a 3" connection. The majority of RVers wrestle with a 3" sewer hose ( Stinky Slinky ) when needing to dump the effluent. The macerator designed for the RV typically has a 3" intake port and a 1" or 1.5 " discharge port. A 1" or 3/4" hose can be used as a dump hose which is much more durable, flexible and longer than the standard 3" sewer hose and cheaper and easier to obtain than 1" hose. I can hardly believe how cheap RV manufacturers are to even make the typical 3" sewer hose to begin with. The 3" hose has a wire in it to keep it from collapsing and is covered with an extremely thin plastic that will develop leaks after you drag it once or twice across the ground. I still use the 3" on occasion but it is mainly only as a last resort or other dumping situation that I will describe later. The short of it is, if you want to have cleaner hands and less mess a 3/4" hose is a lot easier to handle.

So, let me describe what I did to set up a macerator. Of course the heart of the system is the macerator it self. Macerators can be bought at the typical RV stores or ordered through the various catalogues for RVs or marine supply houses. (Camping World, Campers Choice .... and marine supply stores such as West Marine.) When ordering be sure to specify that you need a 3" intake that adapts to the standard RV discharge ports. Most macerators I've seen readily available are made by Jobsco and are able to be disassembled  for servicing which you will have to do eventually. (You are going to have to get your fingers into the poop sooner or later.) The discharge port can be 1" or 1.5". It is better to get the 1" if possible so as to make it easier to adapt a 3/4" water hose to it. If you want to use a 1" hose that is fine but it is much more difficult to find 1" hose than 3/4" hose. Just remember the standard rule of hydraulics is the greater the diameter of the hose the less friction loss and the easier it is to pump volume over distances. In the case of the RV, most of the time you will only moving the effluent a few feet so this is not as important a factor. A 3/4" contractors or yard water hose will work just fine and is easier and cheaper to obtain. Attaching the 3/4" hose is a little difficult without a 1" to 3/4" reducer but reducers are harder to find and with a little work and a hair dryer the hose can be stretched over the 1" outlet. Be sure to use a 1" or larger ring clamp to clamp it down securely.   To connect a short piece of 3/4" hose to the 1" discharge port, I cut off the male end of the 50' section of 3/4" water hose and force it over the 1" discharge port. A short piece works best when you go to store it.

The next, possibly more difficult part to find, will be the 3" section of hose that connects the macerator to the 3" RV sewer outlet. I tried to use a short piece of the standard 3" sewer hose but it quickly developed multiple pin holes as soon as I used it a few times. I had to wrap the entire length of the cheap 3" hose with duct tape to reduce the leaking enough to continue to use it until I could find a better piece of 3" hose. I had planned on trying to obtain a short piece of 3" fire hose but never got around to it before I came across a better hose at Camping World. I'm sure that they are not the only distributor for this heavy duty smooth bore plastic hose but they had a stack of 10' sections so I bought a section. This has proved to be a much better hose for connecting as it doesn't collapse as easily but is still flexible and durable to allow movement of the macerator without leaking all over the place. It is similar to the septic drain field pipe but without the holes. In my case, about 5' of this hose was used to make the macerator to RV discharge port. The hard part was making a good seal between the macerator and the heavy sewer hose. Without some sort of mastic the connection would leak when under pressure. I used some roof mastic that has aluminum one side and is real sticky on the other to make the seals. I clamped the connections with double hose clamps that forced the mastic to close the gaps and make a non-leaking seal.  Remember also that when you open the 3" discharge port to dump the rush of sewer water will hammer the connection. If it isn't sealed well it could blow the macerator completely off the hose! Open it slowly! Another thing that can happen when the water rushes into the hose is that the hose will unscrew it self from the discharge port! Be sure you have a tight connection that is not twisted or it will unscrew itself and you will have to take a swim in the sewer water before you can get the thing closed and capped! I can attest to this from personal experience. I obtained some extra 3" sewer connector O rings and doubled up on the connections which worked beautifully to stop all the connection leaks. These 3" O rings can be bought at most RV supply places too. I found that the diameter of these rings vary so look carefully and be sure it isn't too thick. They can be cut down but it is a pain to do so. I hate leaky connections but each his/her own.

The macerator doesn't come with anything except some rubber mounting feet so you will have to acquire some more parts to hook it up. Wire, fuse and a switch is necessary to make it work for you. The wiring has to be an adequate gauge to handle the amperage needed to carry the macerator. The macerator can pull as much as 20 amps but normally will operate on 15 or less amps. You have to use a heavier gauge wire to be safe. I used 12 ga braded double run wire. If you can't find that just a double strand 12 gauge or larger positive and negative wire will work. One with the additional ground wire is fine. Just ignore the ground wire as it is not needed in a simple 12 volt RV connection. You can run the wire directly from the battery terminals but you must add an in-line 20 amp fuse first. I used an empty fuse block space to connect my wiring thus eliminating the need for a separate in-line fuse. It was easy to add an automotive 20 amp fuse to make the circuit powered. 

( See the white wire to the empty fuse holder on the lower right?) The next thing is to decide where you want the switch located. I ran the wire through the basement to a side compartment near the RV sewer discharge port. I then mounted the switch to the interior wall of the side compartment. The switch must be heavy duty enough the handle the amperage as well. Avoid using a switch that is rated less than 15 amps or you will create a bottle-neck that may cause the fuse to blow. Switches come in many sizes and shapes so choose one that can be easily mounted in a accessible place preferably near the macerator. One could mount the switch near the macerator but remember that it has to be easily reached to be turned off an on. These are photos of two different switches that will work.  From the switch I ran another length of wire to the macerator using quick disconnect spade plug connectors so I can unplug the macerator when I want to put it away. When the whole thing is disconnected, I put it into a pillow case or other container which manages the 3" hose and lets the stinky smell dry out.

I added a 3" clear angled connector with a cleanout hose connection so I could see when the hose was about empty and to make it easier to clean out the 3" hose before I take it off to put away.  

OK, so what is the bottom line? Why would I do this when I could use a simple 3" sewer hose at a dump station? OK. I could, that is if I want to hookup and tow the RV down to the dump station when the tanks get full. The basic fact is I'm lazy. I don't want to have to hookup and drag the RV down to a dump site every few days. So, I got a couple of blue buggy sewer tanks and put them on the back of my truck. Why not drag the blue buggy over to the dump station by hand? It's heavy! I tried it once and thought I was going to pop a hernia! I could have hooked it up to a ball hitch on the truck and tow it over, but I don't have a ball hitch! And, who wants to try and drive 1 mph to a dump station 5 miles away anyway? Trust me. Put it on the truck so you can carry it where you need to when you need to. A sewer tank that has a side discharge port makes it a little easier to dump at a dump station. They all come with a standard hose connection to connect the 3/4" hose to. I could connect the macerator to the blue buggy and pump it to the RV dump the same way if I want to but find it quicker and easier to still use the 3" Stinky Slinky to dump from the truck right now. If there is a line at the dump station it makes people happier if you can get in and out fairly quick.

Remember that all this 3/4" hose you will be carrying around is only for sewer dumping now. Don't use it for any other water use! Cap the hoses or screw the ends together after you have dumped them out to help keep your storage area clean. Don't connect them to any drinking water hoses. 

Most standard RVs don't come with a water connection in or near the sewer connection area.  I overcame this by adding my own water connection with simple compression fittings. Works great with no leaks. I can now use this even when I have no outside water connection to flush my tank and lines by turning on the onboard water pump.

Use a anti-siphon valve when connecting a regular water hose to rinse out the black tank. Here are pictures of how easy it is to connect an additional water line to the sewer clean out. I simply cut into an existing water supply line in the basement compartment in a convenient place to get to with some compression valve fittings. BINGO! you have an extra water line that you can use for all kinds of things. The water is supplied by the onboard 12 volt water pump and the onboard water tank. No need for a city water faucet if you are not hooked up!

Now, if I really wanted to get ambitious, I could make a Y connection in the 3" discharge hose and have the macerator on one side and the Sewer Solution on the other. I now boondock most of the time and need to use the macerator to pump the effluent into my sewage holding tanks on the bed of my truck. I see this as the main benefit of the macerator as I can pump waste into the tanks on the truck and take it to an appropriate dump site.  

I can also tank drinking water on the truck to the RV but that's another page. (In a separate tank of course!)

My next sewer project I will attempt to connect a separate gray water line from my gray tank to pump gray water to my commode. This will conserve our drinking water supply. Stay tuned!

       It's always good to know which way the wind is blowing when you fool around with the poop!