Sewer System Questions

[Jason Wood]

Hi everyone...I'm hoping to get some more work done on the '74 Red Dale this weekend. I had an emergency pool pump issue that had to get fixed tonight since it's been 90+ the last two days. Anyway...I've been searching and searching for an answer to my question. The camper has a black water holding tank but no grey water tank. Is there a way  for me to plumb the grey water lines into the black water tank? As of now we would have to get a portable grey tank... and that seems like a PIA considering we have a black tank. Any thoughts or ideas...please let me know.

Thanks!

Jason

[John "T" Nordhoff]

  Sure, with the use of solvent welded (glue) plastic ABS drain and vent piping your grey water could be diverted into you black tank BUT I WOULDNT DO THAT IF IT WERE ME. Theres way more grey then black water used and thr usually small anyway black thank would fill too quick. Id find a place to mount a grey only tank if it were mine and then plumb its output to a 2 way dump slider valve with the 1 1/2 piping for grey and 3 inch for black dumping.

 

 This isnt rocket science (solvent welded pipe you can cut with a hacksaw) but all has to have the proper drain slope and tanks need to be vented 

 

 On my Class C Ive added an extra 40 gallon grey tank and an extra 10 gallon black tank under her belly between frame rails plus an added 80 gallins of fresh water holding tank, but that was somework grrrrrrr but since we dry camp a lot on BLM and Natl Forest camps I wanted enough water and holding and battery and solar power for at least 8 days.......

 

 John T

[Richard W. Cobbs]

It depends on what type of camping and how many people will be using the facilities.  I agree with John,that the grey water amounts to much more than the black.  I am in a different situation than most campers.  I am permanently parked on my own land in Nicaragua!  I built a small septic system that I use for black water.  My toilet is an 1970 Mansfield china bowl 910.  This unit comes with a flush valve and hemispherical dump valve.  I found that it used a lot of water and didn't flush all that well, so I disabled the flush system and installed a kitchen sink sprayer at my bathroom sink adjacent to the toilet.  I installed a sink washer in the spray head that covers most of the holes in the head and now it sprays a powerful 1/8" stream about 15'  This uses very little water and cleans quite well.  In my situation, I drain the grey water on the ground.  Hey, it's my land, and it's Nicaragua!  In your situation, I would probably try the portable tank until I was sure what my best solution would be.  Good Luck, RWC

[Tim Dailey]

Hi Jason,

I think my 72 Winnebago might have had the same setup as yours.   I had only a black water tank, no gray tank.   The black water had a valve, then it went into a Y where the gray water joined the system.     If you shut the black water valve off, the gray water would just divert out the bottom of the Y and dump onto the ground.   Back in the 70s when people were more normal it was perfectly acceptable to allow your gray water to drain out onto the ground, so the manufacturers didn't include a gray water tank.   

The previous owner of my 72 kinda had a quick fix that worked well.   They just installed another hand valve at the exit of the Y.   This way you could open the original black water valve but shut off the valve after the Y allowing your to share your gray water with your black water tank.

[Jason Wood]

Thanks for the input! Seems like the portable route is the easiest at this point. I'll roll with that until we get a few trips under our belts and see how much grey water we actually generate. There's four of us but we probably won;t shower in the camper very much...we usually camp at campgrounds with bath houses etc. Thanks again!