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To Dump or Not To Dump?
Well, better said, when to dump. Here we are at Camp Gulf, oceanfront row and no sewer. We knew this when we made the reservation. After barely 1.5 days and having arrived here with empty tanks, My wife is getting paranoid and sees our tanks overflowing any minute now. I should add here, that our tank gauges are not working. So my question is, with 2 people on board and “normal” useage, how long would you go before you would call the honey waggon?
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16 Replies
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There are many variables, and only your personal experience will give you the proper answer.
1. Does your coach have one big holding tank or a seperate gray and black tank?. With one tank, it is usually big enough to hold everything your fresh tank has, so you will simply run out before you fill the holding tank, unless you connect to a city water supply. This you should not ever do if you have no sewer connection.
2. If you have a gray and a black, then in our experience, the gray always fills first. If your tank guages are not working the shower will fail to drain first, or the pan will start to fill with gray water . If you have a macerator pump, you can often simply pump the gray water into some nearby vegetation.
3. We are a couple and almost always are not connected to sewer. We go 4-5 days before needing to dump if we operate “normally”. We do not use dishweasher or washing machine. We take regular showers. If we know we will not have water and dump handy, we can operate in a more frugal mode, quicker showers make the most difference. But thruthfully, it is not hard to find a dump station. We rarely stay in one place for long, we have never had to call for a pumpout. Now, on the boat it is different!
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Ditto what Peter said, 4 – 5 days is not a problem for us.
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Ditto, ditto.
For peace of mind learn the capacity of your holding tanks. Then get in the habit of never filling the fresh water tank unless you dump the holding tank(s). Going further, if your fresh water capacity is greater than waste holding, limit the amount of fresh water you have in the tank to never exceed the waste capacity.
You may run out of water, but you won’t have any nasty surprises that way.
We adjust our habits based on our situation. We dry camped at the Daytona 500. We spent from mid day Tuesday until our return late on Monday. Water was available but no sewer. We cooked, showered, and used the toilet, but we conserved water by only flushing when (well you know)……., we showered by getting wet, shutting off the water and then soaping up, then turning it back on to rinse, and we drank booze instead of water. The point is we conserved and returned with 30% of our fresh water. When we have full hookups we do not conserve in that manner, but instead enjoy the luxury of always flushing and letting the water run while we shower. We still drink booze.
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Wll Jon, I believe you have earned a demerit for un-Prevost-like behavior. Admitting that you use the toilet but do not always flush! While that might be acceptable behavior in a Winnebago or some other plastic motorhome, it is not to be done in a Prevost. Remember the factory motto…..”the Ultimate Class”.
Please post an immediate apology and state that you will never do that again!
As an aside, I believe your post finally solves the age old argument about whether a single holding tank is better or dual gray and black tanks are better. Dual tanks wins, because we can use the toilet and flush every time and we will always fill the gray tank first from normal use. No worries about not flushing.
Not to mention, when we dump, black first, then the gray soapy water does a fine job of washing out the hose.
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An old adage comes to mind…..If its yellow, let it mellow, if its brown, flush it down! Hmmmmm
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Peter, If you look at Rodger’s post he said it best. Over the years the number of times we had to go into conservation mode can be counted on the number of fingers on one hand with a couple of them blown off. But we opted this last trip to do so although we did have water available and a honey wagon came through regularly. The problem was the honey wagon did not have the more upscale Thetford fittings, but had the rather plebian Valterra fittings found on less expensive coaches.
Anyway we dealt with our hardship of not having an available sewer quite well and lived to tell about it. You are absolutely correct in your observation that having gray and black tanks has a benefit. As long as normal usage does not cause one side or the other to overlfow before the coach’s water supply runs out.
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Jon,
Tut tut where is the apology requested above.
The Prevost Community does have some standards you know!
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I cannot offer an apology because if on a future trip we find ourselves lacking a sewer connection it is likely we will do the same thing. To say I am sorry would be lying.
Peter, don’t you have a colony of moles to feed or something?
BTW, how about posting photos of your car carrier. I’ll bet there is interest here.
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What are up scale sewer connection? Photos please.
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Ask and you will get a response……………..
http://www.rvpartscenter.com/prodselect.asp?SID=19&DID=10&CID=414
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When in Rome do as the Romans do.
We can easily last 4/5 days without doing laundry.
The washing machine is the water hog.
JIM
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Hey Jon, I thought a new site with the highest of standards would not draw as much incoming fire as the old site, but I am totally WRONG. Try to teach people the tricks to semi dry camping and look what you get !!!!. By the way on your next dry camp run (in case u didn’t know) if u drink enough, you’ll just pass out therefore the bath room want be needed or you’ll just open the front door and have at it!
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