Fresh water tanks

[Russellvh]

We move Park to Park varying times between 7 and 14 nights and with full hookups. I have gotten in the habit, laziness, of leaving my 2 grey tanks open until 2 - 3 days before I dump the black tank. Normally weekly depending on travel day. I be sure to have a couple of showers and a couple of days washing dishes saved in the grey tanks prior to dumping the black.

My wife read an article that this practice could cause tank “gunk” buildup, in the grey tanks, and eventually clog the water flow. Should I be concerned? How do you full-time travelers maintain your tanks? I don’t use the gauges because the “full” lights came on in all 3 tanks about the 5th day of our first use and remain showing full regardless of what we do. We even use Dawn exclusively for washing dishes but no help. I just use a calendar rather than the indicated lights.

 

[Webz]

We do a load of laundry every day as well as showers and run the dishwasher. Our tanks are emptied daily. I pull the black tank valve first and the grey tank while the black is draining. Been doing this 7 years now. Usually the tanks show 1/3 full.
A friend offered to clean my tanks so he could video it to use for advertising his service. I was watching the process.
After he was finished, he told me he could not use the video.
The video did not show any debris other than very few black specks.
On travel days, Dawn liquid soap and 4 to 5 gallons water are in the tanks. Been trouble free so far.

 

[Rich W.]

We all know about pyramiding in the black tank but I’ve never heard any reports of serious accumulation problems in a grey - nothing you can’t flush out anyway. When I got my coach (3 years old but had very little use) I flushed and rinsed the grey tank while going through all the systems and got what looked like a lot of wet black leaves out of it, but determined it was some sort of black algae that had been growing in there on the bottom of the tank for quite some time.

But even with that it couldn’t come close to plugging up a 2” drain line or fouling the dump valve. I can’t think of any way to clog up your grey tank with enough gunk to cause that sort of problem (unless you have 3/4” tank drain plumbing) and with a garden hose adapter you can easily back flush and rinse the tank, so I see no need to be concerned about it. Maybe a combination of showering off muddy kids, washing muddy laundry, washing dogs in the shower, and ramming excessive food waste down the sink? I wouldn’t do any of these but maybe some people do.

I use a little bleach periodically in the grey to keep things from growing in there and to prevent interior stink should the shower P trap go dry. I use a few scoops dishwasher detergent in a half full tank to try to keep the interior and sensors clean. Never regular dish or laundry soap because I believe its important to prevent sudsing (based on an unpleasant experience with same). That’s about it but as I type this, looking out at my sparkling clean pool, it occurs to me that a few ounces of granular pool chlorine might be useful too.

 

[team bradfield]

I've never heard of or experienced a gray tank buildup, we are very careful to keep all food particles out of the sink, dogs or muddy boot/shoes get washed with the outdoor shower.

 

[Diesel Pusher]

Generally, grey tank crud build up in my experience is pretty much a non issue, however, I did encounter a couple who did have drainage issues. It turned out they were dumping small amounts of food scraps down the kitchen sink, so it can happen.

 

[Rollin Ollen]

We move Park to Park varying times between 7 and 14 nights and with full hookups. I have gotten in the habit, laziness, of leaving my 2 grey tanks open until 2 - 3 days before I dump the black tank. Normally weekly depending on travel day. I be sure to have a couple of showers and a couple of days washing dishes saved in the grey tanks prior to dumping the black.

My wife read an article that this practice could cause tank “gunk” buildup, in the grey tanks, and eventually clog the water flow. Should I be concerned? How do you full-time travelers maintain your tanks? I don’t use the gauges because the “full” lights came on in all 3 tanks about the 5th day of our first use and remain showing full regardless of what we do. We even use Dawn exclusively for washing dishes but no help. I just use a calendar rather than the indicated lights.

We try to never dump until our tanks are full. If the black is full and they grey only partial, we fill the grey so that we always get a good flush. After the black has drained fully, I leave the gate open and open the grey gate for a few seconds. This gives the black a bit of a back wash. Once the back wash has drained I close the black and fully dump the grey. Just an FYI, Our coach is now 12 years old and our gauges work perfectly. We used to do what you are doing now and our tanks did gum up like yours have. Our gauges always read full too. Now, we give the black tank a healthy squirt of DAWN dish washing liquid, then add our "HAPPY CAMPER" bio degrader and about a gallon of water after every dump. We wipe our dishes to get rid of large food particles before they go into the dish water as well so the grey is pretty much just holding liquid and very little solids. We never travel with totally empty tanks anymore. We always make sure there is at least a gallon or two to splash around cleaning the tank walls. It may take a while for your gauges to read properly again depending on how long it takes to get rid of your sludge build up.

Safe travels

Darrell

Darrell

 

[Lil'Skeet]

We all know about pyramiding in the black tank but I’ve never heard any reports of serious accumulation problems in a grey - nothing you can’t flush out anyway. When I got my coach (3 years old but had very little use) I flushed and rinsed the grey tank while going through all the systems and got what looked like a lot of wet black leaves out of it, but determined it was some sort of black algae that had been growing in there on the bottom of the tank for quite some time.

But even with that it couldn’t come close to plugging up a 2” drain line or fouling the dump valve. I can’t think of any way to clog up your grey tank with enough gunk to cause that sort of problem (unless you have 3/4” tank drain plumbing) and with a garden hose adapter you can easily back flush and rinse the tank, so I see no need to be concerned about it. Maybe a combination of showering off muddy kids, washing muddy laundry, washing dogs in the shower, and ramming excessive food waste down the sink? I wouldn’t do any of these but maybe some people do.

I use a little bleach periodically in the grey to keep things from growing in there and to prevent interior stink should the shower P trap go dry. I use a few scoops dishwasher detergent in a half full tank to try to keep the interior and sensors clean. Never regular dish or laundry soap because I believe its important to prevent sudsing (based on an unpleasant experience with same). That’s about it but as I type this, looking out at my sparkling clean pool, it occurs to me that a few ounces of granular pool chlorine might be useful too.

Gentle on the pool chlorine. A lot harsher than bleach. It can be havoc on lost of metals, and fiberglass.

 

[Rosy]

I thought the other reason to keep your tanks closed until they're ready to dump was sewer gnats.