MapNerd
RVF 1K Club
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2019
- Messages
- 2,298
- Location
- Prince William, VA
- RV Year
- 2020
- RV Make
- Newmar
- RV Model
- Ventana 4326
- RV Length
- 43
- TOW/TOAD
- 2020 Ford F-150
- Fulltimer
- Yes
Noticed a few days ago that our grey tank has started draining much slower. Not sure what happened and I haven’t made any plumbing changes yet (wet bay project). Usually when I pull the gate, there’s a huge blast of grey water and the clear elbow is just completely full, draining as fast as it possibly can but in the last few days, I’ve noticed that that’s not happening anymore and I only see about 1/2 the volume draining and it takes much longer to dump. Black is completely fine and operating as expected.
Obviously it sounds like a blockage but we don’t put any kitchen scraps or grease down the drain so I don’t know where a blockage would have come from.
Unfortunately in all their wisdom, Newmar decided not to put in a tank rinse valve in the grey tank on the Ventana. I'd been expecting to install one myself as part of my yet, mostly unstarted wetbay project and requested a 4326 tank diagram from Newmar so I could plan that part of the project out. I was kind of dumbfounded by what I got back.
It wouldn't have occurred to me in 1,000 years that the Grey and Black tanks would be designed into sections that are split by the frame rails like that. What a poor design decision! There could be a good reason for it but this simply does not compute in my feeble mind.
Now, I've designed zero recreational vehicles so I feel very well qualified in saying this, but in looking at the tank design the only proper way to install a grey tank rinse is to have 3 rinse valves run in series, one for each tank section. That's doable for the tank sections on each end but there's not really a good way to access the center tank section. I'm slim but not that slim.
The even more confusing thing is that Newmar easily could have put the fresh water tank between the rails instead. A fresh water tank should never have any kind of debris in it so splitting it into sections across the chassis rails like that would be a nonissue. Debris is to be expected in black and to lesser extent in grey as well. So why create choke points like that? They could have also installed a drain in each tank section and run those in series all the way to the gate to avoid this issue, but didn't do that either. The whole thing makes no sense to me.
Anyway, back to the issue at hand. Anyone have any thoughts on my slow draining grey tank and how I might get it back to normal without creating a disgusting mess?
Obviously it sounds like a blockage but we don’t put any kitchen scraps or grease down the drain so I don’t know where a blockage would have come from.
Unfortunately in all their wisdom, Newmar decided not to put in a tank rinse valve in the grey tank on the Ventana. I'd been expecting to install one myself as part of my yet, mostly unstarted wetbay project and requested a 4326 tank diagram from Newmar so I could plan that part of the project out. I was kind of dumbfounded by what I got back.
It wouldn't have occurred to me in 1,000 years that the Grey and Black tanks would be designed into sections that are split by the frame rails like that. What a poor design decision! There could be a good reason for it but this simply does not compute in my feeble mind.
Now, I've designed zero recreational vehicles so I feel very well qualified in saying this, but in looking at the tank design the only proper way to install a grey tank rinse is to have 3 rinse valves run in series, one for each tank section. That's doable for the tank sections on each end but there's not really a good way to access the center tank section. I'm slim but not that slim.
The even more confusing thing is that Newmar easily could have put the fresh water tank between the rails instead. A fresh water tank should never have any kind of debris in it so splitting it into sections across the chassis rails like that would be a nonissue. Debris is to be expected in black and to lesser extent in grey as well. So why create choke points like that? They could have also installed a drain in each tank section and run those in series all the way to the gate to avoid this issue, but didn't do that either. The whole thing makes no sense to me.
Anyway, back to the issue at hand. Anyone have any thoughts on my slow draining grey tank and how I might get it back to normal without creating a disgusting mess?