Grey valve open

Pipeman wrote:
I would like Mr. Spade to give his reasons for not leaving the grey water valve open.

Here's just a couple:

You are MUCH more prone to sewer gasses backing up into the RV if you leave a gate valve open all the time.

If the far end of the hose accidentally comes loose, you will be illegally dumping onto the ground.

I must admit a little bias here. I never make a full time connection to "city water" and therefore never have anywhere near the volume of discharge that others talk about, always being in "conservation mode" when it comes to water usage.

I'm with Korbe on this one. I got a stern lecture from a Florida State Park Ranger who caught my hose on the ground. Seems like FL has some particular rules about things, such as sewer hoses and they make good sense. I never leave mine out... after all, I'm on vacation, what else do I have to do? Looks like campfires are also out of the question too.

I leave mine open until the toilet starts to burp. I then close it to capture grey water to rinse the hose after black water dump. This is the way I do it and it works for me. I would like Mr. Spade to give his reasons for not leaving the grey water valve open.

So . . . The RIGHT ANSWER is "It all depends."

With that I am in agreement.

I keep mine open as well as we have a clothes washer to deal with.

I agree with Trackrig. We spend 3-4 months at a campground and empty black every 5-6 days at which time we hold our daily shower water to flush the sewer hose after closing the black valve. NEVER have both valves open together - black could backup into grey tank...just saying. Soapy water from dish washing does wonders for cleaning sewer hose.

In many of the processes of enjoying our RV's, all of us do things differently. And the answer is often in the middle of the extremes. That is why I will normally give my 2-cents worth on how I do something, and leave it up to the OP whether or not to use the information.

BTW, I put my sewer hose away after each dump because normally there is a neighbor's front yard adjacent to my sewer connection, I it's not the nicest view while RV'n. JMHO

We have a 50 gal black tank. If I left my grey tank closed, it would fill up many times more often than the black tank so I leave mine open. I shut it the night before I need to empty the black tank, do dishes that night, get up the next morning take showers, do morning dishes and wonder outside later in the day to empty both tanks and then leave the gray tank open again to repeat the process.

Depending on the size of both of your tanks and if you take showers in the RV, that will dictate how often you need to empty each tank and what course you want to take.

Bill

Can you....yes.
Should you......NO.

And what is going on with the black tank has no bearing on the right answer.

There are no "pros" except for being too lazy to go out and open the valve once a week or so......at the same time as you open the black valve.....which usually are side by side.

Yes BUT why not leave it closed so you will have water in it to flush out the drain hose after you dump the black tank??