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Jmauseth's avatar
Jmauseth
Explorer
Aug 30, 2017

Stupidity leads to overflowing Grey Water inside trailer

This question is an admittance to stupidity but I blame it only on myself. Last weekend we were getting ready to wrap up a weekend, load and go home. I wanted some extra water in the grey tank to help flush the black since no showers so very little water in the tank. So I turned on the water in the bathroom sink while I did some tidy up of the bathroom. Then I took the dirty towels out to the truck sat down outside and had a little rest.

Wife asked me about 30 minutes later if the AC was still running and why was their water dripping from under the front storage and and not off the back as it usually did.

Instantly my worst nightmare I realized that I had left the water running and must have filled the grey water so it was now overflooring and flooding the trailer. I ran in turned off water and ran out and opened the grey water.... the water in the kitchen and bathroom was only about an 1/8th inch deep because, luckily I had a slope going forward towards the cap. problem was the floor was perfectly sloped that it ran right into one of the heater vents. The drip we noticed outside was right below this vent.

we did our best to vaccuum and mop with towels the water from the vent piping but no doubt missed several gallons that we couldnt get to. I hooked up and drove a little way down the road and parked the entire rig on a steep slope. Another gallon or two spilled out.

We asked the park owners if we could leave the trailer in the park for another week as the location was to be 100 degrees very low humidity for the entire week. Home it was to be cloudy. Thinking for $20 and the gas savings not pulling it home was well worth it.

So I parked, lowered the from legs so there was slope, opened vents and the windows on the shade side, opened curtains on sunny side, opened 2 DampRids and locked it up. I should note, there was no carpet affected and only a little bit of trim that got wet.So my guess is there is only water in the metal venting and no where else.

Do you think I did enough? what should i have done to get the moisture out of the floor vent system. will it dry being low humidity and 150-120 inside the trailer? what can i do if I start smelling odors down the road? Is the furnace okay to run when I visit the trailer this weekend and maybe dry it out a little more. Anything else you can extend?
This was just a stupid error of forgetfulness. It was so nice outside... good news I am NOT in the dog house and we have another reason to take the rig out this weekend.

Thank you for your help and well hopefully kind words and maybe admittance you did the same :-)

21 Replies

  • I did a similar stupid thing with our previous camper. The underbelly was that tarp stuff with insulation on the inside. Water headed right to the furnace air ducts, but also to the side of the trailer and, sure enough, the insulation on the underbelly was heavy as can be, saturated with water. What to do?

    I punched a couple holes in the underbelly material and let it drain and drain, and drain. Once the water slowed down to a drip, we headed home.

    Once home, I had to figure out a way to dry out the insulation under the floor.

    I ended up blocking the heat ducts on the floor of the camper, and actually bent one heat duct up so it would blow under the floor. I then covered the vent top side. I turned on the furnace full throttle and let it run for about 12 hours. I went through an entire bottle of propane, because the furnace never shut off. It just kept blowing hot air under the floor.

    I also made a bigger cut in the underbelly so air would flow out being forced in by the furnace.

    After about 12 hours, I could reach in thorugh all my holes and feel the insulation was dry. I think (If I remember), I let it blow another few hours the next day (on a second propane tank of gas now), until I felt the insulation, floor, and everything underneigh was 100% dry.

    I then had the task of taping up all those holes and then fixing the air duct in the floor again (that I ended up beating up pretty bad).

    In the end, it all worked out just fine. And we had the trailer another 7 years and THAT NEVER happened again!

    Bottom line: make sure the underbelly of your camper is dried out. Not just the inside where the living space is.