Open Tanks with no worries

Pulling a lever once a week is ok with me. Could upgrade to electric and if we were sitting in one spot I'd plumb it like a house and not bother with the tank.

We full-time and aside from these P.O.S. Drainmaster electric dump valves I'm unfortunately stuck with I manage our three tanks with no problems, much like previous posters Frau Blücher and I know when to dump the black tank by the way the toilet operates and we leave our two gray's open all the time, we've done this for years with perfect success so why try to re-invent the wheel,if it ain't broke,,leave it be!!

Red Green:
So remember,If women don't find you handsome,
they can sure find you handy.

In an effort to keep this simple:
I'm not trying to sell to the masses, or even to anyone on this forum. I'm certainly not inventing a robot that will do your dishes or clean your windows.
Let's say, if you're lucky enough to pull into a park and someone was there who offered this service and had the time, would you like to never worry about your tanks again. I think people that RV grow used to certain tasks that go with the lifestyle, but we don't have to. Pulling a lever is easy, sure. But when a grey or galley tank fills up at the wrong time, or a black tank burps odor, I would have to put on shoes, walk out in the heat, rain, ice, or dark, to dump, go back a little later to close it. It was an annoyance. Now, I don't ever have to think of it, and I LOVE it. It does work VERY well. Maybe new RVers would like it because they haven't grown accustomed to the ever present duty of managing their doody. I forgot to mention, I also haven't needed any tank chemicals since March, not a hint of odor or build up.
darsben-I've owned several businesses, so you're not thinking of anything revolutionary. I have a job, so this would not be full time or to make a living. What do we get when we assume?
dahkota-The bulk of the unit is another water hose, and it adds less than 5min to setup after your first time.
I've only shown it to a few people, and they're blown away at how convenient it is. $200 is just a range to give an idea so we know we aren't talking about a $20 or $2000 fix. Custom fits would obviously have to be taken into consideration. I also custom fit my other hoses, so my entire system very tidy. Extension hoses are stowed away if needed, but the common use hoses are only as long as they need to be.
Thanks to those with open minded input.

BarbaraOK wrote:
Well we park for months at a time and can leave the grey tank open all of the time and not worry, so you really are talking about a way to leave the black tank open, correct? $200 - for that I can walk out and pull the lever once every two weeks (we have 80 gallon black tank) - since we are about the place anyway, a simple pull doesn't seem that hard. In fact, after 8 years on the road, I'm still trying to figure out why everyone has so much trouble with their tanks. We seldom look at the gauges - 10-12 days for the black tank, about 6 days for the grey when using the w/d and often just leave the grey open until the day before I dump the black tank.

Barb

I agree! That is basically what I did for the 5 years I lived full time in my motorhome.

If your system used standard electric valves to open and close via a timer, then it seems like it is doing what I did manually, but from a week long timer. I don't know that I would pay $200, mainly because I would need to reset the timer each time I Started staying more than a month in one location. Yet I would not want the dump valves to open while I am driving, the next time I removed the valve cap, and hook up my blue hose, I would not want a pint of black stuff from a open valve sitting there.

I do not find it that difficult to open the valves once or twice a month. Some will like the system.

I read one post many years ago, about a person asking for a combination hookup. Basically a one port thing, with sewer line, water line quick connect, and 50 amp plug that all fit into one cartridge, that mates up with a standard item built into the ground at the RV park.

I don't think that idea would have worked in part because I believe in separation of sewer and fresh water. . . Keeping the electricity away from water is something that others would want to avoid too! Even thought it was a "Good idea" - in reality it would not work at all.

Good luck with your idea! I have a plan to filter out the sun using a LED screen above the driver, but the development costs will be over $10,000! So that project stays in the drawer until I have a lot more money to develop the project!

Fred.

puertotommy wrote:
othertonka:
If there were interest, I would custom fit an RV for about $200. Part cost would be about $100. I'm not talking about mass producing, it's a time consuming job for each rig.

So the customer has to come to you. DO you have facilities to handle the customers? Are you near the interstate or will they have to get off the beaten track.
I assume you will do more than one a day as you are only making about $100.00 per unit.
SO a customer comes to you. There is sewage in the tank. Where does it get dumped? Where does the customer stay till you are ready for the rig.
What will you do about insurance? You will be working on expensive rigs. At some point someone will have a problem with your equipment or you may make a mistake and then what will happen?

Personally I cannot see you making a living at $200.00 a rig.
A better bet would be to patent the idea then approach companies about licensing to use/install your product. Might be a nice option for RV dealers to offer as a dealer option.

We spend more time doing dishes, cleaning windows, vacuuming, cleaning the toilet, etc. than we do dumping the tanks. In fact, dumping the tanks is probably the easiest task we have to accomplish.

It takes 10 minutes, from pulling the hoses to storing the hoses, to dump the tanks. If they were already hooked up because we were staying awhile, it would take 5, and most of that is waiting for water to drain. And that is once every 3-5 days. How long does it take to set up and break down your contraption? How much does it weigh? How much storage space does it take up? If all of those are minimal, minimal enough to offset the cost, then it might be worth looking into. Otherwise, it is just another gimmicky 'tool' that ends up deep in the recesses of the storage bin.

Well we park for months at a time and can leave the grey tank open all of the time and not worry, so you really are talking about a way to leave the black tank open, correct? $200 - for that I can walk out and pull the lever once every two weeks (we have 80 gallon black tank) - since we are about the place anyway, a simple pull doesn't seem that hard. In fact, after 8 years on the road, I'm still trying to figure out why everyone has so much trouble with their tanks. We seldom look at the gauges - 10-12 days for the black tank, about 6 days for the grey when using the w/d and often just leave the grey open until the day before I dump the black tank.

Barb

othertonka:
If there were interest, I would custom fit an RV for about $200. Part cost would be about $100. I'm not talking about mass producing, it's a time consuming job for each rig.

LakeN- You can't accomplish this with anything currently on the market. Up to three tanks flush/suck into the one sewer connection with no effort other than hook up and pack up.

Without telling us more details how it works, most people on this forum have a good working knowledge of sanitary systems and with more details could probably give some advice on if it will work. I for one would not pay $200.00 for such a device especially if each RV would have to be individually fitted. Who would do the fitting?