Dump techniques....

Forgive me, one more request. I can only find a single time I have replied to MargaretB this year. Foolishly I didn't remember what thread it was and copy it... please let me know what I said that was disparaging to her so that I can review that as well.

Oh yea, to answer your question... the kiddo's are napping and its too hot outside today to do yard work. Its nice and cool in the living room with the ceiling fan on, that provides me plenty of time to peruse the internet and type.

I have a reat black tank dump connection for the rear bathroom and sink. I also have a forward common dump port for the main black tank, and the two grey tanks.
I have the clear 'tank flush' attachment, which I think is useless to flush with.

I always prep my rear black tank by running the sink for a bit to fill the tank up. I'll run the toilet for a few min to add more water if needed for the forward black tank.

Driving to the dump site helps loosen up the nasty stuff.

Fast dump if people in line, I will hook up the back and dump the back tank (black). I'll then hold my breath and switch the hose to the forward dump connection. I'll empty the main black tank, then both the grey tanks at the same time.

Slow dump.. Same, but I use the intank flushing system (spinners) until the water is mostly clearish.

Usually its easier to empty fuller tanks as they sweep the gobs of goo out faster.

2012Coleman wrote:
You are one of the biggest contributors to the "level of discourse on this site". You have made several assumptions about my procedure at the dump station and have made disparaging remarks about me as well.

Please enlighten me as to where I made disparaging remarks about you. I would like the opportunity to review them and decide if an apology is necessary. I still maintain the fact that having a little bit of common courtesy and respect for people around you could go a long ways.

spoon059 wrote:

2012Coleman wrote:
The "all about me syndrome" also applies to the hotheads in line - doesn't it? I'm not intimidated by it. If there is a line, either wait patiently in line or check out earlier. What a stupid thing to get aggravated over.

No, not really. You see, the difference is that the guy (perhaps you?) who says "Screw everyone else, I'm going to do whatever I need to do" is being selfish. Its no different than parking in the only open gas pump and going inside to do your grocery shopping for the month. Its selfish and ignorant to people around you.

The guy that is the "hothead" in line is someone who is aware that there are other people in the world besides him. He is usually the guy that will go a quick drain of the tanks and be on his way.

There is a gorgeous park that we go to at least once or twice every year. Its on a beautiful lake, we get lake front sites. They are spectacular. It can hold 250 campers, and in nice weather it is packed. Because its on a lake, no full hookups and only 4 dump stations.

Lets do the math, lets say that 90% of the park is used by campers with waste tanks. That's 225 trailers that need to dump when they leave Sunday. Checkout is 11am. That means that 56 trailers will need to use each dump station. At 23 minutes per trailer to empty, that's going to take over 21 hours PER DUMP STATION for everyone to get through.

Now, lets assume that not everyone leaves Sunday, maybe only 50% of the campers (VERY low estimate, but easier math) leave Sunday. Now its still going to take over 10 hours for everyone to dump. That means that someone is going to have to break camp at 1am to ensure that everyone has time to dump before the 11am checkout time.

Does it make sense to you yet why it is considered rude and ignorant to take your sweet time dumping your tanks? If everyone acted like YOU, most people could never go camping. After all, what is the sense in going camping for the weekend if you need to leave at 1am to ensure you get your tanks dumped in time to leave by checkout?

Oh... let me guess. You are probably retired, or else you have some way that you don't just do weekend camping. Maybe you even look down upon those of us that can only weekend camp. If that's you, I hope you remember that without the crowd that likely only camps a couple weekends a year, there would be significantly less campers out there. That means significantly less people to pay for camping. That means significantly less campgrounds open to people that don't just do a couple weekends and an occasional weeklong trip.

You see 2012coleman, there are in fact other people in the world. If you look behind you while you are polishing your tanks at the dump station, you might even see them. If perhaps you had a little more consideration for the people around you, maybe the world would be a slightly better place. Growing up I remember campers being such nice people. People you had never met before saying hello to you, asking you where you are from and where you are headed. My dad would take a drink over to the neighbors site and talk shop with the stranger. It was a community back then.

From the level of discourse on this site and the obvious lack of civility some people claim they have, it makes me miss those days of camping. People were accountable for themselves and their children. People looked out for each other and took the opportunity to be pleasant rather than say "SCREW YOU, I'LL TAKE AN HOUR CLEANING MY TANKS IF I WANT TO..."

I just hope that I am not stuck behind you at the dump sites. You see, I have a 2 year old and 6 month old and I work Monday thru Friday. I enjoy taking my kids out camping like my dad took us out camping. The kids wake around 7:30 or so. By the time we eat breakfast, clean up, take showers, walk the dogs, break camp and get to the dump sites... its been a couple hours. Then I have to drive home and get the kids down for a nap if at all possible. Then we have to park the trailer and empty out our supplies and clean the trailer for the next trip. You see... there is more going on in the world than your simple arrogant attitude that says I need to deal with your timetable and mine doesn't matter.

All it takes is YOU (amongst others) having just a little bit of respect for someone else to make the world just a little more tolerable. I really hope that perhaps you (amongst others) consider this post the next time you decide to turn the dump station into your personal camp site next time.

Have a great weekend, I hope you have the chance to be camping. Me... I'm too aware that there are other people in the world besides me, I'll be helping my dad do some maintenance on his house. Its the least I could do for the man that taught me to appreciate the great outdoors and to have a little respect for the rest of mankind.

You are one of the biggest contributors to the "level of discourse on this site". You have made several assumptions about my procedure at the dump station and have made disparaging remarks about me as well. You do this to other posters as well - MargaretB as a recent example. I'm not sure where you find the time to write such long winded posts filled with assumptions seeing so much of your time is taken up with family and work. The thing they say about assumptions holds very true in your case.

I wait my turn to dump my tanks. When it's my turn, I dump and flush the black tank. Maybe you and others have a way to do this elsewhere, but most don't. If you were in back of me, I'm sure that no matter how long I took, it wouldn't be fast enough for you. My simple statement that riled you so much is that I simply don't care. Sit there and get cranky, and then rant about it on the forum.

When I go camping, I assume that people will be dumping and flushing their tanks upon departure. I also assume that there will be people that will get mad because I'm flushing my tank. I assure you that I don't take any more time than you would. It doesn't bother me that some people may take longer. And I'm not going to rush things because your getting angry. It doesn't make sense to get all hot and bothered for the drive home - at least to some of us.

Maybe instead of getting angry, offer your help - just like the days of old you mentioned - or was that just fluff??? Probably fluff...

Feel free to block me - better yet, PLEASE block me.

What some folks don't know is that there are many different configurations and dimensions of black tanks out there. Some drain super easily and some are super hard. To say that some are being way too anal isn't fair.

We have one of the super hard ones and it is mandatory to get the tank spotless inside when breaking camp otherwise there is a problem with the tank building up a pyramid of poop too soon and we don't get enough use out of the tank. The first thing I do when breaking camp is pull the black tank handle. I use our tank rinser for around 10-15 minutes and if not enough, will fill the tank, dump and do another round with the flusher. Besides seeing what's coming out the clear elbow, I know the tank is clean when I can look down the toilet and see that the bottom is spotless along with droplets of yellow ABS glue. Even then, there still could be slime at the curb and street sides of the tank that the flushing process can't clean off. Getting the tank well cleaned helps reduce false readings but not necessarily eliminate them.

Wouldn't want to have to do this process at a dump station tho.

On our first TT, all we did was a dump and a quick flush with the Valterra backflush elbow and that was all that was needed. Never ever had an issue with that tank. Ever. Now it's the opposite with our KZ TT.

itguy08 wrote:
The hose at the dump station had its end cut off so I don't know how I would have used that for much of anything.

I think they do that, so we don't take a long time flushing tanks. I've seen this at most all dump stations I've been to. (not many)

Wishbone51 wrote:

itguy08 wrote:
...hooked up the outside shower hose to the black tank flush and let that run for a minute or 2 (wanted to empty the fresh tank anyway).

Even though black tank flushes are supposed to have a back flow preventer, I wouldn't use a fresh water hose to connect to anything near the black tank.

Your shower hose is a regular hose thread? Mine isn't.. Same as the interior shower hose.

Our outside shoer hose is a blue coiled hose that has a quick connect on one end and a regular garden hose end on the other. It also came with one of those garden hose sprayers. The only thing it can attach to is the outside shower. The only thing I'd ever use it for is the outside shower.

I just disconnected the garden hose sprayer and put it into the black flush port and turned the outside shower on. Let it run and then turned off and disconnected. Put the sprayer back on and used it to hose everything off.

The hose at the dump station had its end cut off so I don't know how I would have used that for much of anything.

itguy08 wrote:
...hooked up the outside shower hose to the black tank flush and let that run for a minute or 2 (wanted to empty the fresh tank anyway).

Even though black tank flushes are supposed to have a back flow preventer, I wouldn't use a fresh water hose to connect to anything near the black tank.

Your shower hose is a regular hose thread? Mine isn't.. Same as the interior shower hose.

Had our first trip in our first RV this weekend. No were hookups so we used the tanks. Got in Friday night and left Sunday morning. Ended up with 2/3 full on all tanks - black, gray1, and gray 2.

Used the first dump station today too. Pulled in, put the disposable gloves on, got the cheap hose the RV came with (didn't want to use my Rhinoflex). Stuck the raw end int the dump hole. Connected the bayonet and let her rip. When it slowed to a trickle, hooked up the outside shower hose to the black tank flush and let that run for a minute or 2 (wanted to empty the fresh tank anyway). Listened to it trickle and then dumped the gray. Moved on to Gray 2 and then had the wife put 2 or 3 bowl fulls into the black.

Hosed down the hose and into the bumper it went. Hosed off the ground quick and away we went. Probably 15 minutes total.

When we got home, dropped the enzyme treatment into the bowl and off to storage she went. Will pull it out next weekend for more fun.

It's a tank full of poop and dirty water - never going to be spotless.

wbwood wrote:
It's not a race. Dump and clean your tanks to your liking. Be mindful if you have traffic behind you waiting.

This is the best advice for dumping at a dump station.
However, the OP was not really about dumping at a dump station, but rather at a full hook-up site and getting the tanks clean enough while doing so.
It is nice to get a few different ideas of how to do it or what all is involved in the process.
Funny how somethings don't just pop into my head about this, like putting water back in the tank after the dump... makes total sense but not something I would have thought of.
I also always thought the tank had to be, though not spotless, free of debris for fear of unpleasant odors, and since I cannot see into the tank it is hard to know when to stop.

The best thing about this forum is that it is for beginners to ask about things that may not come naturally to them. It is great to have so many different possible ways to solve or resolve a problem.