? "Equalizing" Tanks?

I have 2 gray water tanks, one for the bath room and one for the kitchen, the bathroom gray water always fills up first....I would like to be able to have them EQUALIZE and not interfere with the black tank......The shower even with Navy showers always fills up first....

Just carry a 5 gallon bucket. Drain some grey water into the bucket. Poor the bucket into the toilet. Never a chance of cross contamination. 5 gallon bucket is cheaper than the twist on valve and can be used for other things. Depending on the size of the tanks, the Grey tank can be completely emptied this way.

My bathroom sink dumps into my black tank. Whenever I have extra water I dump in into the bathroom sink.

I have a small plastic tote. If I need to quickly wash something up I do it in the tote and then dump that in the bathroom sink.

After boiling some corn on the cob I dump the water into the bathroom sink.

I'm just a weekend camper. I almost always camp at places with no fresh water hook up. So I use my fresh water tank. I try to put as much of that water down the bathroom sink as I can.

That is how I equalize my tanks. Just put the same amount of water in both of them.

I have seen some setups where the gray tank had a drain, a screen, check valve, filter, then another check valve, so the owner of the rig could hit a button and move gray water to the black tank without it coming back. Since both tanks are the same size, it helped with the pressure of waste water, although once the black tank is filled up, vacation is over, period, while gray water can be dumped with the landowner's permission.

When emptying both tanks: I empty the black tank first, hook the tanks together using a closed Valterra valve (as shown in the link above), and then equalize the two tanks by routing the grey tank into the black tank. Then I open the Valterra valve to empty both tanks completely.

This way I flush/rinse the black tank nicely with grey water during each dump session so I don't have to use a water hose to do it - which saves others' time, too, when emptying while others are waiting at a dump station.

K3WE wrote:
I bet you're one of those posters here that say that water is all you need for a black tank treatment.

I try to avoid absolute statements, but after using tank treatments and then reading here, have found that "just water" is usually good enough.

...Use a twist on valve to give the black tank a quick rinse from the gray side???

That sounds reasonably efficient and another potential use for those nifty screw on valves.

I was more focused on the time we had water but no sewer and filled the gray side one day too soon.

I have not called it "equalizing" the tanks, but having the gray tank backflush the black is a nice way of "reusing" water without having to spend time and additional water to flush. I drain the black, flood it from the gray, close the gray, drain the black again, repeat once, then call it done. This gives me one useful flush about halfway into the black, and another that at least gets anything at the bottom of the tank.

It is a useful technique.

K3WE wrote:
This thread is progressing quite well, very much on schedule...

And we've even generated a new rule that we need to equalize our tanks, I can't wait for someone who asks if it's ok for them to NOT to equalize their tanks.

"Equalize" is not the goal...it's just the best you are going to be able to do if the gray tank is full and the black tank is not.

I guess some sort of fancy, overflow-with-backflow-protection system that automatically dumps extra gray water into the black tank would be slick...

I suppose you could drain gray water to a bucket and then dump it in the toilet...and I've read where other folks dump dish tubs into the toilet and bathroom sinks that go to the black tank.

..Or get a $15 twist-on valve if you are occasionally in an extended situation with plenty of water, but no sewer nor campground shower, no tote/dump station...You can get some extra gray water capacity by allowing the gray water to back-flow into the black tank (which normally fills at a much slower rate).

Gee, I just use my method to get a little extra water into the black tank when dumping. I bet you're one of those posters here that say that water is all you need for a black tank treatment.

This thread is progressing quite well, very much on schedule...

And we've even generated a new rule that we need to equalize our tanks, I can't wait for someone who asks if it's ok for them to NOT to equalize their tanks.

"Equalize" is not the goal...it's just the best you are going to be able to do if the gray tank is full and the black tank is not.

I guess some sort of fancy, overflow-with-backflow-protection system that automatically dumps extra gray water into the black tank would be slick...

I suppose you could drain gray water to a bucket and then dump it in the toilet...and I've read where other folks dump dish tubs into the toilet and bathroom sinks that go to the black tank.

..Or get a $15 twist-on valve if you are occasionally in an extended situation with plenty of water, but no sewer nor campground shower, no tote/dump station...You can get some extra gray water capacity by allowing the gray water to back-flow into the black tank (which normally fills at a much slower rate).

wa8yxm wrote:
I equlize the tanks the easy way....
While hooked to a proper sewer I dump the black tank to the hole in the ground.

Then I dump the gray

Thus equalizing both tanks at EMPTY.

How does that work for you when you're boondocking in a state or national forest and there's no "proper sewer" at hand? :R :B