Hooking up to water/sewer

swimmer_spe wrote:
When you have hook ups for water and sewer:

1)Do you hook up direct to the water system or fill your tanks and drain it down?

You can do it either way.. When I was married we usually (Save for one CG) hooked up and used the park water.. At that one CG there was an issue with excessive chlorination of the city water. and I found that Fill and Use stored water fixed it (I have a bit of training that suggested it might work and it did). Once my wife died I kept using the Fill and drain method due to the other water concerns It worked very well for me.. So it depends on how much water you use and how often you change campgrounds.

2) Do you leave the sewer valves open or closed? What is the best way for it to properly drain?

Keep them closed till it's time to dump.
In the RV magazines you will see the ad for the useless black tank chemicals that show a "Stinky" rv with odor coming off the roof vent.

He's got his valves open.. Guarantee it.

swimmer_spe wrote:
When you have hook ups for water and sewer:

1)Do you hook up direct to the water system or fill your tanks and drain it down?

2) Do you leave the sewer valves open or closed? What is the best way for it to properly drain?

1) I hook to the city water..... but, I always turn it off when leaving the rv for any significant length of time. I started turning off the water after walking thru a CG and seeing a trailer with water pouring out the closed door, no one was there, we turned off the water, but the damage may have already been considerable.

2) Valves closed until ready to dump ( 2/3 or more full).... unless we are doing laundry, then the gray tank valve is kept open.

I like to hook up to city water, fill my tanks, turn off the water and use the water from the fresh water tank. Refill as necessary when the FW tank gets low. This keeps fresh, sanitary water in the FW tank and keeps that water fresh and drinkable at all times.
Dumping procedures have been discussed.

There are two sides to every discussion. We use the city water hookup. Some water in some areas has a high sulphur content. You generally don't figure that out until the trip after you have it in your system and you start running some hot water. Then you get the rotten egg smell.
It doesn't take all that long to open the drain on the water heater and drain out the sulphur water. But if you have an 80 gallon freshwater tank filled with it, you may be flooding your site or the neighbors site to get rid of the bad water.
I do my best to fill my fresh tank at home with my known good well water. Not always possible but I do it when I can.

Black and grey tanks, leave them closed until you need to dump. Dump black first, then grey.

1) We use the tank & pump. If there is a leak, that annoying pump noise becomes a warning. In the middle of the night, if you hear the pump kick over, it's time to find the leak. With the silent operation on city water, you may wake up with the plywood subfloor soaked thru. Also, if there is a dripping faucet, it takes a surprisingly short period of time to fill the gray tank and then it can overflow in the shower (if it's the toilet valve leaking...even worse).

2) Both closed until ready to drain. Particularly the black tank, when a solid deposit is made, you want it to stay afloat, not be stuck to the floor where it will build up into a pyramid of poo. When emptying, do the black first and then use the gray to flush any of the residue from the black out of the hose.

WNYBob wrote:
No and no

what??? there was two choices in both statements/questions.

huh....

I must be the only odd ball here???

I keep my sewer valve closed, but the grey valve OPEN.. I close it the day before we are packing up. Been doing it this way from day #1, about 35+ years ago with zero issues... No unwanted flies, or smells... That's why we have "P" traps

ford truck guy wrote:
huh....

I must be the only odd ball here???

I keep my sewer valve closed, but the grey valve OPEN.. I close it the day before we are packing up. Been doing it this way from day #1, about 35+ years ago with zero issues... No unwanted flies, or smells... That's why we have "P" traps

Gray is less critical as it doesn't have a lot of solids mixed in. But if I'm going out to drain the black, doing the gray at the same time isn't any burden and allows you flush any black residue out of the hose.

valhalla360 wrote:

ford truck guy wrote:
huh....

I must be the only odd ball here???

I keep my sewer valve closed, but the grey valve OPEN.. I close it the day before we are packing up. Been doing it this way from day #1, about 35+ years ago with zero issues... No unwanted flies, or smells... That's why we have "P" traps

Gray is less critical as it doesn't have a lot of solids mixed in. But if I'm going out to drain the black, doing the gray at the same time isn't any burden and allows you flush any black residue out of the hose.

agreed.. That's why I close the grey the day before leaving.. that allows at least 2 showers and other misc. grey water to accumulate in the tank to RINSE the tube after dumping black water

Same here with the gray. It really depends on how long I'm staying at that spot. If I'm just there for a few nights, then I leave it shut out of laziness.

And somebody else mentioned shutting off the fresh water valve at the spigot when leaving for the day. I do that too if we're going to be gone for a long time. It feels superstitious, especially since I never do that with the pump when we're boondocking.

So many of our rituals feel like the actions of superstitious natives, especially throwing chemical tabs down the toilet like virgins into a volcano. I quit that one years ago.