Rinse hose at dump station has no threads

Old-Biscuit wrote:
Couple of reasons for hose at dump station to have end cut off:

1) Folks hook it up to black tank flush and spend WAY too much time flushing while others are waiting to dump

2) Folks hook it up to black tank flush and spend WAY too much time flushing while others are waiting to dump


Hose is just for rinsing dump hose/fittings and surrounding area if mess is made

NOT for flushing tanks.

It's a dump station.........pull up/dump/GO!

X2! and Flushing your black tank is an An@l Compulsive behaviour that is totally unnecessary if you use your tank properly...ie do not leave it open, let the tank fill to full then empty.

My tank is slow draining, maybe others are as well. If there are no folks behind me I end up back flushing as I do not have the sprayers in the tank like some others.

My concern is the solids getting out.

I make note that there are some truck stops with dump stations, you can take care of business there and yet it does cost but I never had a line behind me.

Clearly the word of a state bureaucrat is almost as good as the words of God almighty. The only issue is that he made it perfectly clear that he either misunderstood your question, never camped a day in his life, or (most likely) is clueless. The "tower" he refers to is the device with the spring loaded wand attached. IT comes from the factory with a small brass nozzle. It DOES NOT have hose threads as it is designed to be used for rinsing the stinky slinky and cleaning the area, if you spill. The tower is designed to prevent cross contamination by having a very short hose that does not reach far, it prevents the nozzle from laying on the ground if dropped by an inconciderate user, and it does not have hose threads to prevent it from being used to fill fresh water tanks. Tower rinsers are NOT designed for tank flushing.

As fla-gypsy and many other experienced and seasoned members have stated here, there is no need to rinse your tank after dumping. Do whatever blows your skirt up if you have nobody in line behind you, but don't waste others time take care of things that are a waste of time, and accomplish nothing, which unfortunately, is what many people do when dumping, line or not.

TucsonJim wrote:
It's just courtesy. If there is a line, get your tanks dumped, and move. If thee is no line, go about your business quickly. And if you really need to rinse the tank, check into a full hook-up RV park for the evening and use the dump and hoses on your site. You can take all the time you wish. But please make sure you do not contaminate the water system when you are hooking up to it or rinsing your stinky slinky.

My grey tank drains slow. I can hook up the black tank hose while the black is draining. Then when the grey is draining I run the black tank rinse. It doesn't take any more time except for disconnecting the black tank rinse hose. I see guys fumbling with their **** doing non essential things all the time. I can get my tanks dumped faster than most that don't rinse. I may only get about 3-4 mins of rinse but it's better than nothing.
We travel mostly in the mtns and there's no rest areas with dump stations.

This forum is the only place I've experienced anger at people who rinse their black tanks. My take on it is that since I can't do it at home, and I'm not at a full hookup site, I'll have to do it on the way out. I have a clear elbow, and I can tell you that there is stuff left over in the tank after dumping - and don't tell me that I don't use enough water as the last thing I do before leaving is fill the tank from the toilet with water. I've waited for people doing this and people have waited for me. No one has ever gotten angry.

And because I use Florida State Parks very often, I decided to email them about it. Here is my question and their response:

2012Coleman wrote:
To: FSP.Feedback
Subject: RV Dump stations at state parks



I was wondering if rinsing out your black tank while making use of a dump station in a Florida state park is something that is frowned on, or if it was something that I'm not supposed to do.

The question came up because many of the camp grounds I use have a hose at the dump station, but the threads are cut off which makes it impossible to hook a hose to it and use a wand to flush my tank.

I do not have the facilities to do this elsewhere.

Thank you for your time.

FlStateParks wrote:

Good afternoon,



Thank you for your e-mail pertaining to dump stations in Florida State Parks. At most of our locations we have a water tower located at the dump station. The purpose is for our guest to be able to rinse out their tanks. Sometime with wear the nozzle assemblies will end up missing or no longer functional. If you have some parks specifically that have these missing, please let me know and I will be sure to notify them of the discrepancy. We do discourage guests from attaching their own hoses due to cross contamination.



Our intent is to ensure that we are meeting the needs of our visitors and it is through e-mails like yours that we are able to address these issues. We appreciate your inquiry and if you have any additional questions please feel free to contact me directly. Thank you for being a supporter of Florida State Parks.



Warren V. Poplin, Bureau Chief

Bureau of Parks District 1

Florida Department of Environmental Protection

4620 State Park Lane

Panama City Florida 32408

(850)233-5110

Bold text by me. I don't agree that there is no need to rinse your black tank. Notice I said rinse. There have been times where I was in a hurry and didn't rinse, but did so later and chunks of stuff came out. So I'm going to do it. You don't need to scold me about how I'm somehow being rude or careless, nor mention my upbringing. Dump stations exist to service your tanks and the state park system in Florida agrees. I'm sure you anonymous posters in the RV.net wolfpak will pounce like you have been this entire thread but you mean nothing to me. I'm positive I'll never run into you in real life, and If I did, I'm sure I'd give you a friendly wave before driving off. I have a system down and can do it efficiently - I don't mess around, and I'm done quickly.

Happy Camping/dumping everyone.

Tincan Annie wrote:
Thanks. I just ordered the water bandit.
I had no idea you aren't supposed to rinse out your black water tank at a dump station. I thought everyone rinsed. Do you wait to rinse at home? But what if you are on the road for weeks at a time? Wouldn't your rv just start to stink? Well, explains the lack of threads.
I do have a hose that I can use, but I actually couldn't get the NFS campground hose off to put mine on. I was camping alone that time AND it was pouring down rain so I gave it a few tries and left (and lived with a stinky rv for awhile since I can't rinse at home.)

If your RV stinks you need to fix whatever is wrong with it. You should never get odors inside except for the brief instant you flush the toilet.

Tincan Annie; welcome to the forum! Don't let those who seem to be know it alls distract you. There are good reasons they don't have connectors on them as some have already pointed out. What you will learn quickly is there is a lot of people out there who are extremely rude at a dump station. Making others wait while you rinse your tank is not acceptable to most people. Along with what is already been pointed out some idiot would surely use unsafe water for some other purpose if given an opportunity. While the person that instructed you believed passionately in what they told you that doesn't make it the truth. Rinsing a black water tank is kind of pointless and designed for the terminally OCD. I have never rinsed a black water tank in 20+ years of camping and never had any issues.

TucsonJim wrote:
It's just courtesy. If there is a line, get your tanks dumped, and move. If thee is no line, go about your business quickly. And if you really need to rinse the tank, check into a full hook-up RV park for the evening and use the dump and hoses on your site. You can take all the time you wish. But please make sure you do not contaminate the water system when you are hooking up to it or rinsing your stinky slinky.

All with you on the courtesy to others thing,, but if it adds five minutes and I have two 35 gallon holding tanks,, should a class A with two 50 gallon tanks cut it short and get out of my way? Whats five minutes?? And if there is no line,Go about your business quickly?
Why?? What If I am learning?? what if I am trying something different? If we are all at FHU then there is no LINE so your argument is mute!

Oh man,, what if I gotta pay to use the dump?? I still gotta hurry?

And by the way,, whats the hurry?? You that excited to get it flowing?
They are new to this whole thing and asked a question,, Are you gong to blow a cork and flip out on them if they are trying to figure out the whole dumping process? I personally get a kick out of reminiscing of my first time when I get behind some one who's trying to figure it out..
Maybe lend a hand,, offer some short cuts,, isn't that what we do as fellow campers??
My wife gets mad when I don't look away and laugh at the white knuckled flat eyed one in line next!! Thats when I will ask for a receipt!!

jake2250 wrote:

Tincan Annie wrote:

CavemanCharlie wrote:

Old-Biscuit wrote:
Couple of reasons for hose at dump station to have end cut off:

1) Folks hook it up to black tank flush and spend WAY too much time flushing while others are waiting to dump

2) Folks hook it up to black tank flush and spend WAY too much time flushing while others are waiting to dump


Hose is just for rinsing dump hose/fittings and surrounding area if mess is made

NOT for flushing tanks.

It's a dump station.........pull up/dump/GO!

Agreed.

I don't even have a black tank rinse. If no one is inline behind me I dump a couple of buckets of water down the toilet and go.

If there are other people behind me I dump and get out of their way.

I really just don't get why it is necessary to get your black tank so clean that you could do surgery in it. As long as the solids go out it is fine. To do that make sure you have enough water in the tank to make the solids move.

The black tank rinse thing is a gimmick that someone though up and now everybody thinks they need.

Mine smelled really bad when it sat around in our driveway for a couple weeks after I skipped the rinse. And I use those deodorizing things. Smelled like a porta-potty.

It helps to have a few Altoids to chew on when you dump! Remember,,, always Uphill and Up wind is essential!! Although the wife doesn't think its funny I have a clear 90 degree elbow at the pit!! But if you can't laugh at it,,, its not fun!!

Really, dumping is the weird. Our non-rving friends just go to hotel and sit on a toilet and never have to think about their poop again.

TucsonJim wrote:
It's just courtesy. If there is a line, get your tanks dumped, and move. If thee is no line, go about your business quickly. And if you really need to rinse the tank, check into a full hook-up RV park for the evening and use the dump and hoses on your site. You can take all the time you wish. But please make sure you do not contaminate the water system when you are hooking up to it or rinsing your stinky slinky.

Thank you. However, we are still working stiffs, at least partly, (about to semi-retire). When we spend 2 nights at an NFS campground at a lake we like to go to, there really isn't time to spend a night at a place with FHUs. The weekend is over and we have to go back to work and the trailer just sits there getting really stinky if we didn't get to rinse it. There aren't many FHUs around here anyway so you would have to drive an hour or two in a different direction to find one. We also don't have dump stations at rest areas. I can't figure out an alternative, which is why this conversation is a little confusing, I think you folks must live in areas with lots of FHUs, whereas we live in an area with a lot of NPS, NFS and state land, so we boondock or, if we are lucky have partial hookups. Sometimes we even find an NFS campground with both water and electric and think we are in a luxury resort.