Twist-on sewer valves…

dedmiston wrote:
I'm OK with bleeding off some gray water into the bushes "in theory", but I've seen it go very wrong in practice.

I pulled up to a perfect campsite out in the desert once. It was just the right size for our group and there was a great fire ring. Unfortunately, the last campers had dumped their gray tank and destroyed that site for weeks.

They obviously didn't scrape their plates before they washed them, so their gray water was full of pasta, veggies, proteins, etc. The puddle they left behind smelled like hell and there was a cloud of flies, rendering the site useless.

I checked back on that site before we left at the end of our weekend and then checked it again when we were in the area a month later. The site still stank and it was still a playground for the weird alien bugs that live out in the deserts once it starts to warm up.

So bleeding off some of your shower water doesn't bother me as long as you do it slowly and let it seep into the ground in one spot. But pulling the dump handle and letting everything go (especially your nasty garbage if you don't know how to do dishes) makes you a pig who doesn't deserve to camp in the wild.

This is exactly why you don't dump your grey. It is not clean as some imply. Once it sits and stagnates in stinks! It's full of debris, it's anything but clean. But some dump it anyway.....Can't smell/see it from my house attitude.

Durb wrote:
The water levels will equalize. Above assumes both gray and black tanks are installed at the same level in the rig. A higher tank could drain all its fluid into a lower tank. My tanks are hidden and I don't know their relative heights. I'll open my tank valves separately as I don't want to risk chunks of sewage getting into my gray tank.

Yep. In my Airstream, the black tank sits directly above the grey tank. Equalizing the tanks would be a nightmare.

My guess is the leftover pasta and assorted food items mentioned in dedmiston's post were more likely from the previous user of the site scraping and cleaning their dishes into the firepit/ring their last night at the site so no campfire to burn up the waste, then washing them whether outside by whatever means or in their camper of some sort.

And if there is so much germ and disease in that grey water, and let's not be a jerk, responsibly dumped, then what would that say about the dishware we just washed with that same water? Whether the sink or shower, it's essentially soap and water.

Oh, on my two-month cross-country trip last Spring/Summer, the first campground we pulled into near St. Augustine, Fl, made the reservation on the road, I asked If I could pay an extra night's rate to be able to wash my motorhome and toad. Lady behind the counter says "I wondered why your rig is so dirty, I see you are from NY, No you don't have to pay extra, just wash it during the evening!" Washed our vehicles at least five more times on the trip at the campgrounds with permission!

lonewolf80 wrote:
I personally don't have a problem dumping some or all of my grey tank onto the ground. That water is cleaner than if I washed my RV and the residual water and soap run off.

lonewolf80 wrote:
My guess is the leftover pasta and assorted food items mentioned in dedmiston's post were more likely from the previous user of the site scraping and cleaning their dishes into the firepit/ring their last night at the site so no campfire to burn up the waste, then washing them whether outside by whatever means or in their camper of some sort.

And if there is so much germ and disease in that grey water, and let's not be a jerk, responsibly dumped, then what would that say about the dishware we just washed with that same water? Whether the sink or shower, it's essentially soap and water.

Oh, on my two-month cross-country trip last Spring/Summer, the first campground we pulled into near St. Augustine, Fl, made the reservation on the road, I asked If I could pay an extra night's rate to be able to wash my motorhome and toad. Lady behind the counter says "I wondered why your rig is so dirty, I see you are from NY, No you don't have to pay extra, just wash it during the evening!" Washed our vehicles at least five more times on the trip at the campgrounds with permission!

Wow, just...wow. Aside from the fact that dumping grey water is illegal in pretty much the entire country now, grey water is NOT "essentially soap and water". Food bits, grease from cooking, body oils, small amounts of fecal matter from showering... Pretty sure your rig's exterior doesn't include any of that, so washing your RV bears no resemblance to the grey water in your holding tank, and I can assure you that those same campgrounds that allowed you to wash your rig would NOT allow you to dump your grey water on the ground. Stored grey water stinks as bad if not worse than black water. Oh, and I know of no one who uses "grey water" to wash their dishware; it's only grey "after" washing dishes/bodies.:S

Lol! Wow! I figured this thread would be left for dead by now, but some of you fellers never cease to amaze me what you’ll bicker over!