White hose and black tank flush?

From what I know: It isn't about germs, it is winding up with enough germs that one's immune system cannot fight them all.

One doesn't need a full Tyvek NBC suit to empty the waste tanks, and if one is confident that the check valve and the tank not being full is fine, that is their prerogative.

It is about diminishing returns. I wear gloves, but I don't bother rinsing out the slinky, as that is what the gray water tank is for.

Because I use a macerator pump with my current rig, I have three sets of hoses. A white hose for filling up the fresh water tank and for city water hookups. A green hose for backflushing. Then, I have a black rubber hose that has clearly marked on it from the factor, "NOT FOR POTABLE WATER", which I use for the macerator pump's discharge hose. The green and the white hose can be interchanged with low risk of contamination, but are stored in different tubs. The black hose is stored in the bed of my truck, while the other hoses are in tubs inside the TT's storage compartment. Nothing is fool-proof, but this at least adds some obvious obstacles in the way of using the wrong hose, so the chance of brown water in the FW tank is low.

Too funny.. :)

A potable water hose should be treated differently. Ends should not be allowed to touch the ground and pick up bacteria. I keep our ends together and store the hose in opposite side of pass-through where the sewer and other dirty stuff is stored. Doesn't matter if our tank flusher grey hose gets tossed on the ground and walked all over.

If you ever take a well water sample into a testing lab, you are supposed to heat the end of the faucet with a cigarette lighter to kill any bacteria that could be present. Things you think are clean and free of pathogens may not be. It only takes one bacteria colony to multiply...

The way contamination can get back into a CG potable water system is not from the waste tank being pressurized (which it can't be anyway). It's from siphon action. For example, say a CG shut down the entire CG and the some RV sites were at high elevation and some at low elev. If you were at high elev. and hooked up to the CG faucet, when any faucet is opened at the lower elevations, water will get siphoned back into the CG system. In fact, we were at a CG last month where this exact thing happened. Without a vaccuum breaker in your RV, you could potentially contaminate many other sites.

Some campgrounds install a vaccuum breaker right at the faucet at each site to prevent possible contamination into their water distribution system.

2012Coleman wrote:
Humans are not immune to all the bacteria that lives in their gut and intestines. These don't make you sick because they cannot make it through to the lining of your intestines/bowels into your bloodstream. You don't have immunity to bacteria in your stomach - your immune system is in the blood - the two never come in contact with each other.

This is absolutely correct.

Patients in hospital can get an e-coli infection during surgery or even routine procedure like colonoscopy from a contaminated instrument that has accidentally come in contact with your own "personal waste material" and gotten into your bloodstream. Can make you VERY sick or can kill.

Duck wrote:
Every time we stopped at a new CG I would spray the faucet with a mixture of bleach and water before attaching a hose. ...

This is actually a good idea. Do you do the same when using a commonly shared faucet or a drinking fountain centrally located at parks when you don't have full hook-ups?

For the faucets and fountains that are shared (non-full hook up campgrounds ... like most Indiana State parks), I see people washing dishes, washing laundry, and kids drinking by putting their mouths on the spiggot. Now running water will blow most of anything off, but it's still a thought?

Water at your site, just like the picnic table... I always wash down the picnic table before using. Not so much for what the previous human used it for, but because you don't know what kind of animal just walked over it, or what bird just poo-ed on it, how what kinds of bugs made baby bugs on it! Same is true for the spigot at your your camp site. It's best to run it a few seconds before attaching that hose. You don't know what crawled up the pipe, and you really don't know which deer might have licked it to get a bit of water or at least try!

Really, bleach water on the spigots is a good thing. (picnic tables too).

Every time we stopped at a new CG I would spray the faucet with a mixture of bleach and water before attaching a hose. I used a grey colored hose for the black tank rinse. Also used the grey hose for washing bugs off the front of the trailer. Is all of this necessary? NO We come in contact with 1,000 of germs every day. The body has a way of killing germs but sometimes they will get by the bodies protective system. JMO
Don

Another thought (forgive me if it's graphic but neccessary to convey the issue):

You have a rather explosive deposit in the RV toilet. Some gets on the rinse water inlet and hidden from view. The rinse water inlet isn't perfectly sealed maybe some turbulence as you close it allows a droplet to get pulled back past the valve along with a few of the bugs... Essentially the same issue as using a hose hooked up to the tank rinsing system except now it's in your fresh water system.

For the OCD, you may want to run several gallons of bleach thru your fresh water system. For those who have ever changed a diaper, you shrug and get on with your life because it's pretty much harmless.

2012Coleman wrote:
I'll try to explain it in the simplest terms. Humans are not immune to all the bacteria that lives in their gut and intestines. These don't make you sick because they cannot make it through to the lining of your intestines/bowels into your bloodstream. You don't have immunity to bacteria in your stomach - your immune system is in the blood - the two never come in contact with each other.

So how does it enter your blood stream you might ask? same way cold germs are spread - contact with mucous membranes - eyes, nose, open cuts. Do you floss your teeth every day? No? Gums bleeding?

Now you are certainly entitled to come into contact with the stuff that's been fermenting in your tanks if you like - heck save some clean water and take a bath in it. Serve it with grilled cheese. I don't know about wastewater workers but the statement that they come into contact with waste water and then eat lunch is not plausible.

I have significant background here. I won't argue about it on an internet forum. Do what makes you feel good.

Good luck.

Unless you continually sterilize your buttock regions, I guarantee you transfer some of those germs to your mucus membranes and other points of entry at least on the cellualar level.

And note I said "sterilize" not "sanitize". That means killing every last microbe present. Since the system isn't truely sealed, you would have to do that on pretty much a continual basis.

While it's been a few years since I've worked with waste water treatment systems, I don't think it's changed that much. A public sewage plant is far more risky because you have typically have thousands of unknown people depositing thier germs. Reality is while they keep contact to a minimum and they wash thier hands before having lunch, they come into pretty regualar contact.

Nice use of reductio ad absurdum. I usually see that as a clear sign that you don't have facts to back you up and have lost the debate. No one suggested drinking raw sewage. This was the stray bacteria that makes it back upstream past a leaky check valve.

korbe wrote:
When I wear gloves while emptying my black holding tank, It's not because I am paranoid about germs, It's because I don't want to get sh@t on my hands.

That's a perfectly reasonable response. It's about the ickiness factor not a real risk.

Everybody gets to choose what they want. The difference in price for a white or a green water hose is of no concern to me, so I use a white one for water that I know I'll be swallowing and a green one for rinsing the grey and black tanks when dumping. For those of you that use the same hose for both, tell me ahead of time and I'll just wave to you.

Interesting discussion here. But, back to the OP's original question.

Yes, you can use the same hose for both fresh water and flushing the black tank. There is NO law in any book that says you're breaking the unpardonable sin if you do. In the end, it's your choice, just as each one of us has made or choices too in this matter.

For what it's worth, I've still drink from the garden hose laying on the ground. It's been laying there for years now. I use the same hose in the camper for everything. I don't wear rubber gloves when dumping my black tank. Why should I wear gloves? If everything is handled properly, there's no great risk.

I wash my hands carefully when done with the "black tank" servicing. I don't use hand sanitizers as they strip off good bacteria as well as bad making you even more vulnerable to germs.

I do wash my hands after every visit to the bathroom. And I do use a paper towel to open bathroom doors in public places.

But, as far as the two inlets to your camper? With water pressure forcing water through the pipes, though a check valve, and then into the tank, I just don't see how germs can swim upstream against such a current.

OK, I'm 60 years old. I'm feeling my age because I'm just .. well .. beginning to get old. But in the last 10 years, I have flu only once! And that was only AFTER I got that flue shot!

Germs....??? the more you expose yourself to them, the more your body learns to resist them!