Rinse your sewer hoses when leaving full hookup site?

chilly81 wrote:
Sorry if this is common knowledge, but searching I couldn't find this specific info - just general guides on dumping.

I use dump stations more often than not so when I'm at a full hookup site, I'm a bit at a loss as to what to do with my hoses after that last dump through the site hookup before I take off. At a dump station, I'd rinse the hoses with the non-potable water there. But at a site, it seems uncouth to put your 'icky water' hose on the h2o tap at the site to rinse your sewer hoses. So I've been just making sure I have plenty of gray, and letting that be the rinse. It's not awful... a little of that gray water smell, but no brown bits if you get my drift. Would prefer a rinse though....

So what do most people do with sewer hoses when unhooking from a full hookup site?

Make sure gray tank is full. If not, simply run water from the sink into the gray until it IS full. Then Dump black and then gray.

I carry a spray bottle of Clorox Clean-Up tucked in the sewage bay.
When I pull the hose from the hook up I spray it down with the spray cleaner, and again at the connection to my sewage bay. THEN store it. I've never had any smells.

I use one of these to rinse the hose and back rinse into the valves.
Camco Hose and Holding Tank flusher.

Dump black ,hook up with dedicated hose to tank flush nozzle run for about 5 minutes ,dump again. close black tank valve . Let flush nozzle run for a few minutes to wet black tank. While I am doing this I dump grey tank.Drain dump hose disconnect flush nozzle from black tank. Rinse drain hose with a little fresh water, drain disconnect store in sewer compartment. Fresh water system has its own separate compartment no cross contamination. After trip and we are packing down Rv I will hook up and flush tanks again at home. Just trying to keep solids build up out of tanks. I always store tanks wet when done with chemical in grey and black. I guess I am anal about some things. When we first bought RV (used) we had odor problems. And yes I live in the city! LOL!

Strabo wrote:
Separate small garden hose to rinse the nasty....Never use your fresh water hookup hose....* Gotta keep'm separated * Store all your dump tank equipment in a tote with a cover. Cross contamination is Bad!!!

we used to do that but as we carry a lot of extra hose the tote was taking up too much space in the exterior storage bin. to solve the problem I installed a piece of 5" x 15' PVC pipe under the main slideout on our '00 Suncruiser 35U. that easily accommodated all of the extra hose we carried.

when we traded in that Suncruiser for our '16 Suncrusier 38Q there was no way to install the 15' PVC pipe so I opted for two 5" x 8' pieces of PVC installed perpendicular to chassis. these pipes carry our extra hoses and free up space in the storage bin.

Chilly81: When you filled your water tank at the dump station was there a sign saying it was potable? Many dump stations do not have potable water right at the dump area. Potable water is in a completely separate area from the dump area. If there was no such second area, I certainly would not be putting the water at the dump area into my fresh water tank.

Wow, so many good replies! I'm sold then - although I do have a second non-potable water hose, I still hesitate to slap it on the fresh water feed at a campsite (not dump station). So I'm going to stick with a good grey water flush to get the chunks out, and just stow it with a tiny bit of sewer odor until it dries. That's what I've been doing and sounds like that's working out for a number of people.

I had to fill today at at spigot at a dump station itself. They had a white (ie. fresh water looking) hose hanging there. Ewww. No dedicated potable spigot, so I took off the hose, ran the spigot for a while and sprayed and swabbed it down with sanatizer, then used my clean water hose to fill tank. Hopefully that's enough because it starting to seem that dry camping, you don't have the luxury of always being too finicky.

Doin'it wrote:
Thanks for asking. The above have given good answers. We recently witnessed two different people do the huge "what to NOT do." After dumping both tanks, disconnected white hose (yes, their drinking water hose!!) from trailer, then stuck the end down into the stinky slinky to wash it out! I almost threw up.

Ann from Kansas

while sitting around the campfire with my Folks (avid RVers since the mid 70's) we watched what we assumed to be a newbie do exactly that, my father and I had a pretty good laugh about it while my wife and Mother had a pretty disgusted look on their faces. We would of gone over and mentioned it to him but after he let his dog poop all over our site for 3 days (I had to go actually pick it up myself) I felt he needed to learn the lesson the hard way!

Separate small garden hose to rinse the nasty....Never use your fresh water hookup hose....* Gotta keep'm separated * Store all your dump tank equipment in a tote with a cover. Cross contamination is Bad!!!

Pardon our redundancy.

As everyone says, black first, with a few refill and dump cycles, and then grey.

I have potable fresh water hoses and non-potable fresh water hoses (which happen to be old white hoses that I have striped with red Sharpee and clearly marked "Non-Potable".) After dumping, I rinse the stinky slinky with the non-potable hose, drain it well, and put it all away.

Potable water hoses and accessories (pressure reducers, whole house filters...) are stored in a separate container, with the lid and bottom perforated to encourage drying, in a compartment apart from the dump valves.

3oaks wrote:

valhalla360 wrote:
While I do dump black first and wouldn't stick the drinking water hose into the sewer hose, I often wonder how many of the people who have elaborate dump rituals grew up in the suburbs vs those that grew up on a farm.

City folks don't know what they missed. :B

Really makes you wonder what they did if they had kids? Did they put on nitrile gloves before undoing the safety pins followed by a good dousing in bleach before putting on the retread?

Yeah, it's not fun but no reason for paranoia.