Timing tank limits

[travellandmark]

New guy and am planning a 40 day trip with wife, 10y/o and 6y/o. Either going to buy a used Class A or C around 30 feet so I think the tanks should be about similar. I understand there could be modified and blah blah blah. I am just wondering on average use, with live aboard conditions, but out most of the day. I have my route and destinations, now I just need to start planning logistics. How often should I plan on emptying my tanks and freshening them up? I am sure this is here somewhere. I looked for older posts, but really don't even know what this would be called. The words I was looking up gave me far too broad of a search. And "Phread's poop sheets" didn't go anywhere. I was really looking forward to whatever that was!

[Harvey51]

I envy you having a nice RV when your kids are young. Enjoy!

Our waste tank gauges are useless but the freshwater one works and when it gets low it is likely the waste tanks are getting full. Last trip in August we went five days with 3 people and learned that a too full black tank on our motorhome makes a bad smell from the black tank's outside spray cleaning hose connector.

[kohai]

Last year was my first season RVing with wife and 2 young boys. It takes some coaching with the kids so they understand why to use less water and how to do so. We had a 6 day boondock trip and I think 3 days was reasonable without pushing our luck.

That is with:
60 gal fresh water
35 gal black water
70 gal grey water

I planned in advance and new that half way through the trip we were going to pass through a town with an RV park. I had emailed them in advance and knew the price for filling my fresh water tank and dumping my other tanks. It worked out well.

I also learned we consumed about 1 gal of propane each day with us running the furnace at night (it got cold).

[2gypsies1]

Personally, I think taking a 40-day trip with 2 children and staying on parking lots would get old real fast.

Why don't you plan to stay in a RV park every 4 days and relax in quieter, more pleasant surroundings. You can dump and flush your tanks good and load up on fresh water for your tank. You can do a general cleanup of the inside, take longer showers, replenish your groceries, perhaps let the kids swim in a pool and you could sit under a shade tree with your favorite beverage. This sounds like a better vacation.

[john_bet]

We carry a full fresh water tank when we leave on a trip and empty waste tanks. We use full hook up campgrounds most of the time so dumping is not a problem. Waste are empty when we leave. if we don't have full hook ups, but do have water and electric we usually dump the next day at the site or dump station on way out of campground. The fresh water is very seldom refilled so we come home after even an extended trip with a half a tank or more. Our fresh water tank holds 60 gal. and we have 3 other tanks for waste. In 10 years we have only had to camp without water and waste connection once and it was this past summer for a couple or 3 days. We were in an overflow area of a campground so we could hook-up and go dump and refill water. Have a nice safe trip.

[SuzzeeeQ2012]

ok, so husband said our water in the sink and shower go to the gray tank.


but, who really knows unless they go down there and find out by looking at the connections???

[wbwood]

On another note, there's a point to being frugal with water consumption. But when you start to go extremely frugal, especially with hygiene, then it becomes not so fun in the long run....

[wbwood]

mabynack wrote:
There's a lot of variables. How often are you going to shower and do dishes? How big are the tanks? Do you take "Navy Showers"? How good are you at conserving water? I camp alone, shower daily and try to keep water usage down and I empty my tanks about once a week. When I camped with my wife, we had to dump the tanks every other day.

Agree with this whole heartedly.....When we had our TT, it had a much larger gray tank than our Class C. 3 of us not trying to be frugal with consumption (3 showers a day and some light dish washing), we would need to dump at least every other day. With the Class C and tank about 2/3rd the size of the one in the TT, we can now go about twice as long, but we learned to be more frugal with the water. Changed the shower head out...turn on water and get wet. Turn off and lather up. Turn on water and rinse. Done. WE could probably be more frugal and get another day out of it, but we haven't needed to. If you have a bath house available that you are willing to use, then that will help a lot. Especially with kids. Then you can take long hot showers if you want.

On another note, don't think all Class A's or Class C's will have the same size tanks. There are Class C's that are smaller than ours ,but have bigger tanks. Class A's generally will probably have larger tanks than a Class C.

[SuzzeeeQ2012]

rockhillmanor wrote:
Ditto

If you can especially with 4 people on board use the CG showers.

That and the fact that most bathroom sinks dump into the black tank have everyone brush their teeth and only wash hands in the kitchen sink which dumps into the gray tank.bathroom sinks dump into the black tank have everyone brush their teeth and only wash hands in the kitchen sink which dumps into the gray tank.

You will be amazed how that will help keep the black from filling up faster.

oh, I didn't know that! thank you.

oh oh. Something I just thought of then. The shower is in the toilet/sink area....does the SHOWER also go into the black?

[SuzzeeeQ2012]

I wish we had the manual to our Endeavor 😞 I don't know how large the tanks are, and have googled. "they" say even the same model a different year can have different tanks depending on the configuration of the motorhome. lots of help that is.

Our gauges are always wonky. It says full all the time, so that's no help. We need those gauges that are outside of the tank maybe. we've been told to put ice in it before we move, so the black tank gets cleaned out. we did it once, gauge still wonky

[TomB_]

I have a 34FT coach & am a bit of a pessimist so I dump every 4 days & fill the fresh water tank as full as possible just in case I run into a water problem.

[bsinmich]

Raften wrote:
Dump every chance you get is my best advise.

I would disagree with that philosophy. When you dump every time you leave a CG, or with full hookups, you never get a good flush. It takes a full tank to get a good rush of water to get the solids moving sometimes. I also am convinced the sloshing while driving does a lot to break up the solids in the black tank. My gauges still work as good as they ever did on a 13 yr. old MH. I have only owned it 10 of those years though. I also do not use any chemicals most of the time and don't have odors.

[Raften]

Dump every chance you get is my best advise.

[rockhillmanor]

And as gross as it sounds......

If I was trying to eek out just one more day before heading to a dump and my gauges (which work in my RV) said I was full, I would hold down the blade pedal to toilet and look to see if I had one or two my flushes!! I've filled that tank to the brim a few times! :B

[K3WE]

Your plan sounds good and by watching the tank gauges you'll have an excellent idea on how often you need to locate dump options.

There's also a screw on valve that will allow the gray tank "flow over to" the black tank- this might give you an extra couple days...