Questions and doubts about Flojet

[profdant139]

We have a sewer cleanout next to our house, about 40 feet from the trailer's black water valve. The cleanout is essentially level with the trailer -- maybe a little downhill from the trailer, but not much. Several years ago, we tried the Sewer Solution -- it exploded due to back pressure. Not pretty. (Turns out that the hose run was just a little bit too long for the components . . . )

Since then, we have been pumping at RV parks on the way home from each trip. Ten bucks each time -- no big deal -- but I would like to be able to empty the tanks at home without using my blue boy tank, especially when we use the trailer as a low-rent guest house on occasion.

After our Sewer Solution fiasco, I am wary of trying anything similar, but the reviews on the Flojet are good. So naturally a few questions:

I assume that you have to have a dedicated hose for emptying the sewer -- that's fine. But how does one clean out the hose after pumping is finished? Isn't there some backwash or back-flow when it is disconnected?

Is it difficult to clean up the Flojet itself?

Do you usually carry the Flojet with you, or do you leave it home?

Is this product solidly built and reliable?

If you have had occasion to call their customer service folks, have they been available and helpful?

Sorry for the "survey style" questions. But I no longer trust the Amazon reviews -- there are too many robot-generated five star reviews, even though Amazon is trying to weed out the fakes.

Thanks in advance for your advice!!

[wa8yxm]

shum02 wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:


I personally would never wish to have to "fix" a broken pump filled with black water matter when it breaks..

I would have to say based on experience and being on this forum for a while that this event would be extremely rare. Getting a hole in your slinky or pulling off your sewer cap with a quantity of fluid hiding behind due to a leaky remote valve is a LOT more frequent. The Flojet's are an extremely reliable piece of kit.

Like 1000 to one more common yes. You nailed that fact.

[SoundGuy]

profdant139 wrote:
SoundGuy, I way overthink EVERYTHING connected with RVing -- it beats the heck out of thinking about the other things I really should be thinking about! 😉

Touché ! 😛

[profdant139]

SoundGuy, I way overthink EVERYTHING connected with RVing -- it beats the heck out of thinking about the other things I really should be thinking about! 😉

[Bobbo]

Gdetrailer wrote:
Close valves (don't disconnect yet), LIFT the slinky up walk your way towards the cleanout to clear the liquids from the slinky.

I would leave one of the valves open. You need air venting into the hose so the "stuff" will flow down the hose.

[SoundGuy]

profdant139 wrote:
Rice, the hose run had a little uphill portion -- a few inches -- and forty feet of hose. Apparently, the cumulative weight of the water in the line created back-pressure on the fixture that attached to the tank valve. The Sewer Solution fixture failed catastrophically.

So that is why I am hesitant about Flojet -- will it do the same thing?

You're WAY overthinking this - buy the FloJet and be done with it. It will work for your purpose just fine. :B

[Big_Katuna]

The first time my macerator jammed from a visitors female product and the gallon or so of waste I took it apart to find a broken impeller and the rest cracked. This is around year three.

After I put in a new impeller, I took it apart for pm every two years.

Never had another problem.

[shum02]

Gdetrailer wrote:


I personally would never wish to have to "fix" a broken pump filled with black water matter when it breaks..

I would have to say based on experience and being on this forum for a while that this event would be extremely rare. Getting a hole in your slinky or pulling off your sewer cap with a quantity of fluid hiding behind due to a leaky remote valve is a LOT more frequent. The Flojet's are an extremely reliable piece of kit.

[Gdetrailer]

profdant139 wrote:
We tried just using the Slinky -- did not work. Our setup is too close to flat level, with a slight uphill bump at one point.

I even looked into installing a sewer cleanout on my driveway downhill from the back end of the trailer. It would have cost thousands of dollars -- not feasible.

But your suggestion prompted me to add another line to my list of "You might be a serious RVer" items:

"You might be a serious RVer, if your idea of sheer luxury is a gravity-assisted sewer cleanout on your own property!"

Wow, don't I wish!! 😉

We make use of our mobile facilities while traveling, so yes, it IS a "luxury" to allow gravity to flush our problems down the drain at home :B

Like I mentioned, you can park your rig on some blocking, even 6" of height above your cleanout will do it for your distance. Gravity doesn't work well when things are level so there IS a reason as to why it did not work for you when you tried it. Heck my TT sits real low, often the campsite drains are only 1"-2" below my drain and it still works for me.

Cleaning all that extra slinky is no worse than dealing with a pump and garden hose full of the black stuff..

Slinky bayonet connectors make life easy.

Start with black tank, when black tank is done open the grey tank, rinse black tank with fresh water and add some dish soap to grey and refill then repeat black first then grey.

When done your slinky will have lots of soap bubbles..

Close valves (don't disconnect yet), LIFT the slinky up walk your way towards the cleanout to clear the liquids from the slinky.

Once you have most of the liquids out of the slinky (at this point it is soapy water from your grey tank), disconnect from RV, use your water hose to spray water into the slinky (holding the disconnected end up a couple of feet). Then repeat the walk towards the cleanout.

Once you get to your second hose, disconnect trailer hose from the second hose and repeat the water spray then walk towards to cleanout.

When you reach the cleanout BOTH hoses will be sparkling clean.

I do lay out my hoses where they can dry out for a couple of days then pick them up and pack back into the boxes they came from..

The key IS the bayonet connectors, would not want to wrangle full 60ft of slinky in my case.. You can buy them in male/female set..





Camco 39543 is the part number for the set.

I personally would never wish to have to "fix" a broken pump filled with black water matter when it breaks..

[toedtoes]

The flojet is very easy to use. Hook it on, screw on the hose end, drop the other hose end in the clean out pipe, attach the power, open the drain valve and push a button. A couple minutes and it's emptied.

In contrast when I used the stinky slinky, gravity required having to lift the slinky and "walk" the contents the 21 or so feet because it would stop flowing halfway. Each of those connections was a potential leak. The distance needed could not be met exactly with the available slinky lengths so there was always several feet of excess that sank with the contents.

With the flojet, it doesn't matter if I have extra length of hose, the pump pushes it through easily. I keep the hose on a reel and pull out just what I need. Easy to setup and use and store.

[profdant139]

We tried just using the Slinky -- did not work. Our setup is too close to flat level, with a slight uphill bump at one point.

I even looked into installing a sewer cleanout on my driveway downhill from the back end of the trailer. It would have cost thousands of dollars -- not feasible.

But your suggestion prompted me to add another line to my list of "You might be a serious RVer" items:

"You might be a serious RVer, if your idea of sheer luxury is a gravity-assisted sewer cleanout on your own property!"

Wow, don't I wish!! 😉

[Gdetrailer]

profdant139 wrote:
We have a sewer cleanout next to our house, about 40 feet from the trailer's black water valve. The cleanout is essentially level with the trailer -- maybe a little downhill from the trailer, but not much. Several years ago, we tried the Sewer Solution -- it exploded due to back pressure. Not pretty. (Turns out that the hose run was just a little bit too long for the components . . . )


Thanks in advance for your advice!!

Forget those devices and let gravity do it's job.

Drain plumbing typically is set at 1/4" drop for every foot.

You only need 10" over the 40ft to get things to work!

I am using well over 60ft of stinky slinky although my RV sits about 6ft higher than my septic clean out so I don't have any issue with gravity.

I bought 3 extra 20ft stinky slinkies to keep at home and outfitted them with bayonet connectors, makes it easy to connect and disconnect.

In your case, you could simply park your RV on some blocking (think like multiple 2x10s screwed together with an angle cut to ease the tires.

Don't have to get full 10", even 6 inches will be plenty to get thinks flowing.

Cleanup is not hard and no issues of a mechanical breakdown in mid use!

[profdant139]

Rice, the hose run had a little uphill portion -- a few inches -- and forty feet of hose. Apparently, the cumulative weight of the water in the line created back-pressure on the fixture that attached to the tank valve. The Sewer Solution fixture failed catastrophically.

So that is why I am hesitant about Flojet -- will it do the same thing? The responses above indicate that it will be able to handle the task. The difference, as wa8yxm mentioned, is that the Sewer Solution was powered by the pressure of the incoming water overcoming the back pressure of the outgoing water. Flojet has a pump, instead.

[wa8yxm]

I can not comment on his sewer soultion save to think that perhaps the discharge hose got clogged..

I will comment on it in general.. It is a Water powered JET Pump. using gallons and gallons of fresh water to do a job that can be far easier done by a few watt hours of electricity by a macerator pump. This puts additional load on your water system (If you have your own well you end up using electricity anyway. if the park. likewise or they have to pay for it by the gallon in some parks_) it also places additional load on your septic/sewer system with the attendant additional costs..

Or you can just use a macerator like I do when the 3" stinky slinky is not enough.

[Rice]

profdant139 wrote:
We have a sewer cleanout next to our house, about 40 feet from the trailer's black water valve. The cleanout is essentially level with the trailer -- maybe a little downhill from the trailer, but not much. Several years ago, we tried the Sewer Solution -- it exploded due to back pressure. Not pretty. (Turns out that the hose run was just a little bit too long for the components . . . )

Can you elaborate on that? I've successfully used a Sewer Solution with 40 feet of Sewer Solution hose plus 50 feet of PVC several times. What "back pressure" caused the problem?