Grey Water Tank - Installation
With the new camper floor completed and in place I could begin to install "systems", or at least components of systems.
Like all of my work, I am picking and choosing as a combination of what feels right to do next, and what I want to work on next. I don't ever feel like I have to complete any particular "system" or job if it might be best to leave it undone for awhile to complete something more logical, or more enjoyable. ๐
One of the "next" things I want to work on is the galley and great room - the interior furniture.
As I started to do so, it became logical to install the waste water tank. I slid it into position and placed the furniture around it.
I've had both the grey and fresh water tanks since last summer. As part of the early planning stage I wanted to make sure I could put ample sized systems in this smaller than typical self-contained camper. So I made accurate measurements and placed the orders. Of course I had to pay shipping and these are heavy enough that shipping isn't exactly cheap. I was just a little bit disappointed in the grey water tank's "exit" hole as it didn't sit low enough for complete drainage. Here you can see it closely.
So if the camper is leveled there's about 3/4" across the entire tank bottom that won't drain. Sure you could park uphill and that would help, but DW had a better idea. She asked if I could raise the front of the tank and the light bulb went on.
There wasn't MUCH room to slope the tank, but there was some. So by making a slightly higher cut in one place on the dinette furniture I was able to get the front of the tank 1.5" higher than the rear. And that will greatly help the drainage.
Here's where I cut the furniture.
and the other side...
And that allowed for these floor spacers.
Then I cut corner shaped cleats to secure the tank from moving backward or side to side at the rear...
And a spacer board that fastens to the underside of the shower pan floor board to prevent the tank from lifting at the rear.
And finally this little wall cleat to prevent the tank from shifting forward.
Here's how the rear looks with the shower pan floor board removed...
And with the floor board screwed down not only will the cleat hold down the tank, but the tank will act as some support for the floor board. And that tank is WAY stout. Much thicker material than I would have expected. And it's heavy but I forgot to weigh it.
Then I took it all apart and drilled screw holes in all the pieces. I made the holes larger than the screws so the screws would slide through the cleat and draw it tightly into the mounting surface.
Now I was ready to fasten the pieces all in place.
For the sidewall cleat I drove screws from outside in and ground down the protruding tips.
Then I washed and shop vac-ed that area of the floor and everything got a fresh coat of primer...
Once everything was dry and I was satiated I slid the tank into place and "snapped" it into position. Really, it actually snapped into position with that sidewall cleat the way it is. The furniture placement will keep the tank against the wall and properly in place behind the sidewall cleat.
And here are a series of shots with the furniture placed around.
Basement access and storage...
This will become the battery/electrical compartment and will include the grey tank connection for the bathroom sink.
One last thing. By raising the tank, it was even higher at it's front edge than where it passed under the furniture. Therefore I had to trim the back wall raised floor support cleat to fit. You see it here, unattached in the center of the picture.
By having the tank raised, and the gaps in various places below and around the tank, I should be able to control air movement adequately to keep the tank from freezing.
By re-using and modifying the various original storage location doors and drawer fronts I'll have easy access for cleaning and maintenance.
With the new camper floor completed and in place I could begin to install "systems", or at least components of systems.
Like all of my work, I am picking and choosing as a combination of what feels right to do next, and what I want to work on next. I don't ever feel like I have to complete any particular "system" or job if it might be best to leave it undone for awhile to complete something more logical, or more enjoyable. ๐
One of the "next" things I want to work on is the galley and great room - the interior furniture.
As I started to do so, it became logical to install the waste water tank. I slid it into position and placed the furniture around it.
I've had both the grey and fresh water tanks since last summer. As part of the early planning stage I wanted to make sure I could put ample sized systems in this smaller than typical self-contained camper. So I made accurate measurements and placed the orders. Of course I had to pay shipping and these are heavy enough that shipping isn't exactly cheap. I was just a little bit disappointed in the grey water tank's "exit" hole as it didn't sit low enough for complete drainage. Here you can see it closely.
So if the camper is leveled there's about 3/4" across the entire tank bottom that won't drain. Sure you could park uphill and that would help, but DW had a better idea. She asked if I could raise the front of the tank and the light bulb went on.
There wasn't MUCH room to slope the tank, but there was some. So by making a slightly higher cut in one place on the dinette furniture I was able to get the front of the tank 1.5" higher than the rear. And that will greatly help the drainage.
Here's where I cut the furniture.
and the other side...
And that allowed for these floor spacers.
Then I cut corner shaped cleats to secure the tank from moving backward or side to side at the rear...
And a spacer board that fastens to the underside of the shower pan floor board to prevent the tank from lifting at the rear.
And finally this little wall cleat to prevent the tank from shifting forward.
Here's how the rear looks with the shower pan floor board removed...
And with the floor board screwed down not only will the cleat hold down the tank, but the tank will act as some support for the floor board. And that tank is WAY stout. Much thicker material than I would have expected. And it's heavy but I forgot to weigh it.
Then I took it all apart and drilled screw holes in all the pieces. I made the holes larger than the screws so the screws would slide through the cleat and draw it tightly into the mounting surface.
Now I was ready to fasten the pieces all in place.
For the sidewall cleat I drove screws from outside in and ground down the protruding tips.
Then I washed and shop vac-ed that area of the floor and everything got a fresh coat of primer...
Once everything was dry and I was satiated I slid the tank into place and "snapped" it into position. Really, it actually snapped into position with that sidewall cleat the way it is. The furniture placement will keep the tank against the wall and properly in place behind the sidewall cleat.
And here are a series of shots with the furniture placed around.
Basement access and storage...
This will become the battery/electrical compartment and will include the grey tank connection for the bathroom sink.
One last thing. By raising the tank, it was even higher at it's front edge than where it passed under the furniture. Therefore I had to trim the back wall raised floor support cleat to fit. You see it here, unattached in the center of the picture.
By having the tank raised, and the gaps in various places below and around the tank, I should be able to control air movement adequately to keep the tank from freezing.
By re-using and modifying the various original storage location doors and drawer fronts I'll have easy access for cleaning and maintenance.
Our first RV, a 1950 canned ham trailer we bought from friends for $300 (on a three month agreement at our word), didn't even have a fresh water tank, let alone a grey tank. And what is black water? Why that is what goes directly into the campground outhouse or better yet, where the bears do it in the woods! We even bought the fun to read book "How to S*** In The Woods" during our back-backing period. Highly recommended reading, even if you never plan to do THAT again!
Have you ever been just about home and still looking for a dump station? There's the whole debate about dumping in your own septic tank and I'm not going to take a position on that, but we just don't do it.
Flying J was always free - until now. Another 2 miles away to the RV park and the price drops to $5 from $10. Hey - it's the principal of the thing! ๐
And if you come home from the west, there's always that awesome rest stop at Independence Rock! Oh what would the pioneers think!
Our current RV has a 42 gallon black water tank. And it has TWO 42 gallon grey tanks. Handy. Except you tend to fill 'em up and then you have to get rid of it somewhere.
Our second to most recent was our pop-up TC. No grey and no black. The retro-fitted porti-potti under a cabinet worked well. We came to really appreciate the ease of dumping a smaller amount more frequently, and in such a wide variety of places. I won't walk into a convenience store and stroll past the highly processed chips and doughnuts with a suitcase of back room deposits, but I will use the side or back-of-building located restrooms. I will "carry" into a rest stop (depending on how populated it is - we do have SOME discretion), but those picnic area and rest stop area and campground area out houses and restrooms? Those are numerous and easy to find. And in a worst case scenario I feel much better dumping 2.5-5 gallons of waste in our home toilet than I do running 42 gallons down the hole!
For us, the smaller amount more frequently worked out well and that is the track we took with Lil' Queeny. The porti-potti has been upgraded this time to a five gallon waste container and a residential height stool. If the 5 gallon weight proves too much I'll get a smaller unit and put it on a raised height stand like we did for the pop-up camper.
As for grey - well you have to have some grey to be self-contained. In the pop-up we had a couple of 2.5 gallon laundry soap jugs and the outside short hose connection telescoping into the right spot of the jug for flow. Worked well but you had to connect it at each stop, and then it could freeze, and overflow, and it looked - well, it looked like somebody was inside camping! We want less conspicuousness than that with Lil' Queeny. Not only do we want to pull-in to Walmart somewhere and park and disappear, we want to be able to maybe do so at say - the county courthouse, the hospital parking lot, the AT&T store if you know what I mean. Black outs and no outside evidence! We're parking not camping!
And that's just ONE camping scenario. So on-board grey water was a must.
Many of the new TC specs we looked at for our small size 8'-9' camper class had grey tanks in the 3 quart to 9 gallon range. Not a lot. Just enough to say you had on-board storage.
Early on after our Lil' Queeny camper purchase I was able to determine fresh and waste tank sizes based on available space, and ordered them. I knew we wanted as large as possible. We ended up with a 21 gallon custom built grey water tank that would fit under the dinette floor, one end of the dinette seat, and under the wet-bath shower pan. I forget the exact sizes now, but it's about 6" deep and allows for a slight slope upon installation for better flow. It also keeps the dump gate valve (1.5" - no need for a 3") behind closed and locked doors and on the heated side of the camper.
Here are some photos of it's planned placement during a recent "re-staging" of interior components (I'm getting utilities lines better understood in my head).
The tank sits as far forward as where the table pedestal mounts to the floor and goes up through the dinette raised floor. That leaves a bit of storage forward of the pedestal.
In a worst case scenario we can empty a grey tank via the porti-potti case. We keep a pretty clean waste water, from the grease and food particle standpoint, as it's easier to do dishes if you clean the pans and stuff BEFORE you wash them anyway. And there are fairly easy ways of amending behavior to keep bathroom grey water pretty darn clean too! So, depending on the contents of the grey water and the location of the camp, we are willing to evaluate when a grey water dump on the ground may be appropriate.
So those are the basics of Lil' Queeny's design for handling her waste water.
Have you ever been just about home and still looking for a dump station? There's the whole debate about dumping in your own septic tank and I'm not going to take a position on that, but we just don't do it.
Flying J was always free - until now. Another 2 miles away to the RV park and the price drops to $5 from $10. Hey - it's the principal of the thing! ๐
And if you come home from the west, there's always that awesome rest stop at Independence Rock! Oh what would the pioneers think!
Our current RV has a 42 gallon black water tank. And it has TWO 42 gallon grey tanks. Handy. Except you tend to fill 'em up and then you have to get rid of it somewhere.
Our second to most recent was our pop-up TC. No grey and no black. The retro-fitted porti-potti under a cabinet worked well. We came to really appreciate the ease of dumping a smaller amount more frequently, and in such a wide variety of places. I won't walk into a convenience store and stroll past the highly processed chips and doughnuts with a suitcase of back room deposits, but I will use the side or back-of-building located restrooms. I will "carry" into a rest stop (depending on how populated it is - we do have SOME discretion), but those picnic area and rest stop area and campground area out houses and restrooms? Those are numerous and easy to find. And in a worst case scenario I feel much better dumping 2.5-5 gallons of waste in our home toilet than I do running 42 gallons down the hole!
For us, the smaller amount more frequently worked out well and that is the track we took with Lil' Queeny. The porti-potti has been upgraded this time to a five gallon waste container and a residential height stool. If the 5 gallon weight proves too much I'll get a smaller unit and put it on a raised height stand like we did for the pop-up camper.
As for grey - well you have to have some grey to be self-contained. In the pop-up we had a couple of 2.5 gallon laundry soap jugs and the outside short hose connection telescoping into the right spot of the jug for flow. Worked well but you had to connect it at each stop, and then it could freeze, and overflow, and it looked - well, it looked like somebody was inside camping! We want less conspicuousness than that with Lil' Queeny. Not only do we want to pull-in to Walmart somewhere and park and disappear, we want to be able to maybe do so at say - the county courthouse, the hospital parking lot, the AT&T store if you know what I mean. Black outs and no outside evidence! We're parking not camping!
And that's just ONE camping scenario. So on-board grey water was a must.
Many of the new TC specs we looked at for our small size 8'-9' camper class had grey tanks in the 3 quart to 9 gallon range. Not a lot. Just enough to say you had on-board storage.
Early on after our Lil' Queeny camper purchase I was able to determine fresh and waste tank sizes based on available space, and ordered them. I knew we wanted as large as possible. We ended up with a 21 gallon custom built grey water tank that would fit under the dinette floor, one end of the dinette seat, and under the wet-bath shower pan. I forget the exact sizes now, but it's about 6" deep and allows for a slight slope upon installation for better flow. It also keeps the dump gate valve (1.5" - no need for a 3") behind closed and locked doors and on the heated side of the camper.
Here are some photos of it's planned placement during a recent "re-staging" of interior components (I'm getting utilities lines better understood in my head).
The tank sits as far forward as where the table pedestal mounts to the floor and goes up through the dinette raised floor. That leaves a bit of storage forward of the pedestal.
In a worst case scenario we can empty a grey tank via the porti-potti case. We keep a pretty clean waste water, from the grease and food particle standpoint, as it's easier to do dishes if you clean the pans and stuff BEFORE you wash them anyway. And there are fairly easy ways of amending behavior to keep bathroom grey water pretty darn clean too! So, depending on the contents of the grey water and the location of the camp, we are willing to evaluate when a grey water dump on the ground may be appropriate.
So those are the basics of Lil' Queeny's design for handling her waste water.
