174BH Tiny black water tank - solutions?

[Lorelei56]

Hi, all!

Without going into gory medical details, I had to have a camper with a toilet or I would have to give up camping altogether. Our camper has a tiny black water tank - 9 gallons, I think. Not a problem when your site has a sewer hookup but not all of them have that. I know on campgrounds that don't have it we would have to unhook and go to the dump station daily, which is a pain.
My question is, do you use those blue tanks with wheels to dump blackwater, or is that just too awful to contemplate? We have a 5-gallon one.
Or should we invest in a kitty litter sandbox?

[oldmanAZ]

Originally Posted by Lorelei56

snip... My question is, do you use those blue tanks with wheels to dump blackwater, or ...snip... We have a 5-gallon one.
...snip

Yes, folks do use them for blackwater. Getting a larger one, at least as large as your trailer blacktank, would prevent messes - 9 gallons of **** in a 5 gallon tank.

If you have been using your portable tank for the gray water, then you already know about having an adequate drop from the trailer into the portable tank and dumping the portable tank into the campground sewer system.

Just like other dumping procedures, you should first dump the black tank from the trailer and then dump the trailer gray tank to somewhat clean the hoses and the portable tank. Most sewer dump stations have water you can use to clean the portable tank a bit more.

[ttavasc]

Folks certainly do use the portable tanks for both gray and black tanks. I would suggest getting one that is a few gallons larger than your black tank so that you have room to use a few extra gallons to back-flush or further rinse the black tank when dumping. You need to make sure that you are thoroughly rinsing and sanitizing the tote on a regular basis.

My 195RB has the same small holding tanks as your 174BH. We picked up a 32-gallon Barker 4-wheel tote aimed primarily at the gray water tank which allows us to dump it twice before having to roll the tote down to the dump station. My recommendation is to look at a 4-wheel model and one that has pneumatic wheels and not the hard plastic wheels.

[Lorelei56]

Ok, thanks! I bought the 5-gallon when we had a pop-up with no holding tanks, so it looks as if a larger portable is on our future. We just came back from camping at a site where they had a sewer hook-up, so it wasn't a problem this time.

[apr1967]

Originally Posted by Lorelei56

Hi, all!

WI know on campgrounds that don't have it we would have to unhook and go to the dump station daily, which is a pain.

You fill up 9 gallons in your black tank every day?

Wow. What other than the toilet goes in their?

[Mart38655]

I agree with apr1967. Filling up the 9 gal tank everyday is a lot! I had a 9 gal tank on my last rv (one of the main reasons we traded up) but we (2 people) could go about 3 days before needing to dump. You may be flushing too much water each time??

Another thought. Are you sure it's full? Lots of posts on here about the inaccurate tank sensors.

[LynnAllen02]

I agree with the consensus here, we had a 5 gallon portapotty in our popup and for the two of us we could make it 3-4 days!

[octane]

on our 154bh, the sensor goes from 1/3 to full on the first day, but we are still able to do a long weekend without dumping. I would just use a 5 gallon as a backup and see how that works out, the bigger ones are a pain to move and store on a small trailer