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Old 06-25-2022, 11:53 AM   #21
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You mention that your black tank is 50 gallons — much bigger than the gray, like most rigs. That gives you some extra capacity for gray water if you are strategic. Wash dishes in a dishpan and dump it in the toilet. Same with hand washing etc. You could drain part of the gray tank into a 5-gallon bucket and pour it in the toilet. It won’t give you a lot more capacity but might buy you another day before the gray fills up.
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Old 06-29-2022, 11:59 AM   #22
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This is the problem. It's not just "wasting water", It's filling your grey tank. If you can't take a navy shower you are going to fill your tanks quickly, and if not hooked up to water run out quickly too.

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Kim

Yes we have the shut off but the tankless heater forces us to run and waste water to get the temperature right anyway. We don't run the water brushing our teeth either. It is mostly just shower and handwashing. Been doing the dishes outside.


John
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Old 06-29-2022, 12:29 PM   #23
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Getting a 15 gal dump tote may give you a LOT of information on what sorts of use are filling the tank (Auntie Bettie doing the dishes with water running etc).. But if the sensors are off which is likely thats the first thing to check

Not familiar with MH but in our TT we don't even look at the readings. When we start to see water just below the tub it's time to dump. We know from our use to expect that day four.
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Old 06-29-2022, 12:45 PM   #24
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Measuring tank capacity

If you doubt that your tank is providing the advertised capacity, you could acquire one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Run a hose to your shower with this device on the end and run water thru it into the shower drain until the water no longer drains. Check the gallons measured on the device. That's your capacity. If you note the gallons measured by the device on your your gray water gauge at several points as you fill, you can see how accurate (inaccurate?) your gauge is.
The device is also handy when I fill the fresh water tank. I can see how close I am to a full tank by observing the gallons passed thru the device.
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Old 06-29-2022, 12:50 PM   #25
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I am not sure which model you have, but looks like you might have the one with 40 gallons of gray (the other 2 have 49 gallons). 40 gallons is not a lot, but with 2 people should be able to get a 3-4 days with minimal navy showers and careful consideration when doing dishes as folks mentioned above.

The best shower heads use ~1.5 gpm or little more. So if 2 people take 5 min showers each day for 2 days that is 30 gallons of water. Then dishes and hand washing you are quickly filling that tank.

We had a Whitehawk with 30 gallons gray with my family of 6. With very minimal showers (navy with the bathtub half full to minimize use when rinsing off the kids every other day) we could squeeze out almost 4 days. We also made sure we disposed of dishwater where possible in the campground drain and bailed out the tub into a bin to help minimize water into the gray tank.

You will figure it out and get used to it. The gray water always seems to be the limiting factor when camping without hookups. My new rig has 75 gray and 75 black and that was one of the huge selling points as we like to stay off grid as long as possible.

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Old 06-29-2022, 12:57 PM   #26
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I believe most people just wait till sundown and dump the grey water on the ground
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Old 06-29-2022, 01:18 PM   #27
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This may not be politically correct - but we have often dumped grey water on the ground at our home, and while boondocking.

With that said - I would ASK a campground before I did it, and there MAY be restrictions in certain states, Federal or State Parks.

Most homes in the US prior to the 70's literally had grey water lines separate from the black water lines that went into septic tanks, and they drained into a ditch on open ground, or were used for irrigation. We are literally just talking about soap and water.
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Old 06-29-2022, 01:19 PM   #28
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I believe most people just wait till sundown and dump the grey water on the ground
which is illegal in many areas.

Seems like a lot of water usage in a short period of time. With two of us and careful dishwashing/teeth brushing/and "navy" showers we can go at least 5 days.

We do have a "blue thing" and can tow it to the dump station if need be.
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Old 06-29-2022, 01:31 PM   #29
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John K- having boon-docked for over 50 years, here are some tips on saving water & not filling up your Grey tank too fast. 1) use paper plates, bowls & plastic utensils. 2) Take only 'Navy Showers' wet down- shut off water- soap up & scrub- turn water on & rinse off quickly. This will use less than 3 gal of water. If you have to wash any pots or pans, do it in the campground laundry. 3) Use only 4 oz of water in a cup to brush you teeth- do not leave water running when you're brushing. 4)Do not pour any liquids down the sink drains

Happy Trails
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Old 06-29-2022, 01:39 PM   #30
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Originally Posted by thenovaks View Post
If you doubt that your tank is providing the advertised capacity, you could acquire one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Run a hose to your shower with this device on the end and run water thru it into the shower drain until the water no longer drains. Check the gallons measured on the device. That's your capacity. If you note the gallons measured by the device on your your gray water gauge at several points as you fill, you can see how accurate (inaccurate?) your gauge is.
The device is also handy when I fill the fresh water tank. I can see how close I am to a full tank by observing the gallons passed thru the device.
These water meters are great. I use one to measure water usage when on city water and double checking when filling my fresh.

Re: not being able to boondock. I haven't read this whole thread but the OP probably needs to change their habits. We can go 5 days easily (55 gallon fresh, 30 gallon each grey and black). We will sometimes empty the grey into a bucket and dump it outside (if there is an appropriate place or into the black if not).

Also a 5 minute shower when boondocking? WTF? We do like 20-30 seconds to get wet, water off and soap up, then another 20-30 seconds to rinse. My wife will take a little longer due to longer hair.
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Old 06-29-2022, 02:27 PM   #31
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Consider hand santizer if you wash hands often. It can help though too frequent use can dry out your hands. These days stores are overflowing with the stuff.

You will learn and observe by doing.

Not germane to the OP but I don't even do five min showers at home!
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Old 06-29-2022, 02:45 PM   #32
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No one thinks a thing about tent campers who dump dishwater from the pan or take a shower outdoors, but if it runs through a grey tank first...shame on you!

If you do as Grumpy and others suggest (Navy showers), your 40 gallon grey tank should last you 10 days with a shower almost every day. Run your 'warm up' water into a bucket and take it outside (after you are dressed, please).

DW and I can easily make two weeks...if the weather is really hot it may take a few gallons to haul off after dark.

If you did tent camping and remember... easy.
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Old 06-29-2022, 02:50 PM   #33
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Ahhhhhh, the challenges of dry camping

Just came back from 9 days with the GF... We never full showered at all

If yer a GOTTA SHOWER every day...ya...good luck with that in any Rig not at FULL HOOKUPS

And testing usage and such is a must to know your system

Good luck hauling 130# just to shower every day
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Old 06-29-2022, 03:03 PM   #34
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You asked about the tote. I have the 15 gallon version. It works very well, and your TV can tow it using the bumper hitch. It will work particularly well with grey water.

Black water can be another thing altogether. We boondock exclusively. The only water we have is the water be bring with us. The more water you conserve, the more difficult it is to dump the black tank into the tote unless you have a garden hose to assist with moving things along. I use mine to gain a couple days with the black tank. But mostly liquid comes out...very little in the way of solids. I've never been able to dump more than about 7 to 8 gallons before flow stops. In my case, I bring the tote to a vault toilet, remove the toilet seat, and dump into the vault. Works well enough.

Note that water is 8.3 pounds per gallon, so your tote has the potential to hold 170 pounds of water...plus the tote. 200 pounds are a lot to handle when you must tip the tote up 90 degrees to dump. Bigger totes often have the dump port low on the side...take a look at your options.

I will say, however, that the tote costs the price of 15 dumps with the mobile dump truck...and that's both black and grey. Furthermore, 21 gallons are only a partial dump from your grey tank. Considering the hassle and cost of using the tote, I'd be inclined to pay for the mobile service. Dumping into one of these is a full fledged dump, with rubber gloves, and the added opportunity of overflowing the tote. I do it when I absolutely have to, but if I had other options, I definitely would not.

Others mentioned that you probably have a plumbing issue of some sort. Some also mentioned altering your showering technique. I agree wholeheartedly with both observations. And don't forget about the outdoor shower...wear your swimsuit or erect a shower curtain. Put a rubber mat on the ground and stop filling your grey tank.

This is supposed to be fun, and once you start dumping effluent into a plastic jug, that's the end of the fun for me.
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Old 06-29-2022, 04:01 PM   #35
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Nature Ist

It is actually our third trip, first real one. The shakedown in April was two nights where we learned the refrigerator doesn't work. (still not fixed, dealer is useless)
Second was also cut short due to the cluster of thunderstorms in May that rolled through and took out the power for days and killed 10 people I think it was in Ontario and Quebec. We were very fortunate, only got a ding in a hubcap in a park where two pickups got crushed when trees fell on them. No one was hurt in that park.

Great idea for diagnosing the tank. Next week is a full hookup site and we have a 5 gallon pail. I can hookup, drain, then fill the tank with the pail and see how many pailfuls before it stops draining.

Good point on tote weight, maybe I should just get the 15 gallon as we have no toad. We don't need to completely drain the gray in one shot.
The idea is just to extend the use of gray tank so we don't have to disconnect. The black is huge, 50 gallon.
The provincial parks are almost all water/electric only.

Jflightrisk

Will check the wires after we see the results from the above test.

Onyrelf

Yes it just the two of us but we have dogs so a lot of extra hand washing

LakeHuron

Hey we are in Kincardine

Jagiven,GuanoJuano

Yep, we have the 13" clearance the description on Amazon says it needs.

Kim

Yes we have the shut off but the tankless heater forces us to run and waste water to get the temperature right anyway. We don't run the water brushing our teeth either. It is mostly just shower and handwashing. Been doing the dishes outside.

CAG

What homework other than field testing is going to tell me what kind of usage we will get?

Onthego

Yes not much extra but it would be better to do that every other day maybe than unhook and pull in the slides to go dump.

Regards,

John

Try Google. There is so much RV information out there including a number of long threads that I and others have written concerning boon-docking and in addition cold weather boon-docking. And good old common sense helps some too ie tote for 250 lbs of grey water? Then where do you take it?
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Old 06-29-2022, 04:12 PM   #36
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We used to use a Barker, 32 gallon, 4 wheel (air) tires with tow hitch that slides over a ball hitch. That was with our travel trailers. Now we have a Class -C and figure it’s not so hard to disconnect water and electric and hit the retract button to drive to the dump station.

PA It’s not easy finding a place to store a huge blue tank.
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Old 06-29-2022, 06:03 PM   #37
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We carry his one https://www.campingworld.com/camco-r...ls-123643.html . I like it.
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Old 06-29-2022, 07:29 PM   #38
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When you are running the water to get the temp right, do it into a clean bucket/container and recycle the water, saves your grey and fresh tanks. Do you have an outside shower where hand washing can be done into a bucket? Then use this grey water to flush your toilet, especially with a large black tank.
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Old 06-29-2022, 07:53 PM   #39
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My wife and i boondock frequently in our x213. We conserve water by taking “navy” showers and really conserving the grey tank space. When the grey tank starts to fill, I will empty some into a bucket and take it to the toilet. We have a Baja model which sits high so this is easy to do.
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Old 06-30-2022, 11:50 AM   #40
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The Rino tank works great. I had that one and then moved up to a 28 gal. The only thing I did was to drill the axles to put in cotter pins after reading about a guy who lost a wheel and wore a hole in the bottom of the Rino when it was full. The push on axle keepers can come loose and fall off. Cotter pins and washers are much better. The 28 gal has a side sewer connector with a valve. No lifting to dump.
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