How to Empty RV Waste Tanks for FREE!!

[Music] hello this is patrick with new jersey's outdoor adventures youtube channel and today's video i'm going to teach you how to empty the gray and black waste sewage tanks in your camper van or rv so join me larvae lifestyle can be very rewarding but one of the most feared tasks is emptying the gray and black waste tanks now in some rvs they combine the gray and black waste tank together into one combination tank and in most rvs it's two separate tanks the great waste would be for your kitchen sink bathroom sink and your shower drain and the black tank would be for your toilet waste now in some rvs they use a combination tank where the gray and black waste dump into one tank and discharge together on other rvs like fifth wheels they might have two gray tanks one in the front one in the rear and then a black tank as well i see a lot of van lifers out there building their own rvs a lot of them use composting toilets and direct drains outside and no holding tanks so no matter which type of rv you own you might encounter needing to empty the waste so in this video i'm going to demonstrate the steps needed to empty your waste now when it's time to empty the waste you want to make sure you're emptying it into the proper dump station now if you're at a campground they could have a dump station right at your site or one in the park that you could utilize if you're not at a campground you can pass through a campground pay a fee and they'll allow you to use their dump station some truck stops will also have dump stations now what do you do when you're at home and you haven't stopped at a campground well i was fortunate enough i have city soar so i have a sewer line that goes from the house right to the street there's a clean out at the house and there's a clean out by the street what i did was i called dig safe and it's a free service that will mark out your utilities if you're going to be digging up parts of your yard to make sure that you don't accidentally pierce a shovel through one of your utility lines once they did the mark out i was able to locate my sewer line and i dug up the grass a little bit and i found the cap and it was about eight inches below grade what i did was i cleaned it out really good and i added a four inch sleeve on top of it and then it brass capped it on screws and that will allow me to slip my waste hose right into that and discharge the waste now you do want to check to make sure your township or city allows you to do something like this before you go ahead and do it first thing what we're going to do is we're going to put on some vinyl gloves and i bought a extra large ones because they're just so easy to slip on then what we're going to do is we're going to grab our elbow we want to make sure that when you hook up a waist hose that you have an elbow this is a clear elbow to allow you to see the waist as it goes through i'm going to do is take the cap off and i'm going to screw in the elbow now sometimes you're going to go to a dump station and there's going to be no threads to screw this in because you want to make sure you have a very secure fitting here that way when the waste discharge through and that big rush comes through this doesn't pop out and discharge waste all over the ground that can be very embarrassing so what you want to do is you want to pick up a rubber donut this is uh designed to slip over the elbow on the waist hose but allows you to wedge it in and then slip the elbow right into it now that you have that secured you want to grab your waste hose i have a waste hose storage tube right underneath my van a lot of rvs have a storage compartment for it or it can slide into a back bumper regardless you want to make sure it's stored separately than the rest of your items in your trailer if you don't have that option then you want to put it in a large plastic bag so i'm going to snap on the end right to the elbow first get that tight and then i'm going to go over to the waist gate and the discharge i'm going to take the cap off slightly and allow any residual to drip right into the waste hose you don't want to drip it all over the ground and you're going to snap that on nice and tight and just double check make sure everything's secure now i have a curb here so this is parts a little bit lower you could buy some grating plastic devices that allow you a perfect grade right into the campground's dump station for the demonstration video i'm just going to leave it low like this you always want to empty your black waste first that would be your toilet weight you're going to pull the wastegate straight out and that will discharge all the waste right into the waste hose and then you'll see it through the clear elbow not that you might want to look at it but you can see the flow there and you'll know it's done by either listening to it or if you don't see any waste coming through and let that drain completely first then you want to close the waste tape but i always open and close it a couple times just in case any debris was stuck in the wastegate and you get a really good seal before you close it then what you want to do is follow through with the gray waste which will be your sink and shower soapy water and will clean out your waste hose now some rvs have a black tank flush it's like a little shower head inside the black tank now you could hook up a garden hose after you empty the waste you would leave the wastegate open and it would spray down the walls of the tank to get any residual waste out i don't have that feature on my motorhome but sometimes what i'll do is i'll get the tank to about a quarter low and i'll i'll buy some bags of ice and crush them really good and pour them down the toilet and drive around that ice banging around in the tank gets and cleans the walls of the tank down very good let it melt a little bit and then do your discharge so after you close the black tank you want to open up your gray waist tank and now you have soapy water that's going to flow through and it's going to help clean out your waste hose and you can always move it around a little bit because these ridges here can catch some waste and get it all down once that's done flowing through you're going to close the wastegate again you can go in and out a couple times make sure you got a good seal and then the best practice would be to unhook it from the rv side first any residual waste that drips out catch it in the waste hose then bring it up nice and high wiggle it around a little bit and get all that waste out water sewage toilet paper whatever's stuck in there before you unhook it and all i do is i keep both ends up nice and high and then i keep one up high and i feed it back into the tube you're always going to get a little residual on your hands that's why i'm wearing the gloves when you're done undo your elbow you can put this in a big ziploc bag if you can't fit this in your waist those tourist tube which most can't and then you put back on your cap and then for storage purposes i stick the donut right onto the end and put it away in a storage compartment well this is patrick with new jersey's outdoor adventures youtube channel i hope you found this video helpful please like this video comment share subscribe i'd love it and we'll see you soon

Channel: New Jersey Outdoor Adventures

Views: 20,666

Rating: 4.9429588 out of 5

Keywords: black tank, dump tank, empty tanks, dump station, waste station, rv tanks, how to, sewage, vanlife, van life, rv, camper, trailer, travel trailer, airstream, campground, camper tanks, composting toilet, rv sewage, empty rv tanks, poop, Holding tank, Airstream, 5th wheel, Winnebago, Jayco, Thor, Fleet wood, Coachmen, Class b, Class c, Class a

Id: 6Vwerh2wVxU

Length: 7min 48sec (468 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 27 2020