Join us as we navigate a whole new world - the world of full time RVers. Laugh with us at the idiotic mistakes we are bound to make. Enjoy some of our cool experiences. Read our reviews of various campgrounds, routes we took getting from here to there and there to here, as funny things are everywhere (with a nod to Dr Suess), and other assorted items we choose to share.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
The Macerator Pump and Emptying The Black Water Tank
Since RVing is new to us I don't have any experience draining the blackwater tank which would also require moving the trailer. I also haven't had much experience towing it or, especially, backing it up. To go to a dump station would require stowing all the stuff we've been haphazardly piling in, retracting the slide-outs, disconnecting electrical power, and hitching up the truck and since the tank was starting to get full I was really interested when I read about using a macerator pump which reduces everything to a slurry and can be pumped through a 5/8" garden hose into a sewer clean-out or even through a window in the house and into a toilet. I did some research on-line a bought a portable macerator pump that just twists onto the sewer outlet just like the hose normally would. After a few mis-tries I got the wiring run and everything looked like it was ready to go. Since we didn't have the sewer clean-out option we went for the toilet. Betsy is outside with the hand-held switch for the macerator and I'm inside holding the hose in the toilet. After a few false starts while testing with fresh water, in which we discovered the knife gate valve leaked, we finally started pumping the crud. I expected some odor, but WOW!!!, that was bad. Stunk up the whole house! In retrospect I believe I could have pushed the hose all the way down the toilet a few feet and not have had to deal with all the aroma. Even thought the instructions say you can pump into a toilet they don't go into much detail. If I try this again and pushing the hose further down works I'll let you know.
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I definitely had the easy job in this procedure!
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