Well, since it's always fun to write about poop, I thought I would share my new discovery.
We have had little success with our black tank level sensors since the beginning, all the way back in June. I blame Katie! The real culprit of this problem could likely be traced back to the kink in the water line leading to the water pump rather than a specific individual. There was quite a bit of toddler potty usage with inadequate flushing water. Actually, I guess we are all to blame. I'll let Cosmo and Wanda off on this one since they don't potty indoors even though Wanda has been having difficulty making it to the bathroom lately.
Sidenote: Wanda is our 5.5 year old Weimaraner who has recently been diagnosed with incontinence. Who knew that was common in middle-aged bitches? (I promise that was the word the vet used.) Well, hopefully the medication will work, so far it's improved (i.e. less large wet spots every time she falls asleep to random small spots when sleeping). I'm hoping that the addition of an extra trip outside immediately before bed and when the first human adult wakes up (that would be me) will help out. So far...2 days with no leakage!
Back to the crap story. So, since June 26th, we've been taking full advantage of the facilities onboard. We have avoided the aft crapper because I did not yet have a y-adapter and all the hoses to hook up both holding tank drain lines to the sewer. That meant moving the hose every time we needed to 'dump' the deposits from the aft black tank. It also meant there was no grey water to rinse the hose after the black water travelled through it...yuck!
So, I decided it was time to get all the extra crap we needed to remove some of the crap from the sensors. Since there was a random sale on the Heavy Duty King Pin Stabilizer, we decided to take the Honda for a 2.5 hour drive to the nearest city that had not only a Camping World but an Academy, the greatest fast-tex-mex food Taco Bueno and even a YARN STORE! Oh boy (extra Oh for the yarn store). I had to stay in the car with the kids for the yarn portion because there were too many Lexus's, Audi's, and BMW's for me. I didn't want someone stealing my loot from the clearance rack at Academy out of the back of the Honda. Oh, and sorry, the stabilizer is no longer on sale, we picked it up for $99.99.
Side note: For those who don't understand the Honda part. MY car (Katie's is the F450), is a 95 Honda Accord that had probably 3,000 lbs of stuff stacked in and on top of it while in a trailer during our last move. It has 177,000 miles, was driven lacking about 2 gallons of coolant for who knows how long, and is covered with scratches from having 3,000 lbs of stuff stacked on top of it. It's great because apparently you can't kill it. I hope our luck continues. I guess you'll find out next week.
For the crap issue, at Camping World I picked up the y-adapter, some hoses, and a flexible tank wand. Believe it or not, we actually drove all the way to Little Rock because I couldn't decide which tank wand to get and I wanted to touch them before I bought one. That and there happened to be a Taco Bueno. Academy was an after thought while we enjoyed some Muchacos and Mucho Nachos! I also picked up a couple clear hose adapters. Why you ask? Well, what's more fun than flushing your excrement out of your holding tank? Flushing it out and watching it flow through a clear hose adapter of course!
So, today I finally decided it was time to flush the tank again. So, I hooked up the hose after draining the black tank and turned on the water. I was not surprised at the amount of stuff that flowed from the tank that I was now able to observe through my handy-dandy clear fitting. However, after 10 minutes of flushing, I was very surprised at the amount of stuff still flowing. I'm not sure how much crap was stuck in there, but it still isn't completely clean.
(Definition for Non-RVers: 'flush' means to hook up a hose to the flush connection and turn on the water in this case. Some RVs have a build in flush system that sprays the inside of the black tank in order to remove built up crap. It could also mean hook up a wand and spray the inside of the tank with the wand through the toilet. It is not to be confused with 'dump' which means to open the valve and let the contents of the tank flow with the aide of gravity to the nearest exit which is hopefully a sewer hose properly connected to a sewer or septic system.)
Enjoying numbers and statistics, I thought about how great it would be to find out the efficiency of the flush system and determine if I could find out how long it would take to clean out the tank. But, I figured Katie wouldn't volunteer to keep track of the number of objects that flowed through the sight window. After a good 45 minutes of flushing, I called it a night. And no, it's still not clean. However, we have gone from no electronic tank level indication from the level sensors to 2 out of 4 sensors working, so we're path to success!
By the way, I would highly recommend the clear hose adapter for anyone out there who would like to have indication that their actually getting their black tanks clean!
Another note, the best indication that the black tank is full is when the toilet bubbles when you flush. This is your indication that the water level in the tank is above the vent line in the tank. And that means it's time to dump!
- Steve
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