Waste tank rinse connection

[leedav]

Is it a no-no from a microbial perspective to just use my fresh water hose for the tank rinse? Any chance of backflow or anything?

[Viggen]

I use a different hose. Just in case.

[leedav]

I found the warning not to do it just now in the paperwork.

[brick1]

Keep a dedicated hose for the black water rinse. Never use you water supply hose. Yuk.

[leedav]

Agreed. But if you're at a park and the there's one water spigot, and it's lower than the waste rinse on your trailer, won't any backwash end up in the spigot? Maybe use a y connector also?

[daleyocum]

There’s a back flow preventer built into the trailer and I use another one just to be sure. I’ve lived to tell the tail.

[majorairhead]

Originally Posted by leedav

Agreed. But if you're at a park and the there's one water spigot, and it's lower than the waste rinse on your trailer, won't any backwash end up in the spigot? Maybe use a y connector also?

Ya, truth be told, at any campground, realize peeps can/are hooking up their black water rinse hose to the freshwater connection you are about to hook up to when you back in for your stay?

[pcskier]

Originally Posted by majorairhead

Ya, truth be told, at any campground, realize peeps can/are hooking up their black water rinse hose to the freshwater connection you are about to hook up to when you back in for your stay?

I have never stayed in a full-hookup campground, I hate walking out my door and seeing someone else's sewer hose, and I think having a dump station in every site is nasty. Think of the hapless beginners who are spilling all manner of grossness around that area, 15 or 20 feet from my picnic table. Think of where that fly you're swatting away from your dinner might have just been. Not for me. But I digress!

But if I were to stay in one...or whenever I use a dump station now, IF I refill water at the fresh water spigot as I leave the dump station, I always give it (and the handle) a wipe with a sanitizing tissue. God knows how many people were dumping, whether they use the same hose or not,anti-siphone or not, and then pulling forward and filling their fresh tank with their nasty hands that handled the dump hose, etc. That's raw sewage on their grimy little fingers. I see enough guys leave the sit-down stall in bathrooms and just cruise out without washing their hands, so I am prepared when I'm behind them in the dump station and intend to fill up the fresh tank after dumping.

Mostly moot for me, as I mostly boondock or dry camp, filling my fresh tank before leaving home, and just topping it up 6 gal at a time with water from forest service stations, campground spigots, etc.
To get to the core of Leedav's question though...anti-siphon valves notwithstanding...it's not a good practice to use your fresh hose to rinse your black tank, simply because you are handling your fresh supply hose right after dumping. I guess if you sanitize your hands first, there's that; but overall, I think it's good operating procedure to do them with separate hoses. I know some people make a much shorter hose to use as their 'rinse' hose to save space.

[leedav]

Yeah i agree. We almost always dry camp. I have a coil hose in the bumper. Sometimes you have to go to an RV park though. Today we are doing a 50m organized bike ride and didn't have many options.

I'm also very leery of filling the fresh tank at a dump station. We have a longer trip coming up and I'm thinking of a water station in a grocery store and a few trips with the Jerry can.

[pcskier]

Originally Posted by leedav

Yeah i agree. We almost always dry camp. I have a coil hose in the bumper. Sometimes you have to go to an RV park though. Today we are doing a 50m organized bike ride and didn't have many options.

I'm also very leery of filling the fresh tank at a dump station. We have a longer trip coming up and I'm thinking of a water station in a grocery store and a few trips with the Jerry can.

We are on the same page. I don't mind filling at the dump station pullout, I just sanitize the fittings as noted. I do prefer the jerry can approach though. I only use dump stations when I have to...most trip of up to two weeks, I can manage without dumping, then do it at home, my sewer cleanout is next to the driveway. Dump stations are just nasty to me, I've seen enough of what goes on there, and the pigs just driving off leaving their mess for the next guy. Even walking around it, all I can think about is what's getting on the bottom of my shoes, then in my truck, etc. Maybe I'm a bit germaphobic lol.

[VeloBuckeye]

I don’t consider myself a germophobe, but I learned a trick from another camper. I carry a small can of Lysol in my TW and spray the spigots, faucet handle, sewer cap, AS tank hookups, etc. before I do any hookups. Can’t hurt I assume.

[leedav]

On the Bambi I always just put aqua Mira in the tank. Funny taste and DW doesn't like it. Now I'm living dangerously.

[daleyocum]

Originally Posted by VeloBuckeye

I don’t consider myself a germophobe, but I learned a trick from another camper. I carry a small can of Lysol in my TW and spray the spigots, faucet handle, sewer cap, AS tank hookups, etc. before I do any hookups. Can’t hurt I assume.

I used to do the same until I read the Lysol fine print. Turns out you are supposed to leave it on wet, wait 3 minutes, wipe it off and let it dry! I always thought it kills on contact but alas no. I’m usually in too much of a hurry for that. The fastest kill time I’ve found in something I wouldn’t mind getting on me and is food safe is PURELL Multi Surface Disinfectant Spray . Even at that it wants you to wait 30 seconds.

[oldenavy]

I use a trick I learned on Navy ships for sanitizing potable water connections. Make a small bucket of strong bleach water (maybe 1/2 cup bleach to 2 qts of water), then soak all connections and fittings for a minute or two. If i'm using a public spigot (or one at a campsite), I soak the spigot as well. I keep a bottle of bleach in the trailer and do this every time we fill the H2O tank or have a water hookup. I also always use disposable gloves for that as the bleach is still quite strong!

Oh, and yes, agree with all the others, never use potable hose for black tank flush.

[brick1]

I would not fill freshwater tanks from a water spigot at a dump station.

[farafield]

This is a great conversation. I'm about to experience my first full hook up camping trip so this convo is helpful. Not my cup of tea but it could be pretty chilly so I may need my furnace and I'm not set up power wise to run much with out shore power. It makes sense that whatever spigot you use, you don't know what's happened there before so clean it up first. My preferred cleaner is bleach. You can mix it with some water if you are going to use right away (water/bleach mixture is not stable over time). The nice thing about bleach is that it degrades and there are no scents or other things in it so if a little gets into your water system, it's pretty harmless (you sanitize your water system with it right?). So I would ditto the dedicated hose for potable water, disinfecting it at the connector at least and the CG spigot before and after using, and keeping it in a clean container. At state park campgrounds here in VT, the potable water is nowhere near the dumping station--seems like a good idea!

[daleyocum]

I’m all for using common sense in taking care of your connections and such. That being said the forums and press aren’t full of stories of people getting sick from drinking water out of their RVs. I think the reason is most water supplies are treated with chlorine and that residual chlorine sloshes around in the RV’s fresh water tank eventually killing any nasties that find their way in there.

I installed an under-the-counter high quality water filter in the kitchen and take reasonable precautions but otherwise don’t worry too much about it, perhaps naively assuming the chlorine will do its job.

[pcskier]

Originally Posted by brick1

I would not fill freshwater tanks from a water spigot at a dump station.

Hopefully nobody does. I'm referring to the potable water spigots that are often adjacent to dump stations. I'm sure the water comes from the same source as the dump station water, they say 'non potable' at the dump section just out of an abundance of caution because of the nastiness that occurs there. Plus it frees up the dump area from people putting 55 gallons of fresh water in their rigs when there's a line to dump.

[majorairhead]

Originally Posted by daleyocum

the forums and press aren’t full of stories of people getting sick from drinking water out of their RVs.

So which would I rather have? A black water rinse hose hooked up to the freshwater supply at the campsite used to flush the black tank of the previous camper in that site.... OR the previous camper using his/her freshwater hose to flush the black tank of their camper???

It's a catch 22 eh?

Bleach and filter seem to be the way to go.

[leedav]

How about the servers at the restaurant who fiddle with their phones all day and then handle your food? Like it or not, we live in a miasma of fecal bacteria [emoji2961]