[VAC] Re: Grey water tanks

["Terry Tyler" <tylerbears@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jim Boyd,

With our '67 22' Airstream (no grey water tank), I installed a 3 inch diameter plastic pipe between
the outlet valve for the black water tank and the outside edge of my sewer hose carrier. There is
enough room in the carrier for both the pipe and the sewer hose. The pipe protrudes through the iron
panel on the street side, just forward of the rear bumper. The pipe (about 3 feet long) holds 2 to
3+ gallons. That is sufficient grey water storage for us when we're traveling and not parked in a
campground. When we park our Airstream where there are no hookups, I connect to my blue tank.
Otherwise, I connect directly to the sewer hole at the campsite.

On the end of the 3 inch plastic pipe, I glued an attachment for connecting my garden hose or sewer
hose adapters. Grey water spillage is barely discernable when I am quick to connect. Sometimes I use
an old dish pan to catch spillage, especially when parked in a prominent location where there may be
a higher proportion of RV owners who might be quick to make false assumptions and come to erroneous
conclusions based on what they think they just observed.  

When we are boondocking and after I've connected the garden hose adapter, I route the green hose
(short hose) into my 5 gallon blue tank. By holding the end of the green hose higher than the pipe,
grey water stays in the pipe (learned that in my high school physics class) until I'm ready for it
to go into the blue tank. Emptying the tank daily (before we retire for the night) is quick,
sanitary and rarely open to misinterpretation by even the most inexperienced or unthinking RVer. The
job seldom takes ten minutes and the 40# blue tank is readily managed by me. 

Although I have several options for dealing with grey water, some are only useful in selected
situations. Overall, I find it simple to deal with grey water without a built-in grey water tank and
there's no dilemma. Not everyone feels as I do. That's okay. Each of us calls it as we see it. 

Terry
mailto:tylerbears@airstream.net