Day 48 - Charleston to Dillon, South Carolina

When you travel in a motor home, there are numerous things that get to occupy your mind that don't demand much attention when you're home. One of those things is the sewer. Now everybody has a sewer connection at home. Some of us have septic tanks, which sort of passes for a sewer. But most folks just have a pipe that runs from under their house to somewhere out in the middle of the street. You don't know how it all works. You just know that, well, most of the time, it just works and requires no intervention from you. Even if it doesn't work once in a blue moon, all you do is call the roto rooter guy and he comes out with his root-eating machine. He spends about thirty minutes, hands you a bill for $150.00, and you're back in business for another year or more.

None of the above facts are pertinent to your RV. Whether it's a self-contained coach, or one that gets hooked to a tow vehicle, all RVs have one thing in common: they have sewage tanks under the floor and these thanks need constant attention. There's no such thing as letting "someone else" take care of it. If you own a recreational vehicle, YOU are the one for whom the buck stops.

I bring up this subject not just because we didn't do anything today interesting enough to write about (we didn't), but because it's a subject that comes up everyday, at least for me. For some reason the sewage tank has been acting up more this trip than in past excursions. I have not determined why this should be. But as that great philosopher, Shane Malloy, once said, "It is what it is."

It all started when we got to Lafayette, Louisiana. I went through my usual routine of pulling the valves open and letting the sewage drain into the flexible pipe that runs from the coach to the park's in-ground sewer outlet. While that is happening, I always hook a fresh water hose to the appropriate connection on the black water tank and force fresh water in behind the sewage to help things along a bit. But this time, after I had finished, I happened to be using the bathroom and noticed that the tank had not emptied at all. Soooooo.....I went through the procedure again. No luck.

It being the first time this had happened in three rather extensive road trips, I didn't have a clue what to do. So I hoofed it up to the park office and asked if they had some fix-it genius on call who might come take a look. Fortunately they did.

Lucky for me the fix-it guy came, he saw, and he conquered, and was gone in an hour or so. He gave me some good advice that, after all, is the intent of the posting this evening.

The first thing he told me was that many RVs have the fresh water flush point placed in the wrong part of the sewage tank to do you any good. It's located mostly to make it easy to attach a hose, not to provide any strategic flushing point. Nice.

The second thing he told me, or rather showed me, was a special clear plastic flush pipe that allows you to hook a fresh water hose into the outlet of the sewer, between the flexible hose and the permanent fitting on the coach. This allows you to force water up through the down drain, which can cure a clog should one occur.

The third tip he gave me that day was that I should fairly regularly put a couple of bags of cubed ice into the tank from above and let the cubes rattle around while you drive. This has the effect of knocking loose things like toilet paper that can solidify if not regularly and thoroughly flushed out each day.

I immediately adopted all these techniques. In addition I started flushing both in the morning before we leave camp, and in the afternoon as I'm setting up camp. This for the most part has eliminated my sewer problems and we all sleep better knowing that.

I realize that I have expounded at length in the past about parks and their sometimes bizarre sewer connection pipe locations and designs. While poor designs continue to irritate me, I now carry virtually everything I need to set up a sewer line in just about any situation. The components include: two six-foot lengths of plastic rain gutter to hold the flexible pipe at higher than normal elevations (see photo upper left); one accordion-style support for normal elevation use (seen in photo right); one twenty-foot flexible hose which works for most connection spans; one ten-foot flexible hose add-on piece for longer than normal spans; one heavy u-shaped yoke for use in holding the L-shaped end of the flexible hose firmly into the park's sewer pipe; several buckets of various sizes that can be used to elevate the flexible hose and hold the rain gutter pieces when necessary (photo upper left); and one fresh water hose used solely for connection to the sewer tanks.

There are a few other things I carry just because: this includes a brand new backup fresh water hose; a new set of quick disconnect fittings that I like to put on hose ends so I don't have to be constantly screwing and unscrewing hoses; a couple of pair of channel lock pliers for stubborn connections; deodorant tablets for the sewer tank (just in case); and a ninety degree sewer hose fitting that I might need someday but probably won't.

And that's about it. I may have forgotten something here, so if you have a question please let me know and I'll try and answer it. Messing with sewer hoses and such is not tons of fun, but is always a necessary chore to do correctly if you don't want to ruin your trip. Best to always give it your full attention.