Sinks drain into black tank

In a thread, I started asking Kevin about his black tank.  I decided I should start a new thread since this is not about solar.  In my just purchased 2014 Tour QZ I find, thanks to Kevin, that my kitchen and 1/2 bath sinks drain into the black tank and not the gray.  Has anyone changed this?  If so how difficult was it.  I could not imaging I crapped that much!

Why does Winnebago do this?

Strange. Never heard of this happening before....Maybe your rig was plumbed on a Monday after a long holiday weekend.....

john owens said:

Strange. Never heard of this happening before....Maybe your rig was plumbed on a Monday after a long holiday weekend.....

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Yeah really.  Almost seems the more likely answer. 

A friend discovered a soft spot in his bathroom and was worried.  I looked at it a bit and realized it was perfectly round about 5-6" in diameter.  Seemed pretty evident that one of the holes were roughed into the incorrect location for a different floor plan, and they just stuffed it with something and laid the linoleum over top.

Complete slackers build these things.

john owens said:

Strange. Never heard of this happening before....Maybe your rig was plumbed on a Monday after a long holiday weekend.....

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It's not uncommon for a bathroom sink to drain into the black tank, although less common for a kitchen sink. That does meet code/RVIA requirements, and it's usually done due to the plumbing/tank layout and to help balance the tank capacities. It can also help in making sure there's sufficient water in the black tank for an adequate flow when dumping.

Bathroom sink plumbed to black is standard practice for Winnebago. We don't run a lot of water in the sink, and less when we need less. Helps me balance usage of the two tanks.

So how many tanks do you have?  I have black, gray, galley.  The 1/2 sink and kitchen goes to galley. 

Yep, that's the way our Tour is plumbed too - Very frustrating. 51 gallons isn't bad for a black water tank's capacity, especially if you re-program the macerator toilets to use less water, but our 105 gallon grey water tank usually only has about 10 to 15 gallons in it after several days of boondocking. That's a lot of wasted space.

Most RVers find that their grey water tank fills up first, but in 2011 and later Tours, it's the black water tank, because a lot of grey water goes into it too. I don't know about earlier models. I'm quite sure Winnie did that, because it was a lower cost solution. 

I have not seriously looked into rerouting the kitchen sink and/or the half-bath's drains, so they drain into the grey water tank. It's probably worth looking at, but I'll bet it's not going to be a very practical solution.

I emailed Winnie last year and asked them if attaching a blade valve to the dump tube, to combine the capacities of the grey and black water tanks, would cause any problems. Many boondockers do that without any trouble. Winnie's response was that they would not recommend it, because they've never tested it themselves, and they didn't know how well solids would flow out of the grey tank when dumping. They also thought black tank odors "might" be a problem in the grey tank.  ???

Our grey tank doesn't have a flushout system like our black tank does, but our first motorhome didn't even have one for the black tank - I just filled it with fresh water after dumping and flushed it out that way - worked great. Right now, if our grey tank overflowed, we'd see it in the shower drain, because that's the low point. It would be a real drag to see black water bubbling out of that drain instead of grey water, but our 115 gallon fresh water capacity isn't enough to overflow both tanks, so I don't see that happening.

I don't know how high the bottoms of the black and grey tanks are in relation to each other, which is something that will affect how well they crossfeed, so that's something to evaluate. That should be easy enough to do by filling the black tank to near full (with fresh water) then opening the black and grey valves and see how well they crossfeed.

Kev

I just looked up the drawings - sure enough 2 tanks instead of 3.  I would not have thought that.

Kevin Means said:

I emailed Winnie last year and asked them if attaching a blade valve to the dump tube, to combine the capacities of the grey and black water tanks, would cause any problems. Many boondockers do that without any trouble. Winnie's response was that they would not recommend it, because they've never tested it themselves, and they didn't know how well solids would flow out of the grey tank when dumping. They also thought black tank odors "might" be a problem in the grey tank.  ???

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I've done that before, I've also jury-rigged a 120v utility pump to pump gray to the flush fitting on the black tank. Not a great idea because the check valve in the flush line will get hung up with gray tank debris. I have the exact opposite situation you do, our gray tank is only about 65 (or was it 56) gallons and after seven days of dry camping our gray tank will be full (we take quickie showers when boondocking.)

Note to self... avoid Winnegabo and their crazy plumbing.

I would go nuts with that kind of crazy plumbing. I use my bath sink often and I want that water to go to the gray, not the black. If it went to a tank and then was recycled for flushing the toilet, that would be great and the toilet wouldn't suffer from cavities and would have peppermint breath.  :

Speaking of being frugal with the gray tank while boondocking... or living without sewer hookups...

I have one of those old fashioned outside showers that bypasses the gray tank nicely.

I also have a pop-up shower enclosure for complete privacy. On top of that I have a bath towel sheet, so I can wrap up going to and from the outside shower, then do all my changing indoors before and after.

It's a great alternative at many camps and when boondocking. I often spend a month at the beach and it has no sewer hookups but it does have fresh water hookups. Just about everybody is using their outside shower with some sort of enclosure or popup like mine to bypass the gray tank.

DearMissMermaid said:

Note to self... avoid Winnegabo and their crazy plumbing.

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Its just the second bath and kitchen sink, and not all winnies are like that.  Our old 5er had the washer discharge into the black tank and it actually kind of kept it clean

So I'm curious - why bother to hold gray water if you are going to shower outside anyway?  in the end you are dumping to ground anyway!  :-\

Mile High said:

So I'm curious - why bother to hold gray water if you are going to shower outside anyway?  in the end you are dumping to ground anyway!  :-\

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For some reason, outside showers are okay but dumping gray water is unforgivable. Same as washing dishes outside. It's okay if the guy in the tent on the adjoining site dumps his dish water in the bushes, but you can't wash the dishes inside the camper then dump the water!

Kind of a double standard I would say  

Our 2010 40BD had a galley sink but only 1 bath.  We will need to avoid the 1/2 bath and kitchen sink when not connected to sewer.

I ran a test today on my sinks.  Only the 1/2 bath sink drains into the black tank.  The kitchen and full bath drain into the gray tank.

schoolsout2 said:

I ran a test today on my sinks.  Only the 1/2 bath sink drains into the black tank.  The kitchen and full bath drain into the gray tank.

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The RVIA standards only allow one sink to drain into the black tank. Most commonly that will be a bathroom sink due to the plumbing, tank layout, and tank capacity. The bathtub is never allowed to drain into the black tank due to the obvious backup hazard.

schoolsout2 said:

I ran a test today on my sinks.  Only the 1/2 bath sink drains into the black tank.  The kitchen and full bath drain into the gray tank.

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That's great to know Dave. I'll bet mine is the same then - just never got around to actually testing it. I'm still disappointed at the imbalance of the grey and black water tanks though... specifically - how fast the black fills up compared to the grey. I installed a Valtera twist on waste valve yesterday. I'll let you know how well the tanks crossfeed as soon as soon as I run a fresh water test.

Kev

Wish our bathroom sinks were plumbed to the black tank, this your help even out the filling of the tanks.  Right now I can go 1 week on the grey tank and 2+ weeks on the black tank, wish I could reroute my sinks.

With the macerator toilets I am only getting 4 days on the black.  We need to learn how to get 7 so we can dry camp.

schoolsout2 said:

With the macerator toilets I am only getting 4 days on the black.  We need to learn how to get 7 so we can dry camp.

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Water rationing rules ... "When it's yellow let it mellow. When it's brown flush it down."  It also helps to keep a can of Febreeze handy!