Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Topic: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh. (Read 863 times) previous topic - next topic

Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

July 09, 2015, 01:17:43 pm

We had a great first trip and learned more than We expected. It is awesome to be on the front end of the learning curve.

I do need some assistance with water management. Keep in mind that I don't have tank monitors yet. I'm having a SeeLevel system installed next week, one monitor upstairs and one in the wet bay to help with filling the fresh water tank.

I did learn today that this hose with a quick connect is to fill and flush the black water tank. Glad I was paying attention.

Since the mountain well water at the campground was so good I decided to empty and refill my fresh water tank. I shut the water off at the pedestal, turned the water pump on, shut the water heater off and opened the kitchen faucet until the fresh water tank ran dry. I shut the faucet off.

I dumped the grey tank, then the black tank, rinsed, capped and stowed the dump hose. Both dump valves were closed.

The fresh water hose is connected here:

At this point all tanks are empty.

I found the tank bypass valve under the sink in the bathroom but was I bit confused. I know one position directly fills the fresh water tank using shore water from the pedestal.

The other valve position bypasses the fresh water tank feeds the water system directly from shore without the need for the water pump and it does not fill the fresh water tank.

Which valve position does what?

Thanks for your patience with a newb! I wouldn't have bought a FT with this forum, that's for sure. I am so grateful for the assistance.

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #1 – July 09, 2015, 01:34:35 pm

The valve is an open and closed valve. When it is open it lets water go into your fresh water tank to fill it. If the tank gets over filled it has an overflow and lets the excess out. If you are not hooked to city water and you leave the valve open the water pump will take water from the tank and you will then be taking the water from the line and putting back in the tank. The pump will never stop pumping since it is pumping it back into the tank it is getting it from.

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #2 – July 09, 2015, 01:38:04 pm

So the valve has on and off. Does on fill the tank, or does off fill the tank? Sorry to be a bit dense and thank you for your help.

Edited to add: off = closed; on = open?

Open/on fills the tank?
Closed/off bypasses the tank?

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #3 – July 09, 2015, 01:58:26 pm

Open (lever inline with the tubing) fills the tank (pump must be off), closed lets you run of shore water with pump off or the tank if the pump is on. It may be that you can't see the orientation of the lines below the valve, but if you turn the pump on and it just runs, turn the valve to the other position and it stops you have established the open and closed position of the valve, barring some other kind of issue.
Don

Quote from: Jeff & Sandy – July 09, 2015, 01:38:04 pm

So the valve has on and off. Does on fill the tank, or does off fill the tank? Sorry to be a bit dense and thank you for your help.

Edited to add: off = closed; on = open?

Open/on fills the tank?
Closed/off bypasses the tank?

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #4 – July 09, 2015, 02:03:08 pm

Thank you!

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #5 – July 09, 2015, 02:08:46 pm

In your photo above, the valve is closed (the handle is 90 degrees to the in-line valve). In this position, with the shore water hose connected and turned on, your coach water system is pressurized by the shore hose. You can just use shore hose pressure to operate, or if it is insufficient, you can turn the water pump on to add additional pressure to your system.

When you turn the valve handle to the other position, where it is lined up with the valve (and the water pipe), then it is open. The water coming into the coach from the shore hose goes directly into the water tank. If you try to use a faucet in the coach at this time, there will be very little pressure available - it will just dribble out. Turning on the water pump at this time will do nothing - it will run continuously but pressure will not build.

When the tank is as full as you want it, shut the valve under the sink (turn it back to 90 degrees, like in the photo). This stops flow into the tank, and the system goes back to being pressurized by the shore hose. If you disconnect from shore water, then you must turn on the pump to get pressure.

The ONLY time the valve under the sink is open is for filling the tank.

Another way to empty the water tank, if you so desire, is to use the drain valve located in one of the bays. Usually near the water heater, in my limited experience. This valve drains the tank directly on the ground.

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #6 – July 09, 2015, 02:11:01 pm

If you look at the picture of the valve I just notice that there is an arrow that is showing off (closed)

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #7 – July 09, 2015, 02:14:36 pm

Quote from: Jeff & Sandy – July 09, 2015, 01:17:43 pm

I dumped the grey tank, then the black tank, rinsed, capped and stowed the dump hose.

You want to do this in the reverse order - black tank first, then grey tank. The reason: you are using the grey water to rinse out the dump hose - keeps it a lot cleaner.

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #8 – July 09, 2015, 02:37:47 pm

You might want to get some advice and reconsider keeping unchlorinated or untreated water in your fresh water tank. I really don't know.

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #9 – July 09, 2015, 03:55:15 pm

Quote from: Chuck & Jeannie – July 09, 2015, 02:14:36 pm

You want to do this is in the reverse order - black tank first, then grey tank. The reason: you are using the grey water to rinse out the dump hose - keeps it a lot cleaner.

I did this correctly and typed incorrectly. Black first, then grey.

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #10 – July 09, 2015, 04:01:21 pm

Quote from: Forewheelers – July 09, 2015, 02:37:47 pm

You might want to get some advice and reconsider keeping unchlorinated or untreated water in your fresh water tank. I really don't know.

Good point, thank you, I didn't think about that. I definitely can understand the benefit of using city water. I'll do that on next week's trip.

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #11 – July 09, 2015, 05:09:06 pm

As previously mentioned we work out of our tank constantly which keeps treated city water in the system most of the time. So if you have unchlorinated water in the tank now you should empty the fresh water tank within two weeks. If I can get only untreated water, I will not leave it in the tank for more than two weeks. If I haven't used all of the water by then I will empty the water tank and refill with chlorinated water. I also carry chlorine granules purchased at a pool supply store that I can put into the fresh water tank through the fill hose if I can't get chlorinated water in that time frame.

The valve you use to drain the water tank on my coach is in the bay under the water heater.

Look up the sanitizing process on the net and sanitize the tank at least once per year. IMHO

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #12 – July 09, 2015, 10:10:32 pm

Thanks Kent. I'm headed out again next week and will do as you suggest.

The water in the tank was at least 4 weeks old, from when I picked the coach up.

Do you drink water from your tank? My wife tends to prefer bottled water unless we are at home.

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #13 – July 09, 2015, 10:41:09 pm

Quote from: Jeff & Sandy – July 09, 2015, 10:10:32 pm

Do you drink water from your tank? My wife tends to prefer bottled water unless we are at home.

We filter our water at the park hose bib, into our hose to the coach and then either into the tank or direct to the faucets. But in our coach there is also a filter in the galley under the sink for the drinking water tap and to the ice maker. We only drink from the filtered tap at the sink.

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #14 – July 10, 2015, 09:25:07 am

This is probably not necessary but to satisfy the wife I bottle water at home through a filter we have at the kitchen sink. I carry about a dozen gallons of filtered water to drink, make coffee, tea and for the portable ice machine. This way they always taste the same. I carry most of these in Ice Chest in a storage bay. This way if the fridge goes down I have the Ice Chest. Use Ice Chest for storage boxes and you will be surprised when they come in handy.

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #15 – July 10, 2015, 10:15:15 am

Quote from: Jeff & Sandy – July 09, 2015, 10:10:32 pm

The water in the tank was at least 4 weeks old, from when I picked the coach up.
Do you drink water from your tank? My wife tends to prefer bottled water unless we are at home.

As others have noted, we only draw out of the tank after filling. For travel from water source to water source I will carry a little less than a half tank as measured by the support bar in the wet bay. After arriving at a campground etc, I fill the tank and once again draw only from the tank. When I add any water to the tank I dump in a splash of chlorine bleach into the fill hose each time. For drinking water, I fill seven 1 gallon used iced tea jugs, the Arnold Palmer jugs are heavy duty, with water (after letting the spigot run for a little). I check the clarity of the water on the first jug, some places may have rusty water or the water has sit in the pipe for a while. I keep the jugs under the sink and before using for consumption the water get run through a Britta water filter. We also keep a 1 gallon jug of filtered water in the refrig. We consume about 1 gallon of water a day so this will last us a week.
Good luck,

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #16 – July 10, 2015, 10:34:58 am

Quote from: Jeff & Sandy – July 09, 2015, 10:10:32 pm

Do you drink water from your tank? My wife tends to prefer bottled water unless we are at home.

Yes we do drink water from our tank but we use the coach often and cycle treated water through the tank frequently and I use a household style, charcoal water filter on the filling hose. If I have any question about the water source I put a couple of teaspoons of granulated chlorine in the fill hose after the water filter before hooking it up.

Many people will only drink bottled water. Some are not comfortable drinking unfiltered tank water. But I bet those picky people have never seen the water lines from municipal water systems. Millions of people drink municipal and well water without harm. Our coach systems are pretty safe in my opinion.

If you wife is uncomfortable, use the water from the filter to the right of the kitchen sink. Those filters are very good. If the water flows very slowly, you may need to change the filter under the sink.

I feel one can worry themselves to death about the details of Coach Life or relax and just enjoy it. I go by the old saying "IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T FIX IT AND IF IT IS BROKE TRY TO FIX IT YOURSELF CUZ YOU CAIN'T HURT IT". Seriously I have found on these older coaches that when you start messing with stuff things tend to break. We have had very few problems with our 22 year old coach. We just use it and enjoy it.

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #17 – July 10, 2015, 11:11:43 am

After living in Asia for a number of years we can PROBABLY drink out of any of our tanks. If you've always had purified water....you'd better stick to it. Kinda like the natives when "civilization" reached them with their diseases. The natives had not developed any immunity for the diseases and really got hammered.

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #18 – July 10, 2015, 06:01:05 pm

Quote from: toyman – July 10, 2015, 11:11:43 am

After living in Asia for a number of years we can PROBABLY drink out of any of our tanks. If you've always had purified water....you'd better stick to it. Kinda like the natives when "civilization" reached them with their diseases. The natives had not developed any immunity for the diseases and really got hammered.

You are a brave man! I had an office in HK and another in southern China but I stayed far away from any water that I didn't crack the seal on. As you probably know some restaurants fill water bottles with tap water and serve them with the cap opened, sitting on the top of the bottle.

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #19 – July 11, 2015, 08:42:12 am

A preventive exercise everyone might want to try: I wanted to verify that my liquid tank sensors (all of them, black, gray, & fresh) worked so I proceeded to fill each tank until the monitor showed full.

Gives me a little more peace of mind knowing I won't accidently overfill a tank.

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #20 – July 11, 2015, 08:50:46 am

Quote from: nitehawk – July 11, 2015, 08:42:12 am

...so I proceeded to fill each tank until the monitor showed full.

I assume, during your test, that you filled the black tank with fresh water, not something else?

Re: Need a bit of help with fresh, grey and black water management. Mostly fresh.

Reply #21 – July 11, 2015, 02:23:58 pm

Yup, fresh water. I have a wooden "stick" with an end on it that fits over the ceiling fan control (in case of vociferous objections to the fragrance emanating from the bathroom). The stick is just right for holding the floor flush lever down so water runs right on thru to the black tank. The other end wedges under the counter. I do check the setup constantly, and closely monitor the tank gages. I never knew if the tanks would read full as we would get anxious when we saw 3/4 full. Now we know the full sensors work. Ain't peace of mind great?

Affiliate Notice