How to Properly Dump Your RV Waste Water Tanks

To properly dump your wastewater tanks, you're going to want to start with the right tools. First of all, a pair of protective gloves like this. You don't want any pathogens, any sewage splashing out onto your hands. Next then I like to use this clear elbow here. It's going to help me identify when my black water tank is really cleaned out. This one has a nice adapter on the end of it that I hook a garden hose to, once I'm done I can clean this. I got a good quality hose on the bottom of this, the accordion style hose. That's going to go into my sewer dump. Then I also want to make sure that I've got a garden hose that's dedicated to my sewage tank. I don't want to use this for anything else. I'm going to keep it in a compartment. I'm going to clean it out with bleach every once in a while, not use it for anything else. I also want a black water tank flush like this wand here. We're going to take this inside. Or some of them have a black water flush that's incorporated right into the tank. So I can just hook up a garden hose and it's going to help us flush the tank there as well. And you're going to want the proper chemical. Now this is a toilet treatment that is pre-measured here or the handy little drop-in packets. So to properly dump these tanks, the first thing I want to do is I'm going to dump the blackwater side but I do want to make sure that my hose is secure. I want to make sure that when it's in the actual dump station, that I either got the self-locking piece or I've got a brick over the top of it. I don't want it going anywhere. Cause once I pull this out it's going to start to move on me cause the weight of it. And then I'm just going to take my dump valve here and I'm going to slowly pull it out and I'm going to let it come out and go through. And I'm just pretty much going to wait until that thing comes through. I'll see the effluent coming down in the inside here. And once it gets to the point where it's slowing down then I'll either go in with the wand and hook to a garden hose, go inside and use this. It's a little more cumbersome. That's why I really liked the flush valve. I'll have that hooked up. Then I'll crank that on and I'll just let it go. I'll let it run through there for probably 15, 20 minutes. Maybe not quite that much, maybe about 10, 15 minutes until I start to see clear coming through here. Now, most people think that's when they're done dumping the black water tank, but what you want to do at that point is to shut the valve, let it fill up to two thirds. So go in and look at your monitor panel inside and see when you're at two thirds full and then stop and come back out here and pull this out. And you'll be amazed at how much more effluent you'll get out of here. Your tank isn't done being cleaned out at that point. So then when you do that you might have to do that a couple of times. If you haven't cleaned it out like that, try it two or three times. You'll see that there's a lot more that's still in there. And then just let that tank flush run for a little bit longer until you get that all cleaned out. So then I'm going to shut the water off. I'm going to shut this area here and then I'm going to go to my gray water tanks and my gray water tank's going to be my shower and that stuff. So I'll pull my gray water tanks out and I'll let that flow and again, I can use this piece here to tell me when I'm done. After that I'll hook a garden hose up to here, crank this open, this is going to then, both valves will be shut. This is going to back feed through here and it's going to clean my entire hose. So using the right tools, using the right procedure you can really clean your tanks out. And by doing that, you're going to have less particles inside, less toilet paper, that type of stuff. That'll give you a false reading. So you'll have cleaner tanks.