Gray vs. Black Water Tanks

I know this might seem like a crazy problem to most of you guys that never have more than 4 people in your coach, and of course, without their shoes on. We had our coach out this weekend for its big college football début as Penn State got is butt kicked by Ohio State in prime time, oh well it was a good party anyway. Anyway our Featherlite has a 170 gallon fresh, 81 gallon black, and 81 gallon gray and we filled up the black to 80% before the game and were in severe ration mode after the game. We did get to 100% on the gauge but had no problems luckily. I have two problems/questions.

First I think our toilet is flushing to long. It is a Headhunter Neoclassic and I have the installation and instruction manual and it says nothing about how to adjust the cycle. I have not called Featherlite but that is the next step. Does anyone else have a Headhunter toilet that can give me some insight?

Second we would like to install a 2” connection with a valve near the top of the gray and black water tanks that could be used as a crossover for extra capacity when needed. Now let the bullets start flying. Why do RVs have separate gray and black water tanks in the first place? What good reasons are there not to do this?

Rick we have always had motor homes with a separate gray tank and holding tank, until the bus that is. It has only one holding tank. Didn't like the idea at first but after camping it a while we have discovered it is a non issue.

Bringing up the scenario you have described would even make it preferable.

You have a good question there. I can't think of any reason not to accept for the smaller diameter drain valve. Could possibly pump it over there with a macerater pump, that would eliminate that problem.

The only difference is after dumping you need another source of rinse water to clear the hose because of the absent gray water. We have a system drain and ball-valve right there that I put a 1ft piece of garden hose on. to rinse with.

Featherlite makes the gray and black tank outlets and gates the same size and also provides a fresh water flush for each tank. With all the gray water drains having traps i can't imagine odor could be an issue, and the gray tank should also be vented similar to the black.

You must have a flushing issue or your whole party consisted of chicks.

We don't have near that much fresh water and we tailgate / dry camp for two days which includes showers for 4 people (two times) and have 20 visitors that somehow end up using the toilet sometime during the day and we never use all the water.

In fact, we washed two loads of clothes on top of that and neither tank got over 50% full. But there wasn't more than 15% of the water left when I filled it back up.

Sounds like a gauge problem. Don't know about the headhunter, but the microphor uses 1/2 gallon. That would mean 162 flushes to fill up the 81 gallon tank assuming you went to the game empty.

That's a lot of beer!:D

Tom,

You reckon he has a malfunctioning "Low Beer Light" and that caused a premature filling of the aformentioned tank? Sounds reasonable to me.

If you flush, and the piece of toilet paper hangs on the 3/4 sensor probe, then the monitor will show 3/4 full, until the probe is cleaned by one of the next beer flushes :rolleyes:

I would check with your converter before making that change. The venting , p traps, diameter of waste dump, and back flow issues all come to mind.

Richard,

When you get in a position that one of your tanks is almost full and can't dump it, you can always open the gray and black valves at the same time and they will equalize. Just make sure you have a end cap that doesn't leak.
Shut the valves after a few minutes.

They have the two tanks (blk & gray) because some state parks allow people to dump the gray on the grass.

In my opinion, they are both waste tanks, gray just sounds better.

If you have separate gray and black tanks, normally the gray fills up first, and if you have no dump station available, well, you can often dump the gray on a lawn or flower bed area without any problem. Then you have room again and can continue for a while until you get to a dump station. If you had a combined gray/black tank you can not do that.

Also, if the black gets full and there is no dump station, and you have room in the gray tank ( and you can always make room in the gray tank by the above procedure), there s is the last emergency stage option. You can often open both gray and black dump valves together with the cap on the outlet instead of the hose, and the tank levels will equalize, assuming both tanks are side by side as mine are. Then, you have room in your black tank again to get you by.

This is why I like having separate tanks, not to mention the gray rinse after the black dump does a fine job cleaning out the hose before storing it away.

My 2 cents...

Richard,

It sounds like your problem relates to the amount of water used during a flush, and not the capacity of your tanks.

The Headhunter toilet has an adjustable water level and that relates to the amount of water entering your waste holding tank. That flush can be adjusted by opening or closing a valve that controls the water flow going into the rim of the bowl. Opening it causes a higher water level after the flush, and closing it lowers the water level. You have to access that valve and through trial and error you can adjust it for your requirements.

I think there was some confusion about how I worded my fist post. It was a “Build it and they will come” scenario where the new bigger RV lead to a new bigger tailgate. We had 25 – 50 people at the tailgate between 3:00 PM when we left and 2:30 AM when we got home. I was pointing out the contrast about how we use our coach is vastly different than how most of you use yours. I have been to rallies before where everyone takes their shoes off to enter a coach. That’s not us, we would need a huge bin to hold the shoes with as many as 20 people in the coach at any one given time.

I personally watched all evening as the water when down 10% at a time while the black went up 10% at a time. We try to enforce the “if its yellow, let it mellow. if its brown, flush it down” but that is hard to enforce with 20 +/- women. I did start turning off the water pump after the game when it was getting to the critical 90% level to control flushing. There were no sudden jumps in the gauges and I dumped the tanks Sunday morning and watched as the gauges slowly went down 10% a time. The final gauge readings were 40% water about 102 gals used, 20% gray about 16 gals full, and 100% black about 80 gals full. The gray and the black equal about 96 gallons which just about equals out.

I agree one of our problems is that the toilet is flushing to long and I am going to call Featherlite tomorrow to see if they can walk me through how to adjust it.

The opening of the black and gray tanks at the same time is a great idea in a pinch, I wish I would have thought of that. Only problem I see there is the mess you will have in the 2 or 3 gallons that will get trapped behind the cap and gates. Going to need some rubber gloves for that dump, would make a terrible practical joke for someone willing to give you a hand.

Back to my original question about creating a transfer between the tanks. I want to put the connection near the top like at the 80% full area. I am also going to install a 2” or 3” ball valve and only open the transfer on occasions when it is needed. Also by putting the transfer near the top it should be mostly liquid and not solids spilling over to the gray tank. Since Featherlite has provided a flush for the gray on the occasions we need to use the extra capacity we can make sure we flush it down when we dump.

Richard,

I forgot to mention that is nice to have or your should have a end cap that has a garden hose connector. It is nice, since you can drain off the drain pipes before undoing the cap.

I see:D, i guess that advice alone was worth the $100 price of admission.

Just to clairify, here is a photo.