The Great Gray Tank Debate and Why We Changed Our Stance
We've been enjoying the boondocking life quite a bit since we got our solar setup, but this doesn't mean we have completely done away with full hookup campgrounds. Sometimes it's nice to recharge - and we mean both ourselves and our battery bank! We learned early on that full hookup RV parks can be great places to regroup, but now that we're booking more sites without hookups, having those resources once in a while is even more important to us. We can use those times to get chores done that we can't easily do when we're conserving our power, water, and tank space. When we're boondocking, we try to keep cooking as simple as possible and do not want to use too many dishes. On full hookups, we're able to get a lot of prep and cooking done ahead of time, and it doesn't matter how many dishes we need to wash afterwards.
It might sound gross, but when we're boondocking, we don't shower as often as when we're on full hookups. We stick to quick rinses when needed, and body wipes are our friend. Believe it or not, the body adjusts! It's basically a process of training our bodies to utilize its own moisture and bacteria to eliminate odors and keep our skin clean and nourished, and it does work. There are plenty of ways to keep up with good hygiene that don't involve tons of water, but when we do have the option for a long, hot shower, it's quite the luxury!
Having a full hookup site is also a good time to get some extra cleaning done. We can use wet cloths and sponges or rinse off our welcome mat without worrying about using up too much water. We can also give Lily her own luxurious bath. Because she has health issues that make her a wee bit incontinent (see what I did there?), we need to bathe her regularly. Instead of quick washes and wipe-downs, when we have full hookups we can actually let her soak in warm water while we use her special vet-issued shampoo.
You've probably noticed that all of the activities we mentioned involve water. When we wash dishes, household items, our pets, or ourselves, that water goes into our gray tank. This tank is what holds the wastewater from both our kitchen and bathroom sinks, as well as our shower. The black tank holds toilet waste.
Before we started RVing, we did a lot of research on the best practices for using and treating these holding tanks. One big debate is whether or not to leave the gray tank valve open. It's never advised to leave the black tank open because, without getting too graphic, solids go down there, and until they disintegrate, they won't easily pass through the sewer hose. The gray tank, as long as you're careful with hair and food particles, will pretty much only be water and a few easily passable items such as toothpaste. Because of this, some RVers choose to leave their gray tank open when they're at full hookup campsites. This way, they can do all the dishes, take all the showers, and bathe all the incontinent kitties they want without needing to worry about their gray tank filling up.
You might be asking yourself, why doesn't everyone leave their gray tank open? There are a few reasons for this. Some people would rather keep their gray tank closed in case food particles fall into the kitchen sink drain. Other RVers worry about spills of gray water out of their sewer hose when they're not outside supervising the flow. And some RVers prefer to keep tabs on how much water they can use before their gray tank fills. It's good practice if you plan on boondocking in the future and want to learn how many days you can go without needing to empty your gray tank.
We decided early on that we'd prefer to keep our gray tank valve shut. We wanted to test how long we could go before our tank filled, but our biggest reason for keeping the valve closed was that we didn't want to forget to close it when it was getting to be to time to dump our black tank. It's optimal to follow a blank tank dump with the gray tank dump, because the gray water serves as a flush for any residue that the black tank may have left behind in the sewer hose. This means, for all the people who leave their gray tanks open, they need to monitor their black tanks so they can start filling up their gray the day-ish before they plan to dump the black.
There was one other big reason we preferred to keep our gray tank closed at first. At our first couple of campsites, we were having the toughest time getting a secure connection between our sewer hose connector and the actual sewer connection in the ground. Each campsite seems to have something unique going on. Some connections have threads for screwing; others you just rest the hose in. Some connections are really low in the ground, while others are inches above. If you don't have a secure connection, you not only run the risk of spillage, but you can also get vapors releasing from the connection point, and there's nothing worse than being that camper that's stinking out your neighbors.
We were new to RVing, and so we wanted to do anything we could to minimize "oops" moments. However, it wasn't long before we realized that we were not closed gray tank people. We got really sick of dumping being a team sport. When our sewer hose didn't connect tightly to the sewer, every time Anthony needed to dump, he enlisted "Nicole's foot" to secure the hose.
We decided then and there to purchase a Sewer Saddle Bag. There are a few different apparatuses that work to weigh down a sewer hose to its connection point, but the Saddle Bag was our top choice because it's easy to store with all our sewer gear. We were delighted to find a bag that jokingly said "My wife's foot" on it. What a fitting acknowledgement that we weren't the only weirdos dumping tanks with the foot-hold as our solution!
As with so many other RV-related experiences, over time we simply learned how we camp. We quickly learned our tank space and approximated how long we could go before needing to dump. We also stopped being afraid that we might forget to close the gray tank when it was almost time to flush black. When you're constantly monitoring so much in your RV anyway, it's not any extra brain power to look at the black tank indicator, see that it's almost full, and then go out and close the gray valve. We also rarely stay at places long enough to see a black tank flush mid-stay, so it became routine to close the gray tank the day before we leave. We've never forgotten to close up the gray, but if we ever did, it wouldn't be the end of the world. Our trailer has a black tank flush built right into it, so all we'd need to do is connect our flush hose after dumping our black tank, and that would clean any residue right out.
Leaving the gray tank open means that, when we have full hookups, we don't need to pay any mind to how long we're showering or how much water we're using when we wash dishes. We also don't worry about food particles because we have a drain catcher in our kitchen sink and always make sure to wipe crumbs and food residue into the trash bin before throwing the dishes in the sink. We know that some RVers who have big rigs have two separate gray tanks, and they only leave their non-kitchen valve open. They have the option to keep their kitchen gray tank closed to catch any particles that get down the sink, and then they use that gray water to flush out their black tanks when the time comes.
We already had lots of reasons to switch sides in the great gray tank debate and become open-tankers, and as soon as we got our Sewer Saddle Bag, we pulled that valve and never looked back. Months later, toward the end of our first year of RVing, we discovered one more reason to favor the open tank. A few times, we noticed that if we had an especially full fresh tank, there would be pressure build-up somewhere in the lines, and suddenly our shower and sinks would back up as though the gray tank was full. We'd go outside to check our valve and it would in fact be open. Just the nuisance of having water back up was enough to reiterate why we want to keep this valve open when we can. This situation also taught us that it's best to not fill the fresh tank too much unless we absolutely have to. That poor tank doesn't do well under pressure.
To the non-RVer, the conscious overseeing of tanks seems a bit weird and even disgusting, but it's amazing how quickly this all becomes just a part of life. We've learned so much about conserving water and tank space, and now that we have solar, we're learning about conserving electricity, too. It helps us appreciate even more the privilege of arriving to a full hookup site. While we wouldn't trade the freedom that comes with our ability to be self-contained, sometimes we just need to live with a semblance of normalcy, where we don't need to time our showers or conserve water. Becoming an open-tanker all those months ago set us up real nice to bask in the luxury of these moments.