Full-time live-in: flush black at 2/3 or wait till full?

[doanshop]

Originally Posted by mopac1978

We have lived in our Sabre 5ver for a year now. It’s only been moved twice in that time, so I can’t rely on the road jostling to slosh the tanks around. So far my LED sensors seem to be still working correctly. Here’s what I do: We have found that for our two black tanks, a weekly dumping works fine. Typically one is at 2/3 indication, the other is at 1/3. I turn on the black tank flush valve, pull the dump valve and let ‘er rip for a couple of minutes until the tank is only flowing what the black tank flush is putting into it. I close the dump valve, wait 5-7 minutes, and dump again. Through the clear section of the drain hose assembly I watch what’s coming out and may do a third fill and dump if it isn’t as clear as I like. I then shut off the black tank flush, let it finish draining until it’s a trickle, and then shut the valve. Repeat the process for the second black tank.

After dumping, I put some Rid-X in each tank along with a flush of water. We only use a specific type of Scott TP that is thin one-ply and dissolves fairly well, and nothing else goes into our black tanks. We don’t have smells, leaks or any other unpleasant experiences.

I maintain a pretty strict schedule on dumping because we’re hooked up to a 200 gallon tank that the local porta-potty company rents to us - we’re sitting on land we own with no other type of sewage system. They come every two weeks to suck it out, so my weekly dumping schedule works exactly right to fill that thing up to the top. If we weren’t limited by the 200 gallon size of this tank, I’d probably do my flush and fill routine more than 3 times to make sure all the solids at the bottom of the black tanks are really gone.

That’s my experience for the past year. YMMV.

Just wondering what those costs per month are?

[mopac1978]

Originally Posted by doanshop

Just wondering what those costs per month are?

Here’s my answer from a post in a different thread:

Originally Posted by mopac1978

We're certainly spending a lot more than that, it all depends on what you want to do. For us, the tank rental is $60 per month and I'm paying $90 every two weeks for pumping service, so we're right at $240 per month. Rates and plans vary considerably from one porta-potty service to the next, so you might find places that are cheaper or more expensive.

For me, it's worth it because I have no hauling or transloading or whatever to do. My black tank drains (two) are hooked to the storage tank, so once a week I go 'pull a few levers and turn a few valves to dump and flush my black tanks, and that's it. Every other week the porta-potty guy shows up and pumps out the tank, it only takes him 10 minutes or so. Gray water drains directly on the land, that's allowed here. You can see the tank behind the RV on the left side of the photo attached.

I have a fixed agreement with an adjacent property owner for electricity at $100 per month, and we have a well on the property so I get all the water I could ever use in that electricity charge. So all in, I'm spending about $375 per month for RV utilities (including $35 trash service from the city). That's way cheaper than the nearby RV park that gets $1100 per month for summertime rentals, and almost $700 in off-season.

[doanshop]

Originally Posted by mopac1978

Here’s my answer from a post in a different thread:

Thanks there is a group of us that boon dock on private property dumping black tanks are our only problem we have to drive 10 miles to dump I was just wondering, It got me thinking that we might see what and if they could come out and suck our black tanks out and see what that would cost. Thanks, you got my gears spinning now again Thanks.