Gray tanks and 30amp hookup

[Rick and Mindy]

So, we just made a trip to Lake Dardenelle State Park in Arkansas where we spent 6 nights in a "no sewer" 30 amp/water site. Don't get me wrong, they have beautiful full hook up sites right on the lake but sincewe had not made reservations way in advance we would have had to move several times and we were meeting relatives in a motorhome and decided we would go with the site we were in. The weather was rather cool so we did use the heat pump several times and found that we could run the heat pump, microwave and an electric teapot and several halogen lights without tripping the 30 amp breaker. That was good news. Since we didn't have sewer decided to see how long we could make the 2 gray tanks last. I should tell you that we did use the aftermarket slide valve attached to the end of the Redwood sewer pipe. As others have stated, I opened both gray valves and left the end attached slide valve closed so we could utilize the full 90 gallons of gray water. We were conservative in our water usage but we each(2 of us) showered every day and dishes were also cleaned daily but we did keep the dishwater in a pan in the sink and used that water each evening to distinguish our campfires. We also used the bathroom vanity for teeth brushing and washing hands. I monitored the gray tanks every day to see how full they were. On the 6th day one of the tanks showed full and the other showed 2/3 full. Not knowing how full the second tank was for sure we decided to walk to the provided bathrooms to shower on the 6th day. We do not have a shutoff on our shower head so we could have actually gone longer than the 6 days if we had the shutoff. We had no problem with the setup or the added valve leaking so we were happy to know that we could go that long without dumping. No problems with the black tank and when we dumped it was only at 1/3 full.

[Radio_Flyer]

Thanks, good info to have. We are going to Maine in August, just water and power(50amp) but no sewer, just a honey truck. Good to know we can get at least a few days on the gray tanks. We have a "navy shower" valve on the shower, should help us a little bit. I also have the external valve, just in case.

[piper guy]

Skip ~ want some company ?? We're thinking of going that way also .

[piper guy]

'course since our RW's are identical in color and model, we would confuse a bunch of people (and ourselves after a few too many .......)

[Radio_Flyer]

Vaughan would love to have the company. We are trying to rustle up our friends to convoy up. We are planning to be up in Bar Harbor area. I'm already guilty of walking into another RW like ours, and yes, adult beverages were involved :-)

[piper guy]

When you get a chance, send me a PM or and email with dates.

[almcc]

We hit a number of 30 amp, no sewer state parks on our annual winter run from Canada to southern California and return. Running off 30 amps is no problem, all that's required is power management (turn off the water heater if running the microwave etc.), we learned this technique when RV'ing in Mexico with only 10 or 15amp service.

We haven't run any more than about 3 days with no sewer hookups but we have done a clothes wash in addition to showers and haven't filled the front gray water tank. We find that the galley tank is still virtually empty with only dishwater going into it after 3 days.