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Not if they had the bathroom drain valve closed.

Thanks, Bill & Martha What Mike explained in the first paragraph of this post is he was pumping water into the black tank, as part of a cleaning process. He got distracted and left the water running. In this case the toilet bowl dump valve was closed. So the water could not go up into the bowl. The pressure from the hose after filling the tank to capacity, would then push the water up to that vent junction and into the gray waste system. This is an abnormal use-case where this occurred. Operator error, and hose pressure forced the overflow. Normally, this would not occur when operating the Oliver waste systems as designed.

@jd1923 It hasn’t happened to me but it has happened to at least 3 people in the following thread https://olivertraveltrailers.com/forums/topic/3447-left-black-tank-clean-out-hose-on/

I'm having trouble seeing how this could occur. But given this "has occurred" in your experience, please elaborate. Wouldn't the toilet bowl overflow first? We had our black tank once right up to the top, tank full and up the neck, 1-2" below the bowl. Had to stop using it until we towed miles to dump tanks. There was no black waste in the gray water. We also had the grey fill once to where it came up on the shower floor. In this case, we dumped some gray while boondocking since this is legal in in the SW National Forest lands when 500 feet from others and water sources. In neither case did waste of one kind go up the vent and into the other. I'm failing to see the physics that would cause water to get up to knee height which I believe is the approximate height of the sewer gas vent junction. Let us know. Thanks

Cross-over of water from the black tank into the gray tank through the common vent absolutely can and has occurred. More than one owner has attached a black tank flush hose, turned it on and forgotten about it. When the black tank fills water rises up the black vent and spills over into the gray vent. If the shower drain valve is closed the water comes up through the shower drain. If the shower drain valve is open the gray tank fills and then the water comes up through the shower drain.

Yes, as Mike explained and as John wrote nicely in two short sentences. Perhaps you did not see bubbles in the gray waste since there was enough gray water to break down the soap, kill the bubbles, which did not occur in your black waste. For a fact, black and gray waste are two independent systems, except for the venting of sewer gases as @Townesw illustrated above. However, the vents are at a height, a couple of feet taller, where the cross-over of liquids simply could not occur. Gray water would fill the shower floor and overflow into the cabin well before the height of these vents could be reached.

Both sinks and shower drain are plumbed to the gray tank. The toilet drains into the black tank only.

In my trailer, yes, I am sure. Input to the black tank is from the toilet on top. There is also a vent opening that is on the right side of the black tank. Except for the dump opening, that’s it. In my trailer, the bath sink drains down and goes under the shower, joining with the shower drain to empty into the gray tank. I had an issue once where the bathroom drain pipe unattached itself from the gray tank causing gray water to flow the length of the trailer and out by the back bumper. I epoxied the drain pipe back onto the gray tank and problem solved. Your black tank is 15 gallons, gray is 30ish. That may have had some effect on your bubble test. I’ve spent plenty of time under the bathroom sink doing work and (in my trailer) there is no connection between the sink and the black tank. Someone will point out that there is a shared vent connection, but I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here. Mike

Are you sure the bathroom sink goes to the gray? I put soapy cleaner in the toilet, and down the bathroom sink. Black drained bubbles, but the gray did not. That caused me to wonder if the bathroom sink does in fact go to the black.

If your batteries are very low your Xantrex is likely attempting to apply full power to charge your batteries thereby exceeding the power available from your shore power source. It may have worked just fine previously if your batteries had a better state of charge, requiring less demand on your source, but with really low state of charge more demand is required of the source. Decrease or turn off your Zantrex’s max charge current setting or plug into a higher power source. In addition, as others have said, make sure your source is wired correctly and test for faults.

In case anyone wants a nice little guide on how to do these adjustments with the Girard awning. Not our exact model but still works the same.

Yes, our new garage has only GFCI protected outlets. We are able to plug our Oliver into them during storage by changing the Xantrex settings (specifically #28 to 15 or less) and it does not trip the GFCI. I think the OP has a bad adapter or faulty GFCI. He also needs to manage his loads in the Oliver before plugging into that 15A circuit via the Xantrex settings.

Again, the first thing I would do is connect to a non-GFCI outlet. 30A outlets at campgrounds are not GFCI. I've heard new homes have nothing but GCFI circuits in the garage. What a pain! Our 1980 built home only has one GFCI breaker that feeds the outlets in three bathrooms. I wire outlets in the garage wherever I need one. Add a new breaker and run new wire. You could use a 10 AWG extension cord to reach a non-GFCI outlet for testing purposes. This first post below was started by @John E Davies. Check page 2 for the jack service I performed. I believe I'm the only one who has performed a full service where I disassembled the head, degreased all parts, and got new grease UNDER the gears. Your hull is 5 years old, so it's a good time. Do NOT follow the maintenance video shown in Oliver University! Do you know the saying, "**** on a bull?" It's better to leave it alone than to work this procedure! The second post is where I rebuilt the rear jacks which shows lubricating the full 18" lift gear.

GFCI's fail frequently. You need to find another place to plug in. As mentioned previously get a 30 amp (120/single phase) installed in your barn.

Btw: How do you lubricate the front hydraulic lift? I probably should look at the manual.

John, I do use a voltage checker on shore power. I’m not sure I have the ones you are showing. I’m not near it right now. It is yellow though. I am plugging into a power plug in my barn where I store the camper. It is a 15 amp circuit. Don’t you think that if I have opened all the campers circuit breakers, that it must be a problem before the camper? The electric cord or the piece you plug that into to use house current?

John, I did check the shore power. However, when I opened all the circuit breakers in my Oliver, the shore EFCi still tripped. So, that should indicate that the electric power cord itself is bad, or the adapter that you attach to it to plug in a normal plug is bad. After disconnecting the power cord to the camper and just plugging in the adapter and the clean power checker I had, the shore circuit still tripped. So, I’m suspecting, and hoping it is just the plug adapter that is bad, not any circuit of the camper itself. What do you think?

I'm late to the party, but just reading this real quick it sounds like the GFIC outlet is tripping. This has nothing to do with over current, it's completely different than a overcurrent device such as a circuit breaker or fuse. Rather it detects an imbalance in the circuit. So if either the hot side or neutral side of the circuit has a path to ground, it sees an imbalance and trips the GFIC. This imbalance can be as low as 4 milli amps, so even a little moisture is enough to trip it. You should be looking for any dampness on your main power cord and where it plugs into the outlet or trailer. Look for cuts in the cord, not ones that are a direct short, but ones that can use current leakage to ground. Someone suggested that you turn off each breaker in the trailer, I assume you did that and eliminated any trailer issues. I seem to recall writing something about GFIC's in the past, perhaps JD could find it. Good luck, Geoff

The black one is a Progressive 30-amp tester. Never rely on any shore power without testing it.

It appears you are plugging into a 15A GFCI outlet in your barn, and this outlet blows. If so, this has nothing to do with the Oliver except that it is pulling more than 15A. @Steph and Dud B mentioned this above. A 15A household circuit may not be enough to handle the load internal to the Oliver. Also, don't ever use a GFCI outlet as a source for shore power as they are designed to blow in milliseconds. Throw ALL the 120VAC breakers in your Oliver panel under the dinette seat. Connect shore power to another household circuit. Not a GFCI outlet and if you have a 20A circuit choose that over a 15A. Many of us have installed proper 30A outlets where we park our Olivers. Something to think about, relatively simple to install or hire an electrician. After connected to a proper circuit. Turn on your 30A main breaker and then one at a time turn ON and OFF each other breaker. When ON see if the named appliance is working that is connected to that breaker. I don't know enough about GFCI outlets, but I'll bet @Snackchaser does! Hopefully, Geoff will chime in. Using a GFCI outlet as a shore power connection could be your sole issue.

You should have these testers to check the shore power before you plug into your trailer. You have been asked where your trying to plug in, home, campground, 30amp, 120, 120 with GFCI. You should never plug your trailer anywhere without testing the shore power.

On the Dometic control behind the rear dinette seat, I’m getting a E1 error (Reversed polarity?) . How would I have reversed polarity, and how would I correct it. Batteries read real low … As low as 3.7 V. But now 4.9 while solar charging. Checked wires under left dinette seat. All seem tight.

I checked the cable contacts and the contacts where you attach the cable to the trailer. All seemed tight, with no wiggle room. I also tried throwing all the circuit breakers under the left dinette seat. When I plugged into shore power again, it still blew the GF on the barn plug. Does that definitely mean the cable is bad? I have used the barn plug other times with no trouble. Never blew the GF.

Can't wait to see your finished installation and get feedback on it's capability, given your Central Florida location. It must be getting warm down there! I have yet to see enough heat, and of course no humidity down here, to truly test it's cooling efficiency and Ah usage running on batteries! 😎 Will you run your A/C on inverter or shore power only? Here's my final touch. We have a half-dozen remotes in bins mounted front of the nightstand drawer. With the new Chill Cube, I decided to wall-mount two important remotes (mounted with 3M VHB tape only). These are now in a great central location which Chris can also reach from bed when needed!

Happy Travels -- hope to see you on the road somewhere!