Things I learned on a bad camping trip

[WhatDa]

I've thought of using a 12v macerator pump when boondocking along with fresh and gray water bladders.  Sometimes we blow through the gray tank capacity mid-week, so it'd be nice to not to have to take the whole trailer to dump - particularly when it's a less than fun access road to haul the Oliver down.  Added plus is no one stealing your spot while you are out.

Edited August 8, 2020 by WhatDa

[Overland]

A macerator pump for grey water?  🤔

[SeaDawg]

Guessing whatda is talking about is using the "pump" part of the macerator to send the grey water further away from the campsite?

Edited August 8, 2020 by SeaDawg
Typos

[WhatDa]

Yes.  I haven't found many pumps that will handle the food bits and hair that inevitably end up in the gray tank, have an RV sewer hose connection on one side and garden hose on the other.  I supposed I could use one of those camco garden hose caps.  Thus, macerator.

[Ray and Susan Huff]

7 hours ago, SeaDawg said:

As noted in the forum thread link DavidS provided, we've had two, of different brands. Paul rebuilt the first one, one time. 🤔 

When it died again, we bought a different brand. When it died, we went back to gravity dump.

When we first got our trailer, the home cleanout/dump was too far away for gravity. Therefore,  got the maceration. Since 2015, we have a convenient, planned dump for the trailer at home. We don't need or want the maceration anymore. None of our friends replaced theirs, either. 

DavidS, I'm glad you like yours. I don't think either of ours was the Thetford. 

Sherry

 

We like ours on the van, but it's not a necessity.  Our plan with the Oliver is to keep the number of electric powered options at a minimum.  If we every decide we just have to have the macerator, we can have one installed.  But, I don't think we will.  I do like the idea of it being mounted in the bumper.  On our van it hangs down, below the frame.  I believe it is the lowest component underneath, making it very vulnerable.  For this reason, we had skid wheels installed on the rear of the van - also to save our bike rack.

[Overland]

17 hours ago, WhatDa said:

Yes.  I haven't found many pumps that will handle the food bits and hair that inevitably end up in the gray tank, have an RV sewer hose connection on one side and garden hose on the other.  I supposed I could use one of those camco garden hose caps.  Thus, macerator.

I guess I’m curious why you need a pump at all. We have an adapter on our drain and when we’re allowed we just run a long hose out of the campsite and keep the drain open. 

[WhatDa]

Plenty of places that don't allow gray tank dumping to environment, so to get from gray tank drain to pickup bed bladder is a couple feet of lift.  For those spots where I am dragging the oliver up a potholed road, that we want to stay at for maybe two weeks.  My camping partner isn't much of a water miser.

[Overland]

Gotcha - makes sense.