One of my first RV trips is going to be at a site that only has electric hookups. The park has a dump station and fresh water available. It'll be wife, daughter (8), son (1 month) and I from Monday afternoon until Saturday morning. I'll be working during the day at an office near the campground.
Per the mfr website, my tanks are 42 gallons for fresh water, 42 gallons for black water and 126 gallons for gray water (the camper has a bath and a half and an outside kitchen - I don't know how the tanks are split among these features).
Currently, I don't have any means of transporting any kind of water to/from the site.
My plan is:
For fresh water, to pick up 2-4 collapsible water jugs (in the 5 gallon size)
For black water, I don't think we'll fill the tank in a week's time
For gray water, we'd shower in the bathhouse and be conservative
In the unlikely event that we fill the black water, I think I'd just suck it up and tear down/drag it to the dump station.
In the unlikely event that we fill the gray water, I'm not sure what we'll do - maybe the same; maybe buy one of the blue totes.
Any thoughts?
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blue totes are expensive for a one time use. I would wait it out and if you have to break camp and go to the dump station. I would buy the 6 gallon water jugs though
If you are planning on doing more of the same ie: power only sites, it would be wise to consider a blue tote. Dont get the big ones as these are heavy to move around when full. 10-15 gals should be fine. I have one that size and I just make a couple of extra trips in the morning to empty out all the tanks.
I camped for a month with only Electric and sewer. For water I bought a plastic garbage pail and a submirsible pump to refill the tanks, Works VERY well. Watch your black tank as sometimes you may find a sink may drain to it thats not expected.
I carry a 5-gal fresh water jeri-can with me all the time... With this and a two-wheeled foldable tote I can go get 5-gallons of fresh water from the spigot at the bath house.
We don't consume the fresh water in the RV trailers (Just me-never got into that) and we bring 1 GAL water jugs from the stores on our trips for drinking and cooking.. Being a fresh ground bean coffee over it has to use the same brand of water to taste the same to use all the time so I need water for that anyway... It doesn't take very long to keep the fresh water filled...
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A long time ago I discovered an item called the Covered Bucket. With a tee you have about 10 gal gray water only capacity. They fold up and take up min space. I suspect the gray tank will not last long even with min washing the baby and kids, throw in a few dishes and your full. That's the PA state parks are electric only. But I have 80gal. of fresh water.
Are you sure about the 126 gallon gray? That is insanely large compared to the others.
If you are showering in the bath house, you should be fine on all tanks. The next biggest thing to showering I've found is dishwashing...use paper plates!!
I would only consider a couple of the collapasable water containers...you won't need to dump with only a five day run.
Todd
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dupreet wrote: Are you sure about the 126 gallon gray? That is insanely large compared to the others.
If you are showering in the bath house, you should be fine on all tanks. The next biggest thing to showering I've found is dishwashing...use paper plates!!
I would only consider a couple of the collapasable water containers...you won't need to dump with only a five day run.
I've only seen the online specs for the FW, but they do say 126 gallon for gray (link to Palomino/Sabre site). The math works out that it could be 3 x 42 gallon tanks. It does have the stuff I mentioned as well as a washer/dryer hookup. (shrugs shoulders) I dunno. We'll see. I hope to get the camper this/next week.
We just spent 5 nights at an electric-only site in Custer State Park, SD. Filled our 20 gallon fresh tank once and had about 1/3 left when we pulled out. No waste tanks in our popup. Instead, I use a 5 gallon bucket under the sink drain outlet and dumped it daily (or every other day). It was mostly filled with water from brushing teeth & washing hands.
Tips for water conservation:
Use the CG facilities for showers & toilet. Everybody heads to the restroom right before bed so they can make it through the night, and then again first thing in the morning. [Not to mention we don't have a toilet in the popup!]
We can wash a whole meal of dishes (for 8 people at times), including plates & silverware, with less than 1.5 gallons of water.
Use separate basins for wash & rinse water (plastic tubs a little larger than a shoe box work well).
Use a cup to pour rinse water over larger items letting the rinse water flow back into the rinse basin and not down the drain.
Don't use too much soap in the wash water; usually a very small squirt does the job.
Wash the "cleanest" dishes first and work to the "dirtiest".
Use paper towels to remove as much grease and food particles from the dishes before washing and the paper towels in the trash.
Use a wooden spoon or spatula to scrape hard/baked on residue into the trash before washing.
Dump the wash water, and especially the rinse water, outside of your tanks. Water a tree or bush if the CG allows. If dumping wash water on the ground/plants is not allowed, then they CG must have a location to dump it, often a wash sink near the restroom facilites. Follow what the tent campers do. [They don't have holding tanks and must do something with the wash water, do it the same.]
Using these techniques, the four of us can use less than 20 gallons over the course of a week.
With practice, these will become regular habits and you'll find you're doing them even at FHU sites!
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