Save Time & Money with a Home Dump!
One of the biggest concerns of small travel trailer campers is the status of their Fresh, Grey, and Black water tank levels and the necessity to Dump the tanks before it’s too late. A small travel trailer with sink, bathroom and shower generally has four tanks [e.g. Fresh tank to hold fresh water, Hot Water tank (usually fed from the Fresh tank), Grey tank (the water that is drained from the sink and shower), and Black tank (holds what is flushed down toilet)]. Our 13’ Scamp travel trailer with bathroom has a 12 gallon Fresh tank, 6 gallon Hot Water tank, 21 gallon Grey tank, and 9 gallon Black tank.
It’s important to monitor tank levels so you don’t run out of water or, possibly worse, have dirty or hazardous water / waste back up into your trailer! Most campers get an idea fairly quickly how long they can go without dumping their tanks. When we purchased our Scamp travel trailer, we had a tank monitor sent directly to the factory and had them integrate it into our Scamp when completing our custom build. We use the SeeLevel II tank monitoring system (we purchased ours on RVupgrades.com because the price was much lower than on Amazon). This monitor allows one to see the levels of all the tanks as well as the travel trailer voltage (which you want to make sure doesn’t go much lower than 12 volts – around 50% charge). We rely on the monitor religiously to make sure we are keeping our tanks and voltage at the correct levels.
We have found that with two people each taking a fast shower every day, regularly using the Scamp bathroom, and using the sink sparingly (using paper plates or washing dishes outside if allowed), we need to Dump on about day 3. If we are at a campsite with full hookups, then it’s no big deal. However, if we need to move the trailer to Dump, then we try to be very careful in how we use our water so the need to Dump is less frequent. The Achilles heel for us is the Grey tank which fills up after a couple of days (primarily due to showers). The Black (toilet) tank usually doesn’t need to be refilled until day 5. And the Fresh tank is generally not an issue since there usually is a spigot or water hose wherever we camp (even at areas with no hookups). So, at campsites without hookups, we either have to use a shared Dump in the campground on day 3 if we are staying more than a couple of days or drive to a Dump. For the future, we are considering using an outdoor shower to extend our time between Dumps since it’s the Grey tank filled quickly by showers which greatly limits our time between Dumps.
A home Dump is similar to the Dump hookup used to dump the Black and Grey tanks at the campsite. The home Dump just utilizes the sewer cleanouts (for use by plumbers when they need to clear a clog inside the main sewer pipe going from the home to the City sewer system). This pipe is the conduit which takes all the material flushed down the toilets in the home to the City sewer system. The sewer cleanout covers can typically be found somewhere in the front of the home. Our cleanout covers are located in our garage. There are two covers which both go into the same sewer pipe, but each hole directs the plumber’s auger in a different direction (the cover closest to the road on ours directs the auger toward the house and the cover closest to the house directs the auger toward the street). It really doesn’t matter which cleanout you use to Dump because material dumped from your trailer will go down into the sewer line either way.
A home Dump is fantastic if feasible and allowed by local laws. It’s especially useful when arriving home after staying at a campsite with no Dump, or where the Dump had a long wait or wasn’t easily available, or was a bit too expensive (we’ve paid as low as $7.50 to Dump at a Valero station in Santa Barbara up to $15 to Dump at a private location in Mammoth Lakes). In our area, the closest Dump is about 30 minutes’ drive away! The home Dump also makes it possible for us to test our systems (shower, sink, toilet), sanitize and flush these systems with Happy Campers, and sanitize and flush our Fresh and Hot Water tanks. It would be much less convenient and more expensive to do these tasks away from home.
We were very fortunate in that our sewer cleanout access areas happened to be located right in front of where our Scamp travel trailer sits in our garage! In order to utilize them, we just had to have our plumber cut a few inches of the pipe down into the hole so an enlarged PVC cleanout adapter (available at Home Depot) could be attached to easily accommodate our 3” RV sewer hose with the cement cover still able to sit on top when not in use.
When searching for your cleanout, keep in mind that there is usually a cover (cement) that says “sewer” on it. The cleanout is likely to be outside your home between the foundation and the street or could be on the side of your home (closest to the bathroom). Hopefully, it will be located in an area that is convenient for you to place your travel trailer within 6 feet of the opening. It’s also best if the cleanout is either level or below your travel trailer so gravity allows the material being dumped to easily drain into the cleanout. The cleanout pipe is usually 4 inches in diameter with a screw cap that has a square knob or indentation on the top. Please let me know if this works for you!
Cleanliness is next to godliness!
Disclaimer: You will get the same great Amazon price by clicking on the links here compared to buying directly on Amazon, but by buying here you will also be supporting the continuation of this website as we get a small commission from each sale. These are products and procedures we use for our own Scamp that we selected and developed from our own research and experiences. However, we do not endorse any specific product and cannot guarantee that the products we use are exemplary and the procedures we use are complete, accurate, detail the correct recommended procedures, or apply to your model small travel trailer. It’s always best to double check with your manufacturer or operation manuals to ensure you are doing everything correctly.
