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Old 02-17-2011, 05:03 PM   #1
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Re: Tank Venting

Yes.

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Old 02-18-2011, 12:02 PM   #2
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Re: Tank Venting

Quote:
Originally Posted by Iceni John
... Vents for gray and black tanks... they are up to 3" diameter, and usually go through the roof. Some folk combine their black and gray vents, some prefer to keep them separate, but they are always well separated from the fresh tank vents... drain lines are regular black PVC or ABS DWV (drain, waste and vent) pipes such as used in houses, but it's also possible to use Sch.40 (or even Sch.80) PVC pipe. Just make sure they don't leak!....
You can go as small as 2" for air vent lines with no problems. No 90* bends as you want good air flow. Make sure you glue up the joints well. You don't want "sewer" gasses inside. You can use the lighter weight pipe as it is only air not water.
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Old 02-19-2011, 05:15 PM   #3
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Re: Tank Venting

Lorna, you said that you are useing a 3 inch ball valve for your tank, are you useing them for grey and black tanks?,is the ball valves going to be connected to a fitting that the sewer hose hooks up to? are you going to vent each tank , or join into one?, Im l wooking at only 1 vent pipe, and I want to place at the top of the bus wall on the curve, I just cant force myself to cut holes in the roof.

tks
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Old 02-19-2011, 05:58 PM   #4
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Re: Tank Venting

Most RV\ camper fittings to fill the potable/ fresh water tank have a barb for the vent. Usually around 3/8" tubing will work. The vent is right next to the water fill and thus is protected by the cover/door. It does not need to go to the roof, and in fact I'd keep it away from there since it will be tough to monitor. Don't want stuff getting into the drinking water like bees, bugs spiders etc!!

For my combined black/gray tank, I used flexible corrugated tube for a sump pump. It's about 2" diameter. I made a block-off plate - connector in the factory roof vent and ran the line to it. Works great and didn't need to cut a hole in the roof.
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Old 02-19-2011, 06:32 PM   #5
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Re: Tank Venting

Quote:
Originally Posted by elkoskoolie
Most RV\ camper fittings to fill the potable/ fresh water tank have a barb for the vent. Usually around 3/8" tubing will work. The vent is right next to the water fill and thus is protected by the cover/door. It does not need to go to the roof, and in fact I'd keep it away from there since it will be tough to monitor. Don't want stuff getting into the drinking water like bees, bugs spiders etc!!

For my combined black/gray tank, I used flexible corrugated tube for a sump pump. It's about 2" diameter. I made a block-off plate - connector in the factory roof vent and ran the line to it. Works great and didn't need to cut a hole in the roof.
I got set up for filling my fresh water tank that has a city water, fill, vent , with a door that locks, thats a good ideal with the flex hose for the vent, do you have only one tank with grey and black?

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Old 02-19-2011, 06:47 PM   #6
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Re: Tank Venting

Please understand.. we do things a little different. We've been camping since 1979 and RVing full-time since 2006. We have thought about some aspects of RV's, hook-ups, campground practices and repairing systems a great deal. The water/sewer system is one we would like to deal with the least. So we decided a while back to combine the best materials we knew from 40+ years of home construction with a full-time bus. Most of this we came up with while we were planning the Eagle conversion. But we have discovered we can adapt most everything over to the skoolie. We want to be able to buy repair parts from most any home improvement/hardware store. Home improvement/hardware stores (Lowes/Home Depot/ACE /TruValue) are more plentiful than RV stores, they tend to be cheaper than an RV store and the stuff is better quality than dedicated RV stuff. When the RV's water heater tank started leaking while in S GA, we drove 60 miles to buy a new one because we needed it that same day. Luckily there were no additional parts needed to install the tank... that we didn't already have on hand. We knew the location of the nearest RV store because we had spent a lot of time in the area. It wasn't like we were traveling in a place we knew nothing about.

We will be installing a macerator on the bus. I am fed up with dealing with the awkward, bulky and poorly made sewer hoses. They last about 1 year (for the "heavy duty" ones), do not hold up in freezing temps (they crack between the wiring) or in prolonged exposure to sun. I have no desire to spend big bucks on a sewer hose that will (supposedly) last longer. Also typical RV sewer hoses are bulky and a PITA to store, as are the fittings. The ball fittings will be sized to our pipes. The campground sewer pipe opening is usually a 3" threaded ABS or PVC pipe. We can make a "pipe adapter" using ABS or PVC (threaded) for our PVC flat hose.

Our solution is to use a macerator plus a flat PVC hose that we can store in a bin when not in use. We have found them at Lowes, Home Depot and ACE (all in the "cut by the foot" section) and will use them in two lengths (short and a medium). If we need a longer length, we will get another one.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/...ryId=202257630

We will use a threaded connection (still working on that one) because the "bayonet" sewer fittings are not good and we use the red ones with the 4 "ears"(supposed to be "better"). We still get "drips" sometimes. Not Acceptable!

http://www.campingworld.com/shopping...-fittings/1439

The fresh tanks will have a small vent pipe under the bus, just like the RV's.... it doubles as an overflow and will have a bit of window screen over the end to keep the bugs out of the fresh tanks. Our fresh water tanks will fill only from city water hookup thru the filters and water softener. A float valve will open to allow water to fill and close when the water level is at the "full" mark. We will always pump water from our fresh water tanks. this is what a swamp cooler float valve looks like...
and cost about $9 to $12. We'll buy an extra one while we are in NM before we leave. I can get them online but would like to have one on hand.


Our black tank will be on the drivers side and the grey tank will be on the passenger side. So we have to run two vent pipes. They will be a small size (1 1/2" diameter). Since we are coating the roof with Snow Roof's Elastometric roof coating, we can seal the pipe openings. The roof coating cuts down the heat gain on the roof along with making the raindrops hitting the meat roof much, much quieter. I applied the same coating on the Class C. Applies easily and the difference in heat gain was amazing. I even rolled it on the uninsulated metal roof of a cargo van David used to have... before roof coating, you could not touch the roof when it heated up (it would raise a blister if you touched it), after coating the roof, we could hold our hand on the interior of the metal and leave it there with no problem. I already have 1 hole in the roof of the bus (hole for a no-longer-there antenna) and one on the side of the roof (CB antenna wire).

David has run enough plumbing to know what we can and can't do. We also will not have traditional "p" traps in our drains... we're using these...

http://www.dyersonline.com/camco-fle...per-drain.html the "bell" section is the "p" trap. We've used them before and know how they operate. No standing water, operates similar to an Air Admittance Valve but water not air. I think Amazon has them cheaper. Takes up very little space under the sink and shower drain. Sized to directly fit a "bar sink" strainer but we can adapt for it to fit my big Kohler kitchen sink and the shower drain.

And yes, we are a little crazy.
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Old 02-19-2011, 07:38 PM   #7
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Re: Tank Venting

lorna, I really like those drain hoses, does the bell part just screw into the sink drains, and shower drains? then run the hose to the holding tanks?, Im pretty sure Im going to get those for my bus .

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Old 02-20-2011, 10:39 AM   #8
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Re: Tank Venting

Quote:
Originally Posted by gbstewart
lorna, I really like those drain hoses, does the bell part just screw into the sink drains, and shower drains? then run the hose to the holding tanks?, Im pretty sure Im going to get those for my bus .

tks
gbstewart
The bell part attached to the sink drain and runs to the waste tank. We had one on our old Apache pop-up. It was great. The sink drain on the pop-up was a bar sink/vanity sink size strainer... the same size strainer that is in the RV's bathroom, shower and kitchen sink drains. The flexible hose is just a "bilge pump" hose like sold at Home Depot/Lowes and the other end is a thru the wall fitting that is threaded to accept a garden hose. That way you can drain outside the "thing" you are installing it in to a tote or into a sewer drain. Hose can be removed and fitted to a holding tank. Most commercial tanks have a bigger hose fitting (pipe slip fitting) that will take the "bilge pump" hose with a hose clamp on it. I can't remember if the trap was a glue on or a screw on fitting. We sold the pop-up back in 2005.
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Old 02-20-2011, 11:09 AM   #9
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Re: Tank Venting

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr LuLu
sorry for jacking the thread, but great info here.
Lorna, I only have a gray water tank no black. The gray is under the bus in a belly bin. Do I really need to run a vent line to the top of the bus? how about vent line through the belly bin to the outside? If I have a Ptrap in the sink/shower, why do I need to worry about odors in the gray tank? It will still have a vent for filling/emptying etc., but don't see any added value in a big vent through my bus. ... curious...
You still need a "stinky" vent. The "water" in the P-trap just keep the odors from entering the bus interior. If you don't vent the tank, drain water will drain slowly or "Chug". Fill a 2 liter soda bottle with water. Turn it upside down with the cap removed. That is how your drain water will behave in the pipes and how the holding tank will behave when you dump it. The air pressure will suck your p-traps dry. Even draining a full tank with a garden hose creates a lot of negative air pressure. Now, when you full time and are parked in a campground on full-hookups, you will be able to leave your drain valve open so that you constantly drain into the sewer drain. But that adds another problem... you will get sewer gasses from the campground system in your tank system and typically it works it's way up your air stacks to the outside.... if you have air stacks.

Grey water sits in the holding tank and... smells.... bad, in the summer it's REALLY bad. You do not want that... smell... to get inside your living spaces. You don't want to have that ....smell... hanging around outside your bus when you are sitting outside or (even worse) cooking on the grill outside and eating. So tanks (both black and grey) are generally vented up above the roof where the breeze will (hopefully) disperse it up and away.

We're not talking about a huge hole. Get a Lil' Stinker cap (or similar one from the mobile home plumbing section at Lowes/Home Depot). and use copious amounts of ELASTOMETRIC CAULK to caulk it in over the vent tube if you are concerned about leaks. (I buy Henry's from Lowes & Home Depot and Snow Roof from ACE... Kool Seal, Henry's and Snow all sell it in cartridge tubes like regular caulking get WHITE not the black stuff). Don't use any other kind of caulk. Elastometric is very flexible and can withstand the high temps and wet conditions on the roof. Lasts for a very, very long time. The cap on the Lil Stinker keeps birds and wasp out (we did have to remove cap for a wasp nest as they were very determined). I lost the snap on cap to a tree... but the pipe and flange is still up there.

Mark Nemeth has a great page on water/waste systems at http://www.marxrv.com/plumbing/plumb.htm and several other topics. Between Mark and Fast Fred's Poop sheets http://www.phrannie.org/phredex.html (Fred covers EVERYTHING) you should have the basics covered. With the exception of a few questions (like can you go with a smaller/larger pipe or the sequence for filters/water softeners), these two resources will pretty much cover everything. he Poop sheets are so good and such a valuable source if what to do and what NOT to do, I have it saved on a disk AND on my hard drive. Not to mention I printed it all out and have it in a note book (a big fat thick one). It ate up a lot of paper and ink but I have it and have used the Poop sheets for a lot of planning. Granted the sources for stuff may have changed but the info is still solid.

Both these resources have great info on water, 12vDC stuff, boondocking and full-timing (and more). Whether you plan on doing them or not, read them all. The information is priceless. The boondocking info also can apply to pavement parking for several days, which is possible if you break down over a holiday weekend. not that any of us would break down over a holiday weekend and have to wait for stores to re open or have to wait out a storm for a day or two.
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Old 04-20-2011, 10:23 AM   #10
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Re: Tank Venting

Dave is an electrical engineer. You do NOT need a wet vent at each and every fixture. You do for a house in which the fixtures are spread out over many, many feet. NOT IN A BUS!!! While Dave has some good info, it's things like this that bug me (along with his rather dim idea that you can use cabinet drawer slides to make a slide out on a bus ). Vent the tank and you don't need to vent your drain lines. If you think you do need a vented drain line, then use a Cheader/AAV (air admittance valve) for use with dishwashers and washing machines. Plumbs into your drain line under the sink. You can buy them in the plumbing section of Lowes/Home Depot (look for it near the DW hookups) a brand name would be "studor". Want links & pics? Unless you are running a washing machine, you shouldn't need one. We will put one on the washing machine drain but it will not be draining into my grey tanks (plumbed directly into the drain line AFTER the tanks since we will only use the washer when hooked up to park sewer). One will NOT be put into the sink drain line for the dishwasher. Any air needed to prevent an air lock (causing the water to drain slowly) will come from the open sink drains. Except for a washing machine, you don't need to vent your drain. But you MUST vent your waste tanks so that as water enters the tank, air can escape. If both your tanks are close to each other, you can use a single vent for both tanks.


http://www.lowes.com/pd_29145-143-82...lumbing%2Bvent


http://www.lowes.com/pd_24372-143-85...lumbing%2Bvent


http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1...atalogId=10053
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