To pee in the gray tank or not to pee in the gray tank? That is my question???

[shaymcquaid]

Sitting here planning plumbing. (underway)
Totally intended to NOT to pee in gray. (Isn’t that black???)

But my happenstance where plumbing is terminating is going to complicate a separate “yellow” tank.

So my questions are:

Won’t urine make your gray tank black?

Gray tanks,I’m sure stink. Will urine make it worse?

Some places, I assume, you can drain gray tank in an appropriate place,ofc, straight to ground??
Wouldn’t urine prevent this??

Any insight is appreciated.
Obligatory photo from her first park trip last week, ‘cuz she bad…

-Shay

[Drew Bru]

Originally Posted by shaymcquaid

Sitting here planning plumbing. (underway)
Totally intended to NOT to pee in gray. (Isn’t that black???)

But my happenstance where plumbing is terminating is going to complicate a separate “yellow” tank.

So my questions are:

Won’t urine make your gray tank black?

Gray tanks,I’m sure stink. Will urine make it worse?

Some places, I assume, you can drain gray tank in an appropriate place,ofc, straight to ground??
Wouldn’t urine prevent this??

Any insight is appreciated.
Obligatory photo from her first park trip last week, ‘cuz she bad…

-Shay

We considered plumbing our composting toilet urine separator into the grey tank but never got around to it. Seems like a solid idea to me. We dumped our urine bottle in the woods or desert when we were booncocking anyway so I wouldn't let it discourage you if you're boondocking and away from everyone else. If you're staying in parks, well the dump station gladly accepts pee.
That's a real nice looking rig you've got.

[Bus'n it]

I decided to do a separate tank for the pee. 115 gallon grey water tank and 18 gallon pee tank. I doubt I will let it get to capacity and for the most part will be diluted with water with each use. Probably some form of deodorizer tab in there too. Beautiful bus you got there! Nicely done! Throw some alloys on there and I doubt any RV park will turn you away.

[Phatman]

Gray tanks are for kitchen & bath sinks along with the shower. Black tank is for the toilet. Now tell me, real slow, how many folks never pee in the shower !!!

[TJones]

I would think the addition of pee would make a stinky gray tank much worse. I would keep the pee separate and see if there is anything that can be added to it to reduce the odor. From what I have read so far vinegar may work.

Ted

[Simplicity]

Unlike feces, urine is sterile. I believe the black in black tank references more the feces, but since feces and urine tend to go together, I think the black tank is default for toileting.

Using ideas from composting toilets, I simply add vinegar to my urine bottle and there's absolutely no smell. Some baking soda apparently helps too. A google search will give you all sorts of ideas about this.

If boondocking...swing open the emergency door and feel the breeze! No grey or black tank needed.

Another idea is evaporation. There's videos on how to allow your grey tank to drip into a shallow container, add a towel to wick the moisture and let evaporation do it's thing.

Finally, if you're driving and have a very small drip from your grey tank, you're distributing micro amounts of fluid over a vast area.

Since all waste is treated, and as previously mentioned, who doesn't pee in the shower, I think a bit of urine in your (get what I did there...urine...in your) grey tank isn't the end of the world.

[rossvtaylor]

Originally Posted by Simplicity

...who doesn't pee in the shower...

Uh, you know when I invited you to come visit? Well...uh...hmmmm.

We do combined gray and black tanks...all things in one tank...and use macerator pumps, so that the tank can be emptied through a garden hose into our septic. One problem with not peeing in the black tank, or with doing a poop only tank, is that you may not have enough liquid in the black tank. You can, literally, end up with a poop pyramid in the tank that won't flow out. It looks just like the poop emoji...but without the smile. And you won't be smiling either.

[Danjo]

The EPA says water from the shower and from washing your hands is grey and can be dumped on the ground. The rest, including the kitchen sink is black. For a boondker it could be advantageous to have a real grey tank that could be used to water some bushes. Of course you’ll have places that forbid dumping anything and that’s good because most everyone’s plumbing is not set up correctly and all that food waste in the grey is going to smell like a dead animal really quick

[PepeLapiu]

Urine is not sterile to anyone but to you.
What I mean is that tou can use your own urine as a sterile liquid in an energency. But you can't use someone else's urine.


For example, if you are in the wild and you cut yourself, you may pee on the cutvto clean and disinfect the cut. But you shouldn't pee on someone else's cut.

[Sehnsucht]

I'm with rossvtayler, you need some liquid in the black tank or it won't empty. I suppose if you wanted to get creative, a four tank solution would be : black solid tank, black liquid tank, gray tank, and fresh water tank. When you go to flush the system, black liquid pumps/drains into black solid, then gray drains through black liquid and black solid tanks. Hopefully that is sufficient to evacuate the entire tank.

My idea for gray water was to plumb that to the toilet as the flush water so it will end up in the black tank anyways and it used the water twice - once as fresh water for sink and then as flush water.

[cadillackid]

Originally Posted by Sehnsucht

I'm with rossvtayler, you need some liquid in the black tank or it won't empty. I suppose if you wanted to get creative, a four tank solution would be : black solid tank, black liquid tank, gray tank, and fresh water tank. When you go to flush the system, black liquid pumps/drains into black solid, then gray drains through black liquid and black solid tanks. Hopefully that is sufficient to evacuate the entire tank.

My idea for gray water was to plumb that to the toilet as the flush water so it will end up in the black tank anyways and it used the water twice - once as fresh water for sink and then as flush water.

I heards of someone doing this and the onl;y issue they had was the type of pump they had wanted to froth up the gray water which in their case was sink and shower water that had a lot of soaps in it.. maybe they had a macerator marine toilet ..I seem to remember them having to use low suds soaps.. sounded slick though as it was also set where they could pump the gray water right into the black tank if desired.. ie when draining the black tank turn on the transfer pump to help flush out the black tank. I lost track of them after I fixed the air conditioners in their bus..

[o1marc]

Why is everyone concerned with what the inside of their gray tank smells? You should have a hepvo, or other type valve to contain the odor.

[somewhereinusa]

how many folks never pee in the shower

At home, never in the bus.

[JudyW]

Input from the point of view of a medical microbiologist:
Pee is sterile in the bladder of healthy people (people without a urinary tract infection). When healthy men pee, it usually contains normal skin bacteria and when healthy women pee, the pee has both skin and vaginal flora. However, these bacteria are in small amounts don’t usually cause infections (any more than when you shower them off or wash your hands).
In comparison, 80% of the dry weight of poop is bacteria and they DO cause infections.
My conclusion is: ok to pee in gray water.

In comparison,

[Rucker]

Originally Posted by shaymcquaid

Sitting here planning plumbing. (underway)
Totally intended to NOT to pee in gray. (Isn’t that black???)

But my happenstance where plumbing is terminating is going to complicate a separate “yellow” tank.

So my questions are:

1. Won’t urine make your gray tank black?

2. Gray tanks,I’m sure stink. Will urine make it worse?

3. Some places, I assume, you can drain gray tank in an appropriate place,ofc, straight to ground??
Wouldn’t urine prevent this??

Any insight is appreciated.
Obligatory photo from her first park trip last week, ‘cuz she bad…

-Shay

1. Yes, by all definitions, no exceptions.
2. Dunno
3. No, by all rules I've ever seen even graywater cannot be drained straight to ground, though it happens all the time and continues to give a bad name to boondockers. Yes, urine in the graywater would truly, definitely mean you don't want to dump graywater.

[Oscar1]

As Rucker has already said, adding urine to your grey water tank makes it black water, for the same reason the kitchen sink water is considered black as well. Your kitchen sink water will contains fats and bacteria and this is why it's not considered grey.

[TheBeardedMage]

So I'm new to the group. And don't mean for this to come off in some sort of way. I have been seriously considering all the plumbing that could/should go into a full size conversion. But at the same time, I remember back in the day on tour and road trips and what not, we used to pee everywhere �� Even with my van life, for a minute, I totally had a pee jug. �� But eventually I did make a modified urinal for the tour vans. Basically just a gallon jug that ran to a hose out through the floor out the exhaust pipe. ��