Most RV’ers are aware when they drive off the lot that there’s a compartment where they will eventually need to hook up a 3″ drain hose, put one end into a sewer connector at an RV park or public/private dump site, and connect the other end on the pipe (or pipes) at the RV. Than pull a couple valves and empty their holding tanks.
Here’s a picture of the setup for my ’02 Winnebago. Most RV’s have a similar setup. Some have smaller drain pipes then this 3″ setup but few have larger. Many trailers though, have two drain pipes going to two different drain connections so you have to dump one tank, than move the drain hose, called the Stinky Slinky by most RV’ers, over to the other. I don’t care for that type and I’m happy that Class A’s don’t do that that I’m aware of.
You can see I labeled each tank so I can keep them straight and each one has it’s own bayonet valve. Those valves are very reliable giving years of service but it helps if they are lubed on occasion with some spray lube. And when lubing, I try to reach a little inside of the pipe to direct spray onto the edges of the valves (where you hope the spray reaches) and also outside on the valves pull shaft. I also carry a couple spare handles because the plastic handles are known to break. Since I have metal replacements of course they’ve never broken on me.
I recently read an article about a RV tech out on the road who had a neighbor who literally did not know that they had to dump their tanks sometimes while vacationing. Their excuse was the salesman never told them. Luckily they happened to ask the right person what all that gear in their basement compartment was for and after picking up his chin from the ground he gave them a dumping lesson. Wow.
When I first started RV’ing I’d already spent a year on two of the big RV forums so I knew about it and looked for what’s called the ‘Stinky Slinky’ during the walk around. This is just the 3″ diameter hose with connectors used to dump your tanks. Usually with new RVs the hose comes as a single 10′ length…which is rarely enough. My first RV was used and did have the hose but it was in very poor condition so I bought new almost immediately. And your first battle when buying new is finding a hose that has the thickest vinyl. Most of the cheap brands are so thin that if you pull the hose over a cement drive once or twice, it’ll develop leaks quickly. So even after struggling with all the difficulties that come with cheap equipment the first year, I was unprepared for an RV park where the sewage drain was like 15 feet away and uphill from the best/only place to park the RV. Big hassle, and that’s when I learned that all RV parks have access to a dump as you’re leaving. So that’s good, but getting all ready to travel, driving 100 feet and have to stop and dump isn’t that pleasant. Especially if you accidentally make a mess. Something to worry about of course so I always try to dump the night before leaving a park in case I have to shower afterwards. Hey, things happen.
The gist of this article is that over time, I got tired of springing leaks and getting sewage on my feet, having to manhandle the slinky to dump all the liquid in it when the sewer input at the park was too high, and other problems. So I looked around for a sewer solution and damned if there wasn’t a company that sold a product with that name…Valterra Sewer Solution! I’ll call it the VSS from now on.
When I bought mine all those years ago, it was only $58…which was a lot to me at the time since I retired 8 years early. Now I see they are $85 on Amazon. Back then I bought the extra 10 feet of hose for an extra $20 so I had 20 feet in total and that was going to meet the vast majority of the dump situations in which I might find myself. And over the years I did use it several times. But because it requires a source of water and I often felt uneasy about using all the water it typically took to drain both tanks, I sort of let it sit while I upgraded the slinky through 2-3 brands until over time I came to the RhinoFlex line of sewer hoses and accessories. That line is thicker vinyl, is the snap kind that you push the ribs together and it stays that way, and easy to use couplers so no more horsing the hoses onto couplers that are too big which isn’t fun, and finally, it’s quality made stuff. So I’ve been using that system for a few years now.
But recently, had the opportunity to stay at a home where the drain was 45 feet away. So I decided to pull out the old VSS and add some 50 feet of hose to it so I could reach back into the back yard. As luck would have it, the local True Value hardware was having a sale on 50 feet of 5/8″ heavy duty garden hose for $15 whereas the 50 feet of 3/4″ heavy duty was like $74. Yikes. So I snapped it up even though it would be better to have 3/4″ hose, I felt the 5/8″ would still work as long as the water smashed up the solids like it’s suppose to in the VSS head as advertised with it’s high velocity water jet. It’s always worked in the past but that was with 3/4″ hose. Another thing about the VSS is that you can just gravity drain if you have the time. Problem there is if you have too many, uhh, chunks of stuff in the black tank that without that high pressure water spray forcing it down the hose, it can get blocked up pretty easy. Especially if someone aboard had constipation if you catch my drift. Or if someone uses too much TP. And many dump stations have a cumbersome and difficult to arrange water source. Some just have the end of a hose hanging down for rinsing. Or the water pressure is too low. So I can’t always use the VSS like I want to. So I’m basically forced to keep the Stinky Slinky whether I want to or not.
Back when I bought the VSS it didn’t come with a check valve so I had to come up with that. It’s a valve that keeps any sewage from backing into the water hose if the water stops flowing. And here’s what I ended up with.
That bulky white thing in the middle prevents backflow. It’s a standard PVC plumbing device so I had to buy a couple adapters for it so I can connect to hose style connectors. I’m still working out the operational details so it may not stay in this form but we’ll see. I wanted some strain relief so that’s why I have the short spring wrapped hose there as part of the assembly. Got that off of one of my old worn out water filters. The snap couplers are my favorite thing so they stay.
And I got it all set up, used an old toothbrush to clean every seal and O ring in the setup, slathered them all with Vaseline, then tested it with just plain water. No leaks. That’s important because it’s not my house and there’s a crystal clear stream of water right next to me…within 12 feet. Did not want to have an accident with sewage and have it leaking into the stream. Big fine I expect if you’re caught.
Anyway, here we go…sewage hose heading off into the back yard.
And here the end with the nice rubber donuts is stuffed into the 4″ sewer clean out. I was lucky that this was relatively new drain and not buried where it’s hard to reach or difficult to hook my donut into it. Like in a weir type setup.
After passing the leak test, opened the black tank valve. And with the water also on full blast it worked perfectly. No leaks whatever, the big rubber doughnut fit into the 4″ sewer clean out just fine and though there weren’t many solids to contend with this time both tanks were emptied without a hitch.
It does end up to be a big pile of hose though. Still working on ideas about how to deal with that and whether or not to keep all my Stinky Slinky equipment which takes up quite a bit of room. 
I don’t know what I’ll do for sure at this point. Maybe disconnect the 50 foot section of hose and store it some other basement compartment so I end up with a VSS of 20 feet. Or just throw it away. It was only $15. Maybe just toss the slinky for more room in that compartment and keep all that hose there. Or just make the slinky shorter. That would save some room. Dunno.