Black water/grey water gate issues

[Dan54]

Getting frustrated with the repairs or lack thereof at our RV repair shop. Twice, the most recently this past November, I requested repairs because the gates in our 2011 Landmark weren’t functioning properly. Now as before it seems that nothing has changed despite being charged for new gates, rerouting of the discharge chute & lord even knows what this time. The problem I am having is upon leaving our last campground after a four day stay I pulled the black tank discharge first & let it drain. Then when I pulled the grey water levers nothing came out. There seems to be movement when I slide them in & out though I’m thinking the gray water gates must not be closing & everything comes out when I pull the black water gate. Not sure of the routing & how the gates work in relationship to each other but it doesn’t seem like it should be a difficult fix yet here I am 3 years later with the same issue.


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[wdk450]

Dan:
Do you need to first verify this by doing a small dump of just the greywater tank in question with its valve into a bucket or storage container you can dump into a house toilet? Next, with a dumped blackwater tank, pour a bottle of food coloring into the sink involved with this problem, run a few gallons of water into it, then do a short dump with the black water valve, and see if the colored water comes out.

 

[Dan54]

So, let me restate to make sure I understand. I should make sure both black & grey are empty then pour colored water into a grey water tank (I have 2), then see if colored water comes out when I open the black water gate?


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[hoefler]

Chances are you have cable operated grey valves, the cables go bad and won't completely close the valves. I had this going on on my 06 Landmark. I replaced the cables with Barker electric operated valves, that was about 10 years ago. I haven't had any issues with my grey valves since.

 

[Dan54]

That appeals to me. If you have any other details about the brand, model, cost, etc please let me know.


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[david-steph2018]

Barker drain valves:

Auto Drains

Just push a switch to dump your RV's black and gray water tank. Barker's Auto-Drain mounts directly to a 3" or 1.5" conventional waste valve and requires no adjustments or difficult clamps to...

www.barkermfg.com

 

[wdk450]

So, let me restate to make sure I understand. I should make sure both black & grey are empty then pour colored water into a grey water tank (I have 2), then see if colored water comes out when I open the black water gate?


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Yes, this tests your perceived problem of the grey water tanks draining when the black water valve is opened. If you want to try to go a little deeper, you could color just 1 grey tank, do the draining test, when empty repeat the test with the other grey water tank (maybe using a different food color dye).

 

[Rip]

Keep in mind, if your valves are bad, adding a baker auto valve does not fix your problem. The baker will only fix a bad cable or pull handle problem.

 

[Dan54]

The valves were replaced a couple years ago. Though I imagine the warranty is a year or less. Getting home this weekend, will do the water color test soon.


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[wdk450]

Dan:
Having work done on an RV subsystem, and then noticing a minor (non-tested after the repair?) function not working correctly, points a big smoking gun at the RV repairer. This plastic welded piping doesn't change its routing by itself.
It would to seem to me that the RV repairer didn't document the piping routing (drawings, photos) before starting the repair, and then made his best guess putting stuff back together.
This sounds to me like the black tank valve was installed AFTER the junction point for the black and grey discharge pipes into the common discharge pipe, instead of BEFORE the connection to the common discharge pipe. If this is true, your black tank contamination can back mix into your grey tanks, which should be a plumbing systems sanitation violation.



r

 

[Dan54]

I’ll need to pull together all my work orders, double check what I remember with what the documents say, then ask them a few questions.
After our last stop yesterday morning I did empty the grey tanks first. Nothing came out of one & the other had some come out but it didn’t seem like several days worth. Thanks for the input.


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