3400 Owners-Bathroom Sink Drain In Black Holding??

[Sue]

Okay, my bathroom sink drains into our black holding tank. I called Keystone and haven't heard back yet if this is normal, but I also called our local dealer and they seem to think it won't be a problem to re-plumb it to my grey water.

Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this on their 3400? Or is mine "UNIQUE"? It makes life difficult when your not hooked up to dump the black water and have to call for the "honey wagon". My 19 year old daughter constantly is washing her face in the bathroom sink, which is how we discovered it. The black water holding was full and so was the bathroom sink.

[Montana Sky]

Sue,
I was told that my sink drains into the grey tank along with the shower. I never really questioned that it did otherwise, and since your 3400RL and mine are both a 2004 I guess I have another item to add to the check list this spring.

[kwbosch]

Look at the piping in the basement on the curb side. My sink drain pipe is tee'd into my toilet drain. I don't know if they are all like that but mine's just like Sue's. We don't do much in the way of washing in the bathroom sink so it hasn't been a problem for us.

Ken

[HamRad]

Hello Sue,
My bathroom sink drains into the Grey water tank. I would definitely NOT want it to drain into the black water tank. You may want to have that one re-routed to drain into the Grey water tank. I know I would.

Good luck.

HamRad

[jrgwdenner]

Our bathroom sink drains into our black tank. It has a trap so no fumes return to the bedroom and we think it should contribute to flushing out and keeping a good cover of fresh water in the black tank. Don't know if we're correct or not, but it's never been a problem for us.

[richfaa]

Why in the world would ANYTHING but Black water drain into the black water tank. Does not seem to be any logic behind what drains into where..What is going on in that assembly line,,another thing to add to our...where will it end list... 8 days Till we order our 3400.

[Sue]

quote:Originally posted by richfaa

Why in the world would ANYTHING but Black water drain into the black water tank. Does not seem to be any logic behind what drains into where..What is going on in that assembly line,,another thing to add to our...where will it end list... 8 days Till we order our 3400.

I haven't heard back from Keystone, been 3 days now.... In talking to others it may have been designed to help with water flow to ADD to help the black water. Regardless, it won't work for me. I am definately going to dealer when my unit is back from Florida and check it out to see if it can be re-plumbed. In my situation it just won't work for us. At horse shows we don't hook up to dump the black water, but have to have the wagon come in. Fills up to fast for us.

[CountryGuy]

Sue, this may be a silly suggestion, but had this thought, can you convince your daughter to wash her face in the kitchen sink?? If you don't fill the galley up as fast, maybe this would help spread the liquid amounts out more equally in the tanks??

We do this when we fall and cold weather camp, it takes WAYYYYY toooooooooooooo long for the hot water to get to the bathroom sink, where it takes almost NO time at all for the hot water to get to the kitchen sink. So, we wash our hands there during cold weather camping, saves a lot of water when you are sitting with limited resources and also does not fill up the discharge tanks as quickly.

This works for us, of course, because of the layout, rear kitchen, almost on top of the hot water heater. May not work as well in other floor plans.

Now, the important question, how is that girl doing this year at the show???

[richfaa]

Here is the point..when you camp..full hookups or not..you keep the Black tank valve CLOSED. That is for several reasons, prevent clogs and normally the black tank takes longer to fill..38 gals of you know what is a lot of you know what. So then why would you deliberately cause the black tank to fill quicker by plumbing the W/D or any other Gray water source into it.And on the same model camper the tanks can be hooked up different..There is something very wrong with that picture...

[raucnd]

We discovered, this summer, that our bathroom sink drains into our black water tank. We were camped with no sewer hook up for two weeks and after ten days the black water was full! When we got back to a full hook up site we ran water into the sink until it started backing up and then the toilet was full, to overflowing.
Our dealer "didn't have a clue" as to how it was connected. We have decided to leave it as is and as suggested, when dry camped, use the kitchen sink to wash face and hands. Can't see any harm in having it this way, now that we know that is the way it is connected. Owner's manual suggests that that "may" be the way it is connected.
Our rig is 3400 RL/2005

[thook]

Our bathroom sink also drains into the blackwater tank. Works fine when connected to full hookups. We use the bathroom sink and have to drain the bw tank about every three days (no obvious comments please). It helps flush the bw tank. When dry camping, we only use the kitchen sink and as mentioned, there is nearly instant hot water there and saves on carried water, etc.

[On The Road Again]

I have never heard of any bathroom sinks in RV's hooked up to drain into the black water tank. I have a 2004 3280 RL and I know fer sure that my bathroom sink drains to my gray water tank. Since you haven't heard from Keystone I would definitely call them and get an answer, however, if your dealer is willing to re-plumb without cost to you I'd have that done ASAP. If you don't mind the blackwater tank filling faster then perhpas you should just "let it be".

[Sue]

quote:Originally posted by CountryGuy

Sue, this may be a silly suggestion, but had this thought, can you convince your daughter to wash her face in the kitchen sink??

Yes, she now washes her face in the kitchen sink. It didn't take us long to figure that one out

quote:Originally posted by CountryGuy.
Now, the important question, how is that girl doing this year at the show???

The girl is doing great, thanks for asking. She has won 3 classes and placed very well in the others. It's a little different for her not having her "groom" I mean mother there with her.

[CountryGuy]

That is good news Sue, about the wins!! Congrats!

[zzuroweste1]

Not only is our sink plumbed to the black water, but our washer is plumbed as well...let us know if keystone has replied to anything yet...our tank fills in one day if we run the washing machine. This gets really annoying. I think keystone should make this right under warranty.

[richfaa]

We were told at the Rv show a couple of weeks ago when we ordered our 3400 that the washer no longer drains into the black tank,,it bypasses directly to the dump valve..but the bathroom sink still drains into the black tank.The logic is that we don't use the bathroom sink that much so we increase our gray tank capacity???HUmmmmm If you think about that long enough it can make sense..should be good news to the serious boondocker, of which we are not, but also means we need to keep a closer eye on the black tank guage,if it works, if we do not have full hookups, which we usually do.

[DHenry]

Speaking of Black Tank Gauges!!!. I have a problem with the black tank so I filled it to capacity with water, checked the gauge and it said it was empty. Funny, I could see the water in the pipe. Those gauges are worthless. They should not even spend anything on them and use the monies they save to upgrade something else.

[Searchers]

quote:Originally posted by richfaa

We were told at the Rv show a couple of weeks ago when we ordered our 3400 that the washer no longer drains into the black tank,,it bypasses directly to the dump valve..but the bathroom sink still drains into the black tank.The logic is that we don't use the bathroom sink that much so we increase our gray tank capacity???HUmmmmm If you think about that long enough it can make sense..should be good news to the serious boondocker, of which we are not, but also means we need to keep a closer eye on the black tank guage,if it works, if we do not have full hookups, which we usually do.

Rich, As an avid boondocker I'd much rather have the bathroom sink drain into the gray tank, as my old '99 unit does. One reason being we have twice as much gray tank capacity as black tank. Another being that most State and USFS parks don't have dump stations, but they do have gray water dump facilities. When my gray tanks start getting full I empty 5 gallons at a time into a bucket and dump them into those facilities. Wouldn't and couldn't do the same with the black tank for obvious reasons.

[richfaa]

Well that was keystone feeble justification for doing that..The only positive thing I can see is that a lot of folks never put enough water down the black tanks thereby causing blockages.This would add some water to the black tank.We always dumped our used dishwater down the toilet to keep the water level up. Now as a mostly non boon docker I could buy into that justification but as a avid boon docker yours makes sense. As to the guages not working properly my guess is that they are not hooked up at all or are very loose or have come loose...That is one MY PDI..the guages WILL work..

[dsprik]

Apparently, Keystone needs to educate their dealers, that during a PDI (or when the unit is ordered), a dealer has to explain the plumbing in the rig to EVERY buyer. Common sense automatically assumes both sinks/shower/washer empty into the gray, and toilet into the black. This is not an issue even the most seasoned RVers even question. So this causes huge surprises to new owners when they change the this accepted "standard" of plumbing, and the owners then find this out the hard way.

Keystone probably underestimated the fallout from this, figuring that their reasoning did not need to be explained. A lot bigger problem than they figured, I'm sure.