3100 Grey Tank Size & Monitor Lights

[jswharton]

The capacities for the 2013 3100RL are Fresh water = 66 gal, Grey water capacity = 93 gal, and Black water capacity = 50 gal. Without exposing the tanks from underneath I attempted to measure the "shower" grey tank and black tank. Best guess was they were equal at 50 gal each, which would make the galley tank 43 gal. Well we were at a full hookup this weekend and had some time so I filled the galley 5 gal at a time, Homer bucket style. It did in fact take 43 gal. While filling I checked the monitor after each 5 gallons. The panel showed full after 30 gallons, a bit of a surprise.

I wonder if this is true for all the tanks that, provided the monitors work, that 4 red lights means only 3/4 full? Or maybe the sensor person just had a bad day when they built my rig!

Anyway, way too much time on my hands to think/worry about a thing like this!!

 

[Rondo]

The lights on all the tanks except for possibly the fresh water tank are notorious for not reading correctly! You could be entirely correct on the volume of the black and grey tanks. I've been at the Fall Rally now for five plus years and never asked the exact volume of each tank but since you "bucketed" the galley tank I'd have to say you are correct. I normally don't worry about the black tank until it "burps" at me and the grey shower tank until it starts to come back up the shower drain! That's when I head out and pull the handles to dump the tanks. The only time I kind of watch the water usage and tank levels is when we are boondocking and we have no place to dump the tanks if they get full! Anyway, just watch your gauges some but don't rely on them. You're not the only one wondering about this or have questions on the gauge lights. There are plenty of posts on this forum and others about the lights!

 

[3665RE-WO]

Hi

Does your monitor panel ever show the Galley tank empty?

The probes that make the lights work are supposed to be installed so the full one is 1 inch below the top of the tank.

The Keystone factory installed the probes in our 2009 so that the 1/3 probes were in the very bottom of the tank. That made the monitor panel show 1/3 all the time. The full probe was 1/3 of the way down from the top. That made the Monitor panel show full when the tank was only 2/3.

If we let the unit sit with the drain open for several days it would dry out so the monitor panel showed empty.

As a matter of fact when I complained to the selling dealer he had his yard attendant do just that. He had him open the drain and force dry the tank to make the monitor read empty. Then told me there had to be something stuck to one of the probes to cause the problem.

Phil P

 

[1retired06]

We gave up on accurate readings years and years ago.

 

[3665RE-WO]

Hi

When properly installed and the owner performs some minor maintenance once or twice a year they are quite accurate.

One other thing to remember that they are not direct reading. When you empty a tank it may take some minutes or even hours depending on when the last time you cleaned the tanks for the reading to return to empty.

Phil P

 

[jswharton]

Just recently cleaned the tanks and don't really rely on any reading expect maybe the FW reading. It does amaze me that the companies continue to install this technology when it is almost perfectly unreliable! I do try not to worry about that which I can't change. Not worth the effort to switch out to something else.

After I cleaned them with Happy Camper when empty they showed one light on. Even the FW when empty had one light. I guess there is no light if empty and dry.

 

[3665RE-WO]

quote:Originally posted by jswharton

Just recently cleaned the tanks and don't really rely on any reading expect maybe the FW reading. It does amaze me that the companies continue to install this technology when it is almost perfectly unreliable! I do try not to worry about that which I can't change. Not worth the effort to switch out to something else.

After I cleaned them with Happy Camper when empty they showed one light on. Even the FW when empty had one light. I guess there is no light if empty and dry.

Hi

The three tanks that we could get access to with a drill work very well. Sometimes it takes an hour for the last light to go out but if the tanks have been cleaned with a chemical that will remove the soap scum from the probes it will only be 5 or 10 minutes.

If your 1/3 light stays on all the time I would bet your probes are installed incorrectly.

Here is what keystone does

,

,

,

Here is what the monitor manufacturer says in their installation manual.

Phil

 

[Art-n-Marge]

I thought the specification of 93 gallons of grey is because there are TWO grey tanks (one is for bath/shower, and the other is for kitchen sink) and that EACH tank is 46.5 gallons (93 gallon total). I think mine also has a 46.5 gallon black tank. The fresh water tank has always been the largest since it is likely to feed ALL tanks during use.

Yup, the monitors are squirrely. When hooked up, I just dump earlier than not to prevent problems. After 6 years with this same rig we've kinda figured out a sense of usage/dumping rate that works for us. It is in no means scientific and won't be. We don't boondock and I'm sure it would matter a lot more if we did.

 

[Artemus]

The best monitor is my wife! She knows and keeps track of water usage. How you ask, can't tell you. But she is very accurate. Our monitors have worked well but again we are very serious about tank maintanence. Our tanks were recently inspected and I got a call from RV Tech asking me how we keep it clean. I said lots of "Calgone water softener" hot water and letting santi clean run for long time. We also leave water in the tanks afterwords! Perhaps that's why are monitors work. Oh btw. We do not use RV tissue. I think we end up using twice as much when using RV brands! I do add a tissue breakdown enzyme at beginning of trip!

 

[DQDick]

Our grey tank monitors worked pretty well until recently. Our main grey tank is now starting to read 2/3 full when it's empty. The problem is that our washer/dryer empties into that tank and since it uses the drain to get rid of the lint my gages are slowed getting linted up.

 

[HOOK-MOC]

Our two Montys gauges have done well. We do put a bag of ice in the black tank occasionally to clean the tank and probes. The ice acts as a scrubber as the trailer makes the water slosh around while in motion. The tanks are 46 1/2 gals each.