How to Keep Your Living Quarters Holding Tanks Fresh

How to Maintain Your Living Quarters Holding Tanks

Most folks buy a living quarters trailer for the trail, the arena, the campfire, and good coffee at sunrise. The holding tanks rarely make the daydream, yet they are what keep all of it pleasant. Treat them right and they reward you with clean water, happy plumbing, and a Living Quarters that smells like adventure instead of an out house gone wrong. Here is how to keep your water fresh, your tanks winter-ready, your plumbing sound, and your nose grateful.

Know Your Three Tanks

• Fresh water tank: The good stuff, for drinking, cooking, and washing.
• Gray water tank: The used water from your sink and shower, soapy and harmless.
• Black water tank: The one polite company calls “the black tank.” You know what goes in there.

Keeping the Water Fresh

Great water starts with a clean tank, and a clean tank starts with a little routine.

• Sanitize a few times a year. Add about 1/4 cup of unscented household bleach for every 15 gallons your fresh tank holds, fill with potable water, and run every faucet until you catch the bleach scent. Let it sit several hours or overnight, then drain and refill with fresh water, running the taps until it flows clear and clean. Your taste buds will thank you.
• Try Nicole’s bleach alternative: Nicole (DJ Sales Visionary / 3^rd Gen Owner) likes to flush her tanks with organic apple cider vinegar or plain white distilled vinegar. A good pour cuts residue, brightens the tank, and leaves everything smelling clean and neutral. It is natural, cheap, and it works like a charm.
• A Dishwasher Bonus: After filling the lines & tanks with bleach or vinegar, you can take a short drive so it sloshes around and scrubs the walls, then dump and rinse. Consider it a car wash for the inside of your tanks.
• Fill with potable water. Use a drinking-water-safe hose and a fill source you trust.
• Keep it moving. Refresh the water regularly on longer trips so it stays crisp.
• Drain after every trip. Chris (DJ Service Manager) is adamant about this one! Drain those tanks after every trip. Make it part of your arrival home or pack up camp routine. Run the faucets dry. Stale and musty pipes are what taint the drinking and shower water. Keep them drained and you will be grateful. Remember the horse tanks, too!

Protecting the Tanks and Plumbing

A few good habits keep your tanks and valves in great shape for the long haul.

• Watch your levels. Your tank gauge is a friend worth trusting, ideally before a full tank becomes a story you tell down at the feed store. Empty the gray and black tanks before they reach the top, since a little headroom keeps dumping clean and easy. If you have completely dumped the black tank but the gauge is still reading, you probably have build up. Flush tanks with water to remove any extra waste that got left behind.
• Give the black tank plenty of water. Water is the hero here. Keep the black valve closed until the tank is nearly full, then dump so the rush carries everything out. Follow with a good rinse or a built-in flush.
• Use RV-friendly supplies. Choose RV-safe toilet paper – this prevents clogging and toilet paper build up in the bottom of tanks.
• Treat the tanks. Add an enzyme or bacteria-based tank treatment to the black and gray tanks. These break down waste and keep the air fresh.
• Keep the traps filled. A little water in each drain trap seals the line so tank air stays put in the tank. RV antifreeze, vinegar or plain water all work.

Keeping the System Winter-Ready

Cold snaps love to find water sitting in a pipe. Beat them to it with a few easy steps.

• Drain all three tanks and the lines. Empty the fresh, gray, and black tanks, open the low-point drains, and drain the water heater.
• Bypass the water heater. Set the heater to bypass so your antifreeze stays in the lines where you want it, which saves you a whole jug of the pink stuff.
• Add antifreeze or blow the lines clear. Pump RV-safe antifreeze, the pink kind, through every faucet, the toilet, and the shower until it flows pink, and pour some into each drain to fill the traps. Many folks first blow the lines clear with low-pressure air, around 30 to 40 psi, then add antifreeze for full protection.
• Flush with vinegar come spring. When you are ready to roll again, flush the tanks a few times with vinegar to clear the pink stuff out of the lines. A couple of good rinses leaves the water tasting clean and ready to go.

You can run this whole winterizing routine yourself, or drop the trailer by and we will handle it for you.

A Simple Season Routine

• Before each trip: Flush & drain with a vinegar treatment, fill with fresh potable water, add tank treatment to black and grey holding tanks (pour down toilet and shower), and confirm the valves and gauges read right.
• After each trip: Dump and rinse the black and gray tanks, drain the fresh tank and lines.
• Twice a year: Sanitize the fresh water system with flush of choice.
• Before winter: Drain everything, bypass the heater, and add RV-safe antifreeze.

Give your tanks a little love and they give you clean water, sound plumbing, and a Living Quarters that smells like the good life.