I can hear it now, “OH NO!!! I just got my new RV and I see your post…WHAT IS A CRAPTASTROPHE?!” I know…trust me…I shudder to think of it too! A craptastrophe is when you have an unavoidable catastrophe when emptying the black tank. At the end of this post, I’ll add in a couple of black tank tips to help you avoid your own craptastrophe.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have had two craptastrophes and our daughter had one when RVing with her grandfather, and let me tell ya folks, it ain’t pretty!
Somehow we managed to make it all the way through our first camping season unscathed. I read A LOT of blog posts on black tank tips and how to operate it! 🙂
The second season, however, I managed to have two. Neither of which was just earth-shattering, but traumatizing just the same.
So let’s talk about my experiences and how they happened, then what you can do to avoid your own!
THE FIRST OCCURRENCE
The first craptastrophe happened when we were on our Biloxi trip. We had been camping for several days and it was time to do the deed.
I went outside on a lovely spring day to release the Kraken. Thinking I had done everything right, it was time to unleash the beast, so I pulled the valve open.
No sooner had I pulled the trigger, the hose that goes into the RV park’s receiving hole popped OUT of the receiving hole dumping raw sewage onto our neighbor’s front porch.
Immediately realizing the whole thing had gone TERRIBLY wrong, I shut the valve and began damage control.
You see, the RV park’s sewer holes were taller than I was used to and I didn’t have a sewer inlet extender. My line of thinking was that I had the end wedged in there pretty well and it would most likely take the pressure of the onslaught of waste material.
Yeah, so I IMMEDIATELY closed the valve and used our water hose to clean the mess BEFORE the neighbor knew what hit them (it wasn’t really IN their space, but it WAS within their view if they’d have been looking. Just shy of puking the entire time, I was trying to figure out how this went so terribly wrong!
Black tank tips learned from this craptastrophe?
- Use an extender if possible.
- Always have a buddy when emptying the black tank if in doubt.
- If you don’t have a buddy or extender, have a heavy rock or another heavy object on the end of the hose (don’t use sandals…this was just for illustration purposes!).
THE SECOND OCCURRENCE
You’d think by now we’d be old pros at all of this stuff, right? We’ve had our camper a couple of years and been camping in it probably 30 or more times. Please refer to the pic of Trump above.
Yes, folks, you’d be wrong if you thought that. On our VERY LAST camping trip of 2019, we had another craptastrophe when leaving Petit Jean State Park. (This kind of added insult to injury because we feel like seasoned campers.)
It was mostly a grey, chilly, and dreary weekend. Even though the weather left a little something to be desired, we had a FABULOUS time with friends and had some SPECTACULAR hikes and sunsets. So much so that we decided to stay an extra day.
As we began to hook up the camper to the Pathfinder, the rains came…yes, this added a FABULOUS flair to this dark happening! Our campsite was electric only, so we had to pull the RV to the dump station.
Learning from past mistakes, I screwed the receiving valve into the sewer hole, connected the camper end of the hose securely (or so I thought), and let her rip!
You know, you can fasten the RV side securely, but if the hose is loose from the connector, it really doesn’t matter how securely you connect the orange part, the hose will pop out of its connection.
DARK MATTER EVERYWHERE!
Doing what any self-respecting girl would do, I immediately squealed and jumped out of the way. Then after regaining sensibility, I jumped back into the danger zone and closed the valve.
Black tank tips learned from this craptastrophe?
- Always check the hose connections BEFORE pulling the trigger.
- Never squeal like a girl when craptastrophes happen.
- Try to suppress natural instincts to jump away from the mess and react more quickly when needed to close the valve.
Fortunately for me, the valve was only open for about 2 seconds. Also fortunately for me, it was POURING rain, so the pavement was already saturated. We still took a hose to the pavement to wash away the visible evidence as best as possible.
ABBEY’S OCCURRENCE
The details are a bit sketchy on this one because Abbs nearly blacked out when it happened. She was truly traumatized by this one, but seems to laugh every time she talks about it so I think she won’t need therapy!
My father-in-law (her granddad) had invited her on one EPIC summer trip across the heartland and into Canada to see Niagra Falls (JEALOUS!).
Along the way, they stopped somewhere in Illinois (I think) for a couple of days.
When it came time to do the deed, Abbey offered because it was more difficult for her grandparents to bend over and make all the connections.
She still, to this day, has NO IDEA how things went so terribly wrong, but she’s told me she assumes it was a similar mistake to my last one, except she thought maybe the actual connector wasn’t fastened onto the RV properly.
I almost didn’t mention this one because she learned one of the same lessons I did, which is ALWAYS check your connections before pulling the trigger, but she also learned another important lesson.
ALWAYS WEAR GLOVES! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, she was barehanded when her hose popped off!
Abbey told me she nearly threw up several times, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do! She went into full-on trooper mode and closed the valve, reattached the hose, washed her hands multiple times, used sanitizer, finished the dump, and rewashed and sanitized her hands!
BLACK TANK TIPS
By way of summary, here are the black tank tips we have learned from our experiences.
- Keep your exterior black tank valve closed while camping until your tank is full or you are ready to leave.
- Rinse your black tank at least twice after dumping.
- Use a new tab or some form of deodorization method right after dumping your tank.
- Check hose connections (where the flexible part of the hose meets the connector) BEFORE attaching to both the RV and the sewer.
- Make sure you have the RV connection securely connected on ALL of the hooks and turned into the receiving knobs.
- Screw the sewer end of the hose into sewer receiver or use a heavy rock or friend to ensure it stays put while dumping your load.
- ALWAYS wear gloves!
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it will get you started.
You can check out Tales from the Black Tank, A Collection of Crappy RV Stories by Liz Wilcox at The Virtual Campground for more hilarious (or horrifying) craptastrophe tales.
Also, if you’d like some black tank tips for cleaning your tank, you can check out this post.
Do you have your own craptastrophe? Feel free to share in the comments! Remember, we RVers are a community and you never know when your comment will help some unsuspecting newb avoid your mistake! 🙂
[…] use it often, but when you need it, you need it! I was thankful to have mine on when we had a craptastrophe in the rain last November…oh, yeah, THAT […]
[…] At any rate, I hook up our sewer hose to the appropriate outlet and double check both sides of the connection. I actually do like to screw in the connection to the ground hookup every time when possible. Experience has taught me that this is the best practice. Check out the craptastrophy posts. […]