Fresh, grey and black water

Motorhome Life – Water

In motorhoming life, there are 3 types of water you need to consider:

1. Fresh water: this is used for drinking, washing and sometimes for toilet flushing. Our van has a loo litre fresh water tank under one of the seats, so inside the living space of the van. It’s filled from a locked aperture on the side of the van, or you can lift the seat and fill it directly. More about this below.
2. Grey water: this is what becomes of most of your fresh water once it’s been used! It’s basically water that’s been used for washing pots or yourself. Our van has a 100 litre tank slung underneath the back of the van, emptied using a tap which is also under the back of the van.
3. Black water: this isn’t water at all, so a misnomer, but actually toilet waste. We’ve written a separate blog post all about motorhome toilets and how they work, but I’ll just note that if you’re not using campsites, black water is likely to be your biggest concern as it fills the quickest and is hardest to empty.

Starting with fresh water, a few notes, hints and tips. Some of these we figured out ourselves, some we learned from others:

• Some people prefer not to drink from the on-board tank, and reserve it only for washing. The reasons for this include distrust of the local water supply, and concern that the on-board tank and plumbing is not hygenic enough. We’ve drunk from our 18 year old tank relatively small amounts, using water in France, Spain and Portugal, with no ill effects. We’ve not used any chemicals to clean the tank.
• Filling the water can be fun. Depending on the country and where you stop in the country, some taps have threads and some have no thread. We’ve found 3 different thread sizes so far; the standard ‘UK’ one, one narrower and one wider. We also have a ‘flat’ hosepipe which can be used without rolling it all the way out. As a fail-safe (which we’ve used a lot) we have a 5 litre folding water carrier, so we can get water whatever the tap fitting. I used the top of an ice-cream tub to make a flat funnel which can be folded and placed in the opening for the water on the van. This lets me easily pour water from the box without spilling it; works far better than a funnel. Another tip is to bring a watering can and use that!
• Most taps we’ve used have been the push and hold types. We’ve seen a trick using a cable tie which holds the ‘pusher’ in, saving an aching thumb. We don’t bother making one every time, but if you see a cable tie hanging from the tap, you know what it’s for.
• We have a display panel which shows how full the fresh and grey water tanks are. Until someone told me, I didn’t realise that although it is an analogue meter, it only reads either empty, 1/4 full, half, 3/4 or full.
• You can get fresh water from lots of places. Yesterday we got some from taps alongside a canal. Presumably they were put there for pleasure boat owners. We’ve heard of people using taps at garages too; why not, especially if you don’t plan to drink it? Aires often charge for fresh water; expect to pay about €4 or €5 for 100 litres.
• We’ve learned to use disinfectant wipes before filling our fresh water. People rinse out their toilet cassettes with the fresh water tap, let their dog lick it, you name it.
• The fresh water didn’t run too well in our old van, often seeming to get air in the system. Once it had completely stopped, I finally checked the water pump to find it had completely rusted up. There seem to be two types of pump used depending on the van: one submersed in the tank or an external one. We have the submersed one which is much smaller than the external one in our old van, but works just fine nevertheless.
• The old favourite: water from the frsh water tank passes through a gas-powered water heater. If the water freezes in the heater, it will likely break internal pipes requiring a rebuild. We’ve managed this trick twice. If using your van somewhere below zero, make sure you either heat the van or empty the water heater. There’ll be a tap or screw somewhere you have to turn. On our van it’s in a hidden floor panel under the sink.

Grey water’s a much simpler affair:

• Emptying requires you to get your van in the right place over the grill in the ground (just emptying it any old place is very poor form). Some emptying spots are really well designed: a large sloping area so you can pull up easily and the water runs down into the drain. Some seem to have been designed by someone who’s never had to empty grey water in their lives: on a flat, or even raised, hard to drive onto, tiny drain. Our van has a 2 metre pipe which you can attach to the grey water tap and direct the water out. We’ve only needed it a few times.
• Be careful about putting fats down your sink: we found our grey water draining slowly after cooking some chorizo sausages and emptying the fat down the kitchen sink! Fortunately it cleared itself.
• Remember to close the tap after you’ve finished emptying. Julie once found herself in the shower with an angry French chap banging on the door as the shower water was pouring straight out on the aire after I forgot to close the tap. Oops.
• Water’s heavy; we try and drain the grey water before we drive anywhere to save on diesel. We have no idea how much fuel it saves, but it feels like a good idea, especially on hilly terrain.
• Grey water can smell like rotten eggs. Our old van really hummed in the hot weather. Not letting any vegetable matter go down the plug hole seems to help a lot. Leaving the plugs in sinks and shower drain points also helps avoid the smell coming into the van. We’ve used Milton from time to time to try and stop it smelling with some success (warning: we’ve heard Milton can be bad for aluminium sinks and for pipes in general. We gave ours a good rinse afterwards but something to check before you use it?).

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