The Black Water Tank Fell Off

This will be funny some day, but it wasn’t that day.

It’s been a while.

I have been turning ideas in my head about returning to writing as we travel. Since I last wrote to you, I’ve realized if you’re going to travel RV (Recreational Vehicle ) style, you need a boatload of common sense.

We bought a brand new 2023 Class C camper.

Brand new.

A Thor Quantum KW29.

It has space for a washer and dryer, two air conditioners, king size (well short king)(remember we’re traveling with multiple cats) bed, quartz countertops in the kitchen, three burner (2 propane, 1 induction) cooktop, refrigerator/freezer, glass enclosed shower, sink and a plastic potty, yep, plastic (it’s plastic I’m told so that it doesn’t shatter while you’re driving), all contained in a 30 foot box attached to a Ford E450 chassis.

A portion of the letter we are sending to the manufacturer:

There have been many fails with this vehicle.

It has been a nightmare since the beginning.

This was supposed to be fun and instead it has been a nightmare, really.

Every issue described here has been addressed where something was repaired, replaced, or upgraded at our expense.

You may read this and wonder why we didn’t use the factory warranty for repairs , it is because between you and the dealer, some of these issues should have been caught and remedied and they weren’t. Both of you let it out the door this way. We just don’t trust you to do the right thing.

It seems the RV industry doesn’t care what it puts out, even if the end product retails at more than $150k.

I joined an online RV community forum where I quickly learned buying anything brand-new, newer than 2018, is dumb. I also learned that the RV community is quite generous with knowledge, especially if you’re going to amuse them with newbcakes antics.

They’re mostly curmudgeons (An ill-tempered (and frequently old) person full of stubborn ideas or opinions) with big hearts.

“If you want warranty work done it takes 4-6 weeks to get in, sometimes months for the repair. In some instances, the dealer has had the rig more than the owner” The curmudgeons told us.

More from the letter we are sending to the manufacturer:

Week one:

We got locked out of the coach with our pets and both sets of keys trapped inside.

The door lock was “sticky” at the dealership, but randomly locked itself when we got it home. We eventually had to use a grinder to remove the door lock, our cats were locked inside and it was hot.

And that was just the beginning. Reading online, this is a fairly common occurrence with this particular model though the manufacturer made us feel like we were insane when we called for a replacement lock. They reluctantly sent us a replacement lock at full cost, plus shipping.

Other fails include:

• The automatic generator system (AGS) was not working at purchase(nor was it demo’d).

• The Generator quit working at 1152 hours.

• The Leveling system quit working after 4340 miles.

• Storage compartments leak.

• The Black water tank fell off and spilled 34 gallons of black water.

To someone who hasn’t lived in a Recreational Vehicle, these may seem like petty complaints, but remember, it’s supposed to be a brand new Recreational Vehicle.

Things are not supposed to break.

The generator is important for when you can’t plug into city provided electricity, or “shore power”. It provides electricity and is noisy. You don’t run a generator at night.

The AGS is important for when you’re not connected to shore power and the electric systems runs down the solar charged battery system. The AGS kicks the generator on so it can recharge the drawn batteries. The refrigerator runs off the battery power when you’re not plugged into shore power.

The leveling system does just that, it levels the whole RV so things like water drains properly, the refrigerator works, and the slide out compartments that makes rooms in the RV work correctly. You’re stuck at home when this fails.

Leaking exterior storage compartments are an annoyance, but if you’ve stored important items there, they’ll mildew. It’s an awful smell.

Fortunately, we camped in the front yard all summer to learn how everything worked. These fails were at home where there’s plenty of tools and creativity (remember we’re farmers first).

I can’t imagine being on the road for any one of these fails.

Turns out, a whole lot of common sense was ignored from design to completion with this particular model.

“It breaks faster than I can fix it.” Hubby

A large person (and I don’t mean fat or heavy, they’d be SOL) does not fit in this shower. Check out the plastic potty, not a throne for the kingdom by any means…

One of the first things you learn about with an RV is “self-sanitation™”.

“Welcome to the world of self-sanitation™” the curmudgeons say when one complains about a tank issue.

Clever phrases get thrown about, like “stinky slinky™”, “poo-stew™”, “gray water”, “black water” and the dreaded “poo-pyramid™”. You see, when you travel with an RV, you can cook there, hand clean dishes there, sleep there, do laundry there and go to the bathroom, to shower, brush your teeth, and other necessary things.

All of the liquid fun has to go somewhere.

With self-sanitation™ you quickly learn how to self-deodorize.

TST® Max is what one discovers.

Your traveling home has three plastic tanks attached to the underside of the floor, less than four feet from the road rolling under you.

One is for holding fresh water used for showering, dish washing, teeth brushing when you are not connected to “city water” (water available via a campground water spigot or your own home water). The second one is for gray water (gray tank), it holds the water that goes down the drain in the shower and kitchen and bathroom sinks and from the washing machine. It’s not as nasty as black water. The third tank (black water tank) exclusively holds what gets flushed from your plastic potty.

These tanks are secured to the underside of the 30 foot box balanced on the Ford E450 with brackets. Now one would think that these brackets would be significantly chunky and numerous. One would think.

According to the curmudgeons and the RV schematic drawings, these tanks should have six brackets securing them. The fresh water and gray tanks had six, but the black tank had four.

Four brackets, 34 gallons of liquid icky-goosh, gravity, physics, fluid dynamics. A giant word problem courtesy of the RV manufacturer.

Add to the equation, motion.

Driving the RV to acquire propane and/or engine fuel bounced one of the brackets loose leaving us with just three brackets to secure the nastiest tank of all.

The rest is what you call history.

When someone shouts “don’t flush the toilet”, you shouldn’t.

The tank fell, pulling the drain pipe out, leaving the front yard vulnerable to and soaked with poo-stew™.

If nothing else, we astounded the curmudgeons with our tale. They were even sympathetic.

Farm chemicals and a tractor cleaned up the stew.

Common sense repaired our tank.

That’s a car jack holding the failed black tank against the floor of the RV in the bottom right photo.

Meatier brackets(special ordered), glue on the drain pipe (it was friction fitted, dumb, dumb, dumb), a “Frankenstrap”(plumbing strap and a muffler strap combination) now secures the drain pipe.

It’s wonderful when you can finally hit the road.

After every trip now we take a looky-loo at that tank.

A curmudgeon quote: “I think in my first year of ownership, I rebuilt the entire camper (so it seems). But when I got done, I had a really good camper!”.

It’s where we’re headed as well.

Dear Subscriber, I plan to do some writing again, thanks for staying with me during my break. I appreciate it. Thanks to those writers who continue to recommend my writing, I appreciate the continued support. You’re awesome.

I am going to be adding a section called “Grey Nomad”.

Note I have used “gray” to describe tanks and that I am using “grey” in my new section header. If you search, you will find two spellings, “grey” (more common in Commonwealth English) and “gray” (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It’s also the color your hair turns when you get old(er).

I am choosing “grey” because the idea comes from “Grey Nomad”, an Australian term that describes Aussy RV’rs.

I first saw that term years ago, long before I ever thought I’d get old.

We’ve been on and off the road since December, 2023 and I hope to publish pieces periodically following my original theme common sense lost in our current culture but will flavor the writing with observations from our travels.

Traveling expands the mind and shows the world as it is.

So far our travel has included small towns, vast scenery, beaches and ocean views. We have a lot more planned and continue to observe, common sense, isn’t, common in more places than you’d think.