Alice

LOL When my son was young his teacher was so amused when he had to use "right" in a sentence. He wrote, "Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." We've dropped Corelle on carpet fine, on linoleum fine, but tile...explosion city.

We actually decided to go with just some of our Corelle from home this past summer. Got some of that thick, grippy shelf liner and cut small pieces to go between plates and bowls. Also, got some fabric boxes from the dollar store and our more breakable items go in there. Altogether, they are working well.

Guess I missed that.

Only if the people hearing it have some actual knowledge of how small these RV's are with the slide in. Most folks hear, "functions just fine" and they don't understand what a big deal it is. If it wasn't new, that just shifts the liability. Someone still (knowingly in that case) sold them a piece of poo coach. That said, we bought our TT used and we spent probably 2-3 hours making the tech go through everything. We made him put the slide in and out, the awning in and out, light the oven, turn on the water, show us where the fuses were...I had a 4 page checklist. So far, all we've found wrong is we can't get the antenna to turn. The dealer found the radio didn't work and had a brand new one shipped to us, having shown us how to install it. We haven't bothered yet. Our 3-month dealer warranty ends October 27. When we come back from our next trip on October 7, we'll let them know if there's anything else they need to fix. So they bear some of the blame, but it still needs to be made right.

Thank you Zulu! I was going to post this one: https://www.caoc.org/?pg=facts That poor lady admitted her actions contributed, suffered 3rd degree burns requiring skin grafts to her inner thighs and genitals, asked only for medical bills to be paid, and sued when they only offered $800. McDonald's coffee was shown to be kept at temperatures much higher than industry standard. The millions were reduced to a more reasonable amount by the Court and it was never appealed - they settled to avoid the time and litigation expense. It was about as UN-frivolous as a lawsuit gets. Sorry, as a lawyer, this one always ticks me off. As for the RV case, well, if it was new, and given all these people went through - if it was me I'd likely sue too. It's not the suit, it's the jury verdict that's shockingly large. But, then again, what is a year of your life worth to you? You plan to tour the country and end up sitting in RV dealerships over and over and over? Maybe not the usual "pain and suffering" one thinks about, but there's value there. If this thing was as bad as described...

You've used the phrase "wetting the valve" a couple times. I'm not sure what you mean by that. Not to worry. We expected a learning curve. Right now we're more worried about learning to back the darned thing up! I hadn't thought of leaving the valve closed for any time at all. I may try that, for a VERY short time. LOL!!! Thank you all. I had no idea we should be leaving a bit of water in the black tank between uses and never have. We dump, rinse, close. I'll remember that.

I understand everyone. We have only a 45 gallon fresh tank and 30 gallon grey and black tanks. Obviously, we're not full-time. We're planning on maybe a week at a time - 9 days tops, and a lot of weekends. So, that's a huge difference from folks with 80-100 gallon tanks. Pretty sure we'll figure it out.

Well, there will be little chance of that, since we have yet to have a place with full hookups! We keep having to take electric only sites, which is apparently not unusual in state parks.

Okay. I give up. What of the dreaded "poop mountain" that supposedly happens if you don't start out with water in your black tank. I mean, I've literally now been told I need to start with anywhere from 5 gallons to ZERO water in the black tank.

I do have a thing about toothbrushing. What you describe is how we brush when tent camping. I hate it. I'm okay to turn water off when doing the actual brushing, but I HAVE to rinse that toothbrush pretty good, in running water. I'll work on it, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to waste a little there. All 3 of these are quoted to show the difference in opinions I keep getting! Now, the 1/3 to 1/2 full black tank before dumping I get. But the amount of water to use keeps varying. Sandsys says to start with 1 bowl full. Barbaraok says 3 gallons or so. Other places I've been told 5 gallons to start with. If we're dumping after a weekend...there's not going to be much time to dissolve anything, including paper. When we dumped this weekend, there was certainly undissolved paper we saw in the clear elbow. When we used the black tank flush (we have the kind built into the trailer, not the kind built into the hose) - there was a LOT more undissolved paper than in just the dump. Just as a point of interest - it's my understanding that you leave the black tank valve OPEN when you are running the black tank flush, yes? You run it for several minutes and it's supposed to kind of spray down the inside of the tank, like a sprinkler head, and knock down and out what's left over? Do I have that right? Now here's a better question. Say we buy the portable dump tank...we can't use the flush on the black tank on the trailer until the final dump at the end of the stay...is that a bad thing?

I don't really think so. It was very dry that Saturday and I walked around the trailer to make sure nothing was leaking from the gray/black tanks - LONG story that involves our utter lack of skill backing up. There was not and the ground was dry. I think we're just water hogs. This is a good idea. I do think I waste a lot of water both washing hands and brushing teeth. This would be standard for washing dishes when camping the way we normally do without a camper. So yes, in fact, we may skip right to the bleach rinse if it's not too sudsy. Dish washing is not where the water is going. I definitely see us buying paper products. Isn't that what a Navy shower is? That's what we did. Now, I like HOT showers so I did let the cold run to warm up and that may take more than I should let go. I'll get a bucket to catch it next time. Husband actually likes cold showers, sick little monkey, so he's not the cause of any waste there. I do think we're probably using too much flush water - but darn it you folks keep telling me the secret is lots of water. You can't have it both ways! :p LOL

You were 100% correct! Thanks for the info!

At this point we have two trips under our belts. I believe I posted about our maiden voyage on here. Both campgrounds have had electric. Neither had sewer hook ups. The last one didn't have water that we could remain hooked up to; we had to fill then use the water tank - a good thing since that's our next situation too. First time, we used the dump at out storage facility when we got home. The campground didn't have a central dump. Then we filled the black tank with water from our hose at home, went back and dumped again. We used chemicals bought at the dealer - supposedly environmentally safe. This past weekend, we totally forgot the treatment until we were about to go dump! So didn't bother. This park had a nice central dump site with water to use our black tank flush with. That is an awesome addition to a trailer! We were rather amazed at how much MORE came out of that black tank. I think I'm a bit of a paper hog. Got to work on that. We did buy septic safe Scott's, but not the special RV stuff. I draw the line at single ply. The biggest problem I see coming up is that in a Friday to Sunday trip, when we were out of the park most of Saturday, we managed to empty the 45 gallon fresh tank! We actually were trying to be conservative; navy showers, turn water off when brushing, doing dishes with a small amount of water...and still we ran out. We have a FIVE DAY trip coming with electric only hookups. I guess we'll be packing some type of water jugs and a portable dump tank.

I figured I could take the cardboard out and just squash the quilted side down to get out a dish. The pegs are neat, but I'd think they'd work better in a drawer. We're going to have to put our dishes in the cabinet above the sink/stove area. Being part-timers, we won't have a ton of stuff up there and I'm just afraid they'll slide/jump all over. Missouri roads are, shall we say, less than smooth. LOL But I suppose I could be over-thinking it. That cup-holder looks like it would be good for those bourbon glasses someone was so worried about though.

I know this is kind of an old thread, but has anyone thought of using these sort of storage containers (not necessarily these exact ones) to keep things in place in the cupboards? We were thinking of using Corelle in our travel trailer (and yes, it certainly breaks on tile, but I've had even the newer stuff survive carpet and linoleum - but it isn't invincible). I was actually thinking I could put Velcro on the bottom of the container and the cupboard so they wouldn't shift. China storage Thoughts?