Cutting the crap! Macerator Pumps, which and why?

[grumpydoc]

BrianT, the impeller will dry and "freeze" and when you start the pump it will blow the fuse. There is a slot in the shaft of the motor that can be turned with a straight blade screw driver to free the impeller. You can find the slot under the little rubber cover on the bottom of the motor. At least that is the way my FloJet is made. Don't know for sure if you're is the same but you might look at the bottom of the motor and see! Best Wishes, Jay

[RV_]

Mine just came in. I read the directions and pulled out the rubber plug over the screw head to free up the impeller as needed. I sure am glad I read all the folks going more than 100 feet like I am, and with the small four to five foot rise, based on what we've read it should be apiece of cake. I serviced out the A/C up on the roof a couple of weeks ago before the really intense heat wave we are in now. With no shade here next to our shed I'm seriously thinking about building a second RV full hookup pad under a couple of old growth oaks. That's for later when I'm ready to put up a carport/cover. I'm a bit apprehensive in running the first dump as the previous owner said he'd flushed it but did not fill it up a bit to get it started. I always put about 3-5 gallons in after dumping black, and back flushing with gray. We never got odors as long as we remembered to have the vent fan off during flush. Then turn it back on after the flush and the water seal's keeping the blackwater gases out of the bathroom save the momentary whiff during flush. So I'm letting it go to "burp" and then use the clear 45° elbow to see what's running.

[BrianT]

BrianT, the impeller will dry and "freeze" and when you start the pump it will blow the fuse. There is a slot in the shaft of the motor that can be turned with a straight blade screw driver to free the impeller. You can find the slot under the little rubber cover on the bottom of the motor. At least that is the way my FloJet is made. Don't know for sure if you're is the same but you might look at the bottom of the motor and see! Best Wishes, Jay

 

Took me a while to realize that slot was there but it is helpful. It seemed like I did have a fuse blow out occasionally even when I used the slot and turned the thing to free it up again. Not sure if I might have been right on the edge of what it could do and was stressing that fuse to the max before I shut it off of whether it got "brittle" after a heavy use or what. It wasn't a big deal, really, I just tried to make sure I had a spare fuse handy.

[budeneighe]

Derek, I spotted your mention in a Win10 thread (don't know how talk of Kaka got in there) of getting ready to try out your macerator when your Black tank gets full.

 

It occurs to me that you might want to go ahead and test it ASAP BEFORE you are full to the limit... just in case there is a problem and you are left holding it it on a full bladder until you can fix.

 

Me, not fond of the Southern way of doing summers. Not one bit but I also don't want to have to go walk down to the pond in the mosquito zone everytime I need to whiz. At my age, I would probably have to keep turning around and going back to finish what I thought was already done. I could see getting heatstroke just trying to keep it in my pants.

 

Seriously! 30 amp service in your climate this time of year? Mine takes more than that just to keep the humidity under 60%. Nevermind trying to keep the temps in side under 80 and that is important cause I get rashes and it also makes the dog smell bad.

[RV_]

Yep,

30 amp. Today will get to 102° and 103° tomorrow and the day after. My rig is a non full time 28.5' Sunnybrook pressed into one month of full time service. The small A/C barely keeps it at 80° by late afternoon. I have my old finished out and air conditioned shed as our emergency backup. When our house A/C failed five years ago we slept in there and just showered quickly and used the toilet in the house for a week. We'll survive, barely.

 

This morning while it is cool the Macerator gets tested with a full tank. It is all or nothing. I am wiring it directly to the battery which is a new high capacity deep cycle, and we're connected to power. My 100 foot 3/4" contractor's hose is laid out and goes down only a foot or two down the oxidation pond bank. I sure hope it doesn't start spraying every where. Does the end lie flat or is the pump hard enough to make it fly. The hose is so hot and pliable I am afraid of restricting it anymore. Guess I'll find out two things. Does it indeed pump 100 feet uphill about five feet? Will it fly spewing crap all over the pond.

 

Delayed long enough. Will report back clean or messed up.

[grumpydoc]

Can't guarantee what your pump will do but can tell you ours does not spray effluent all around, just not that powerful. I will tell you that the hose may be full if it is going uphill so you may want to purge the line with some flush water before you disconnect the hose from the pump. Best Wishes, Jay

[RV_]

Wow!

I may answer lots of questions on the stuff I know and have installed/repaired/used personally here, but man am I glad you guys were here to let me know how great that Flojet is! My SH helped to do the initial dumping into the black tank, then pulled wires from the top while I threaded through the bottom. I used 12 gauge wire for about six feet directky from the battery using ring crimp on connectors. Then crimped that to the Flojet power wire, hanging it in the same grommets the trailer wires used. There was just enough room for them. Then I hung the power connector end to the dump pipe using plastic wire ties. I did grab a 12" 4X4 scrap to support the weight of the pum end and glad I did as without it leaked some from the weight. Perfect with a 4X in the grass hanging by the release screw rubber housing.

 

I connected a single length 100 foot 3/4" contractor's hose. It had aluminum hose ends which I'd had doubts about, but found them excellent!

 

I had two full gray tanks, one full black tank. To start I opened the kitchen gray and tested it to see if it would spray out of control with nothing weighing it down. My wife watched it and declared it had an amazing flow but no waving around or movement. We switched positions and she triggered the discharge pump while I watched and was more than happy with the results. By the time I'd wired the power in, and set everything up, it was 1pm and 98 degrees.

 

It was time to cut the crap.

 

I closed the gray valves and using a swivel clear elbow to see the kind of crap the pump was macerating, I opened the black tank valve expecting a malfunction and getting full of it. It pumped for about three minutes then quit. I felt the motor and it was very warm to the touch. Remember I'd just pumped 20 gallons of gray and half a tank of black in 98° temps. I waited a minute only and tested it for a second and it was fine. I pulled out my workshop fan, furnace fan on a short stand I'd wired a switch on, and let it blow on it and it was cool to the touch in a couple of minutes. I continued to pump for only a minute and the black tank was dry. I had my wife go in and fill the bowl to the very top then flush until I told her to stop, to see if the agitation from the three inch pipe drop of the bowl water would dislodge any crap hanging around the inside. It did and paper and chunks came out for a bit. Then I back flushed with the gray water, leaving the black valve open, from the kitchen gray tank, which we had refilled. Once it was empty I closed the black valve and the kitchen gray valve. Then I pumped out the bathroom gray tank to clean the black residue from the valve to the pump, the pump, and the hose. It was clear within the first few gallons.

 

With the fan on it, it pumped out a 30 gallon black tank in about four minutes total time. The gray tanks with no thermal stoppages took only a few minutes, about five.

 

Finishing up:

I just twisted the pump off the waste outlet, still attached to the now clean pump. (The bathroom gray had been pumped earlier and was fresh water we filled it with.) i carried pulling the hose after me up the hill to the oxidation pond so it would not empty on me next to the rig. I didn't get a drop on me and the hose is out of the way until next crappy dump.

 

This thing is awesome! I am going to run down and get another connector or two that are insulated so I can store the pump and the control wire separately.

[Jack Mayer]

Now you know why I ONLY use a macerator pump. I have mine permanently set up on my coach.

[RV_]

I hear ya Jack!

I thought these guys were luxury items, but once you get one they become a necessity. No one needs a whole house backup generator but ours had a 15kw with its own 250 Gallon propane tank I bought. Our new house is getting a 25kw water-cooled natural gas genset to be able to run the A/C with ease on days like Monday's forecast 106. Our gensets will never give us ROI

 

I will leave my 100' hose home but get a 25' hose for traveling and use this even when I could use a big hose, why deal with cleaning storing and pinholes spraying waste in the air? It is fast enough, much faster than I'd hoped for, with no chance of a runaway hose.

 

This fiver, while very nice, is a weekend, vacation rating at best, rig. No underbelly insulation, tanks open to weather, single pane windows. It was 102 today, will be 103, 105, and Monday 106°! Today it kept it 84 in the trailer when it was only 102° F. But it kept the awful humidity out and if it doesn't burn out we'll do fine. I will get a more insulated rig whenever we decide to follow the weather half a year. So for us, for now, the portable Flojet is perfect!

 

I can now also highly recommend it.

[pugsly]

Now you know why I ONLY use a macerator pump. I have mine permanently set up on my coach.

Mine is also a permanent setup. It takes a little longer than gravity dumping through the stinky slinky, but it just gives you so many more options.

 

We boondock / camp in places where it is okay to dump gray quite often, and being able to pump the gray a distance away from your campsite is really nice.

[budeneighe]

I have a question that might only be answered by the guy with the plexiglass Poo tank videos.

 

Can the macerator stay ahead of the flow rate of a fully on shore water supply at a reasonable flow and pressure? (50-80pst).

 

I ask because I have found that black tanks and probably grey, too, will build very compact coatings on the bottom. Some call this sludge but the problem is that once it is rooted one can use a build in sprayer or backwash all they want but as long as this coating remains covered by water, the sprays and agitation will have little or no direct impact on it.

 

I little experiment I did because I have seen so many people talk about putting 3-5 gallons of water in their black tank as a way to keep stuff from drying on the bottom after emptying it. I wanted to see if this kept the new stuff fairly mobile.

 

Over a number of months of doing good nearly full black tank dumps I found the apparent capacity seemed to be gradually shrinking and it was getting to the "blurping" stage in fewer days. Each time I dumped the tank I would close the valve, refill it to 1/4 to 3/4 full, then dump it again. All the while, the in tank pressure sprayer was on full. I noticed that even though the waste coming out of the tank was pretty clear (I have a clear exit connector) the tank was still filling quicker than it had been.

 

Another thing I noticed later, was that the sound of the water spraying into the empty tank was barely if at all detectable in the toilet room. It used to be very loud in there when the spray was directly hitting the tank surfaces. Never mind what the gauges showed. I would always rinse and backwash until they were all out (yeah, I still have the cheapo tank gauges).

 

In the end I found that if I did not refill that tank but let the sprayer continue blasting into the tank with all valves wide open and no water backing up into the tank, more stuff would start coming out little by little. Since the down pipe from the toilet has a 90 turn in it aimed towards the outflow valve, I can never see the bottom of the tank but I have never built the pyramid of poo as far as I can tell.

 

This continued blasting of the sprayer eventually (in several hours) kept blasting pieces of stuff, some sizeable, out of the tank until the loud spraying noise could again be heard in the bathroom. This was when I realized that a water over covering of any sort may really compromise the effectiveness of the built in sprayer.

 

To prevent that from happening all of the water in the black tank should be able to exit with no backup due to exit restrictions if one has a sprayer to flush the tank.

 

So, my question is how fast can the Macerator move the water coming into it and can it handle a really long sustained flow of sometimes 15-30 minutes to completely clear any buildup? I suspect that if it can't let all the water out of the tank fast enough, buildup may still happen a little each time.

 

Thoughts?

[grumpydoc]

Budd, don't have a answer for your question but I do have a concern about your proposal. I would worry that the motor of the FloJet would not tolerate repeated prolonged pumping sessions for long. Mine will get fairly warm in just a ten minute session of pumping out the black tank and the connecting wires also get warm. I would be worried about burning up the motor or worse a fire hazard. Just a thought, Best Wishes, Jay

[Jack Mayer]

I do as you do with the sprayer. My permanent macerator is plumbed so that the regular 3" fittings can also be used for grey (or black) bypass. Normally that is used for grey. BUT, I can bypass the macerator and let the black tank drain directly, and that is what I do during rinse-out. Like you, if you let it run I notice lots of pieces being flushed out. I have a flush on both my black and grey.

[RV_]

Mine stopped after only ten minutes from heat, admittedly way over normal operating parameters for hose length and elevation lift, and I doubt any Flojet will operate as a sustained pump. I've never had a sprayer on any of my rigs, nor used a "wand" or other device other than filling the tank a few times and draining. No chemicals and never had a pyramid or stoppage.

 

Since this was a first dump of a trailer that had been used little, I was relieved it did not have any blockages or slow flow. I did get more out on each of the ten or so flushes we did after as a full bowl tumbling down the big downpipe then splashing into the tank did dislodge some remaining tissue and solids.

 

I'd always add bowls of water after dumping and flushing when we were fulltiming to start it wet again, and it worked for us. Maybe if we decide to full time again we'll get all the new gizmos, now that I'm 63 and no longer underage fulltiming without a job.

[budeneighe]

Wish I had one on my greys. They stay open while we sit for months and I have learned that it is a good idea to close the off occasionally and let them fill to flush out black fly attractants. It is surprising how much still collects in aN open tank. If one has the pseudo waste pipe vents usually under the kitchen and bathroom sinks, they can be a portal into the house for the flies. Just one or two usually huge house flies are suddenly just there. I found this happens most often after dumping a sink full of water which pops these valves open briefly.

[Ron]

…. I have a flush on both my black and grey.

Jack, did your trailer come with a gray tank flush or did you add it yourself? I've often thought that our gray tank should have a flush/sprayer too. If you added one yourself could you describe how you did it? If it was already installed by the manufacturer is it implemented just like a common black tank flush?

---ron

[Jack Mayer]

Jack, did your trailer come with a gray tank flush or did you add it yourself? I've often thought that our gray tank should have a flush/sprayer too. If you added one yourself could you describe how you did it? If it was already installed by the manufacturer is it implemented just like a common black tank flush?

---ron

New Horizons come standard with both a black and grey flush. They both are identical and operate the same way. I have a quick connect fitting on them and simply move my hose between.

[budeneighe]

Just curious, Jack, but does your sprayer line have a check valve in it? Mine doesn't so it squirts back out when I disconnect the hose. I really would prefer to not have the potential of having that water still in the line, run back into my hose.

[lappir]

On my homebuilt macerator I have used if for 20 to 30 minutes with nothing getting hot. OF course it's not 12 volt but 120. I have my tanks plumbed together when I am set up for at least a month stay and keep all valves closed until one of the tanks is full. Usually it's the grey shower tank but if I have done a lot of dishwasher use it can be the grey kitchen tank. IF it's time to empty the black tank I will fill the line with grey from the kitchen to be sure there isn't a leak. I will close that grey and open the black to let it drain until nothing is flowing. I then back fill the black with the kitchen grey and close it off again and allow the black to drain again followed by allowing the kitchen grey to finish it's drain and it's closed again until the next drain. I back fill the black once again with the still full Shower grey and then attach the spray to run while this is allowed to drain out. I usually only have clear water and a few very small bits coming out with this . I close off the out let and let the remaining grey level it's self in the black and then close the black drain and finish with the clear water from the shower grey. I can usually go 4 to 6 weeks before I "Have to" empty, depending on my location. I have a 275 gallon tank available to transport to a dump site or hold for the "Honey Wagon" to arrive. So far I have only had the tank pumped out and haven't tried the transport yet.

 

Rod

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

 

Just curious, Jack, but does your sprayer line have a check valve in it? Mine doesn't so it squirts back out when I disconnect the hose. I really would prefer to not have the potential of having that water still in the line, run back into my hose.

Usually flush inlets have check valves.

 

If you need to add, I found this compact hose connector check valve.

[budeneighe]

Thanks Mark but their link just takes me to the quick connect and not to the check valve. I am trying to find what flow it is rated for.

 

In a tank sprayer I really want delivery of as much pressure and flow as possible to the nozzle in the tank.

 

I have suspected that their lack of a check valve might have been to keep it as open as possible. I know there are some Watts back flow preventers with very good flow specs. I might go with something like that.

 

The other question is whether anyone has their black tank spray hose permanently connected to the water supply through a double backflow preventer? I have considered it for convenience but then again, I think the risk is pretty high without some sort of air gap vacuum breaker in the line.

 

All you guys with newer rigs with the "convenience centers" in them for all things utility, make me a little envious.

 

With a dump valve here..

and a dump valve there.

Here a valve..

There a valve.

Everywhere some sort of obscure valves,

I feel like old McDonald on the farm doing the chores or like I am trying to start the Tardis.

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

The link works for me

[Jack Mayer]

Both of my sprayer lines have check valves in them. I also have a shut off valve on the end of the hose I use for flushout. That allows me to simply shut off the flow under pressure so there is zero chance on backflow. In this 2015 coach I have a powered shore water reel that is plumbed in so I don't use my shore hose for backflush...but in previous rigs I DID USE the shore hose for backflus - simply moving it to the appropriate grey or black backflush inlet. That hose had a shutoff on it as well, and the valves had check valves. Now, people will say that is dangerous and I'll be drinking "poop". But there is virtually zero chance of that happening. However, I can't recommend that as a "good method" of operation.