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I finished building my “Black Tank Simulator” a couple weeks ago, and ever since then, I’ve been itching to use it.  Stef quickly told me that playing with simulated sewage had to be an “outside” activity, so I’ve been waiting for good weather so I could conduct a proper test.  Yesterday, I finally got my chance.  Check out the video for details on the Simulator, what I used to simulate the waste, two complete tests, and a look inside the tank as I compare Valterra’s Sewer Solution to a standard 3 inch dump hose.

 

Observations from the tests

  1. If you’re out in your yard dealing with bright pink poop, the neighbors might stop to watch.
  2. The 3” hose emptied the tank in about a minute.  The Sewer Solution, as expected, was slower, at 2:30.  That’s a 2.5 : 1 ratio.  Again, this is entirely expected, but do keep it in mind.
  3. The 3” dump hose left more of the solids in the tank than I expected.  The materials left were items that had settled to the bottom.
  4. “Floating material” had a much harder time emptying through the Sewer Solution.  With the 3” hose, it was sucked right out.  This lends support to the traditional RV advice of waiting until the tanks are pretty full to dump.
  5. The slower emptying rate with the Sewer Solution actually had the effect of getting the sides of the tank cleaner than the 3” dump hose.  The 3” hose left a lot more of a slimy, greasy film on the sides of the tank.  This was something I had not expected.
  6. The tank flushing option on the Sewer Solution was considerably more powerful than I expected.  After using the Sewer Solution to flush the tank, it was unquestionably far cleaner than using a 3” hose.

My Bottom Line:

How useful the Sewer Solution is to you will depend on your style of camping.  If you move frequently, or boondock a lot without full hookups, then you’re a lot like us.  I tend to “dump & run”, mostly at public dump stations.  Given the extra time the Sewer Solution requires to dump; the need for a solid water hookup while dumping; and the fact that you’d probably want to flush the tanks as well to take care of remaining waste – it’s hard to see us using the Sewer Solution on the move.

However, if you are typically hooked up to a full-service campsite, and you have the time to use it – there’s no question that dumping and flushing your tanks with the Sewer Solution is going to get you a much better result than just dumping with the 3” hose.  If you’ve got the time and the facilities to do so, absolutely consider using the Sewer Solution.

Finally, we’ve got a class B, and storage is tight.  I don’t have the room to bring two dumping methods, so I’ll be taking the 3” hose on the road.  But I will definitely be using the Sewer Solution to flush out the tanks once I’ve returned home and have the time and facilities to do so.  I’d much rather have a well cleaned out tank waiting for me when we start our next RV adventure.

Well, that’s it for now.  If you have questions on the test or the results I saw, please leave comments below.  I’d like for these tests to improve over time, so I’m very interested in suggestions.  Also, if you have a product you’d like to see me put in action in the Black Tank Simulator, let me know that too.  And finally:

You can vote for what you’d like to see as the next experiment here!

 

Full Disclosure:  Valterra did provide the Sewer Solution I used for testing.  But they did not place any restrictions or conditions on my testing or reporting – beyond suggesting that I follow the instructions and watch their instructional video.  That seemed completely reasonable to me, and the opinions, procedures and results you see in the video are entirely my own.