Sunday, January 6, 2013

Poopy Talk: Macerator and Tank Probes

So, I thought I'd write a post about two items in the poopy department that we really appreciate. Nobody loves this part of RV ownership and use, but the convenience of your own bathroom while enroute and at various destinations sure is sweet and worth the trouble in our opinion.

First, we've been using our Flojet Macerator for almost a year and it sure makes tank dumping quick and clean.  Especially with the low profile of the Visa, we have run into a lot of sewer hookups that are higher than our outlet where gravity is not our friend.  After doing a "slinky juggle" one too many times we decided to cough it up for the Flojet.  Every time we use it, we're glad we have it.  We tapped into the wiring in the back of the refrigerator compartment and just pop off the access panel to plug in the pump.

Second, like everyone else in the RV world, we were constantly getting the misreads on the tank sensors.  Not an earth-ending sort of problem, just one of those things that bugs you.  We tried all sorts of stuff, from detergent, the spray wand, to the ice cubes in the tank trick, to no avail.  We pretty much have it figured out that we need to dump our tanks every 4 days, but still it bugged us a bit.  It didn't bug us hundreds of dollars worth and/or lots of tinkering worth, but when we came across Horst Miracle Probes we decided for $35 it was worth a shot (we only had problems with our black tank - gray has been reading fine for us so far.)  So far they seem to work like a charm!  We now get empty readings and 1/3 readings!  You still get the lack of preciseness of course, with the configuration of the 1/3 - 2/3 - Full sensors  (i.e. you could be well over 50% full but not quite at 75% and still reading 1/3) but at least a valid general idea is good enough for us!

And even if you don't plan to buy the miracle probes, their YouTube video explaining why sensors misread is super helpful in understanding what is going on: Why RV Tank Sensors Are Inaccurate