Inside our Little Guy Max, we have a wet bath with shower and flush toilet, and a wonderful deep stainless steel sink in the kitchen area. We are able to wash veggies and dishes, hands and faces. We brush our teeth. We pour harmless liquids down the sink. On the outside, we have a hose with spray nozzle for rinsing things off or watering a pet or what have you.
You might wonder, where does all the water come from, and where does it go? Underneath we have holding tanks ... one for fresh water, one for gray water (i.e. dishwater, wash water), and one for black water (i.e. sewage). The thing to remember with our Little Guy Max is it is a small camper trailer with relatively small tanks. One must pay attention to the input.
Our current campsite comes equipped with electric hookups, but no "city" water hookups. City water is a wonderful convenience that provides a continuous flow of water, sort of like hooking up to the water spigot outside your home. In the absence of city water, we must fill our fresh water tank with water for washing dishes, brushing teeth, flushing toilets, etc, and use a built-in water pump (runs on electric or propane) to push the water through the plumbing. Technically, it IS potable water that we put in there, but we don't like the idea of drinking water that's been sitting in a plastic tank that can't easily be cleaned and disinfected. So, we keep "drinking" water in a jug on the counter inside the camper.
Also, "technically" we are able to take a shower in our little camper, but if we do, the gray-water tank gets filled up very quickly. Remember, small campers come with small holding tanks. Overfilling the gray water tank (or heaven forbid the black water tank) is not a desirable thing! What happens? Used, icky water coming up through the drains into living space. Eeewwww! We do have indicators that give estimates of the tank levels. They are often inaccurate. What can I say? One must pay attention.
This morning, the fresh water tank was running low, and after cleaning up breakfast, we realized that the gray water tank was full. (Ha ha! The indicator said half full, but the backed-up sink disagreed.) Mind you, we last set up camp Sunday evening, so that means we got just over two days of somewhat conservative water use in the kitchen sink before having to start over. The black water was still ok ... between 1/4 and 1/2 full (or maybe not??) Nonetheless, we had to hook the trailer up to the Jeep and tow it over to the dump station.
The dump station is a great place to meet people, because EVERYBODY has to dump at some time or another. Rouse the Spouse is the main dumper in our RV world. He dons gloves, figuratively (if not literally) holds his nose, and gets the job done. There's a method to it. Dump the black water first, then the gray water, which comes through the black water space effectively cleaning it out just a bit more. Then, for extra credit, we run fresh water through the entire system. All the water runs down a nice long accordion pipe into the local sewer system.
We dumped. We cleaned. We disinfected our hands. We filled up the fresh water holding tank. Then we drove back to the campsite, got leveled up and plugged in. Ready for a few more days!
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