Wednesday, July 31, 2013

WIP Wednesday- The Attack of the Sewer Line

This week's WIP is quickly turning into a DIP. That is, a Disaster in Progress. 

In case you did't know, when occupying a camper you typically have a hose that connects to a sewer hook up at your site, or if you are camping at a site that does not have sewer hook ups then you simply use the camper holding tanks until you can get somewhere to drain those tanks. 

Around here it's a little different. Since folks actually live in their campers year around and the winter's get pretty nasty, something more substantial than a mere hose is necessary. 

We've been using a hose all summer with the intention of putting in a PVC sewer line when it got colder. We had wanted to delay the project for awhile longer, but this past Wednesday when the water went out, our sewer line hose decided it was time to give up too. 

I thought to myself, "Hey, no problem!  I'll just run into Menard's tomorrow while I'm in Minot and we'll finally get the stuff to put in our PVC sewer line. It's just a PVC line. It should be easy, right?" Yeah, not so much. 


 So I spent some time at Menard's, (Whose employees, I might add, were absolutely useless. But that's another story.) where I bought what I thought were the necessary pipes and fittings.



On Friday Jacob had a half day of work so he came home and started building our sewer line. Will donned Jacob's hardhat and declared himself project foreman. He then set about making a black construction paper blueprint to guide the project.


Putting the camper hook up piece together with the PVC piping was supposed to be the most difficult part. 


Unfortunately, figuring out the angle from the camper to the sewer hook up proved to be far more difficult than anticipated. Here is Foreman Will overseeing his dad's work.


Jacob spent a lot of time staring at the line out of the camper and cursing the angle at which it was set. It's not an easy angle to work from and it's made worse by the fact that the amount of room we have to ensure that the pipe goes downhill to the hook up is minute.


After staring at the line out for awhile this is the point where Jacob figured out more fittings were necessary and that the project would have to be shelved for the day. 


So, as it stands our sewer line is still a work in progress. I think we have all the fittings now, but we don't have access to the tools that we need. To make matters worse, we now have to empty the tanks manually when they fill up since the sewer hose is broken. 

This whole exercise has been exceptionally frustrating for Jacob since a large part of his job involves putting together metal pipe. He was just sure this PVC line would be a breeze. At the outset of the project he made the comment that if he couldn't put this together easily he might as well go work at McDonald's. I think he's ready to go work at McDonald's now. 

Ah, camper life. Never a dull moment! Hopefully, for next week's WIP update, I will be telling you that our sewer line is complete and just how wonderful it is. Good sewer line vibes are appreciated, if you've got any to spare!


3 comments:

  1. Awww I feel your pain. We also live in our RV. The best way we found to do the sewer line was to buy a high quality hose and a PVC pipe that the hose will fit into. The PVC protects the hose from freezing and sun damage. We have had ours hooked up this way for almost two years and one long Wyoming winter. Sending you lots of happy glitter for your sewer line!

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  2. You know, I wondered if putting the hose inside the pipe would work. Now I know if this mess doesn't work out there are other options! Thanks! And happy glitter is most appreciated!

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  3. You will want to make sure that you put at least one flex coupler in the whole thing. If you don't the slight movements of the RV are going to cause some really nasty problems, like breaking your black water tank!

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