HEY DADS! Spring, summer, winter, fall. All these seasons have their own watery activities to experience. With spring we get lots of water.
Have you had any negative experiences with water? Maybe water tanks or water wells or drinking water or sewage water? Earlier this week I had an interesting experience with a certain type of water on that list. Can you guess which one?
We were visiting some friends of ours and they kindly let us stay in their 5th wheel RV which they connected up beside their house. This is a beauty of an RV and it actually sleeps my nine happy kids and one patient wife quite comfortably. Plus it provides me an opportunity to learn something about life in an RV. The hardest lesson I have had to learn so far has to do with RV plumbing. It’s a pretty simple concept, however. All the waste water from the kitchen sink and shower goes in the grey tanks. All the waste water from the toilet goes in the black tank. There are not magical elves in the RV that empty these tanks. There are not even magical children in this RV that will empty these tanks. So it’s a good job for dad. The boys asked if they could help but I kindly suggested they stay far away from this task. Good thing I did.
We have a little macerator pump to help drain the dreaded black tank. According to the interweb one definition of “macerate” is to “separate - divide into components”. Some of the “items” in the black tank need to be, um, divided into components so the pump can blast them through the hose into the septic tank. Just consider that process for a moment.
Now, I was getting the hang of emptying the tanks after a few times of doing it, but somehow this time the pump got clogged. This is not good, my friends.
This is very, very bad.
Very bad.
Fortunately, the pump has a washout option so you can hook up a garden hose to help if there is a clog. I happily did this expecting it to help unclog the clog. Nope. It in fact did something quite the opposite. It created some pressure on the joint connecting the pump to the RV. This joint was not built to handle very much pressure and as I sat there happily observing the process (and feeling quite proud of myself for doing my dadly duties of emptying the tanks) a series of unfortunate events happened. They happened rapidly.
The pressure built.
The joint separated.
The pump disconnected.
The hose sprayed.
The sewage exploded.
The “components” in the pipes and pump blew out into my face.
And onto my chest and my arms and my legs and pretty much my whole self was blasted. Not blasted to bits but blasted with bits. My happy mood was literally snuffed out.
I spent the next half hour spraying myself and the general area with the garden hose, cleaning out the pump, reconnecting everything and finishing the job. I got the job done and I made a memory. A crappy memory. But a good lesson to learn and pass on to the next generation about RV plumbing. Time flies! So does pulverized, pressurized poop, unfortunately. Make every moment count dad!
For more plumbing tips keep watching heydads.ca.
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