Bathroom Sink discharges to Black Water Tank??

[meddie10]

I was finally able to get into my new 2018 Cougar 32BHS. We have a half bath by our bedroom up front. When sanitizing my water system for the first time, I opened both grey water tank valves. When going up to our room to see how the faucet was discharging, the water had backed up into the sink and was overflowing onto the floor. I immediately shut down the faucet.

When I checked the water tank levels, it showed that one of my black tanks was full. I opened up both of the black tank valves, and the water level in the sink went down.

Shouldn't the sink be discharging to the Grey Water tank? Everything I read in the literature says Black Water tanks are for sewage only, and that all sinks should discharge to Grey tanks.

I'm also concerned about water damage now that the sink has overflowed.


Any help out there?

[DocP]

It is not at all uncommon anymore to have the 1/2 bath plumbed to the black tank, presumably because it is a short run of pipe from the faucet to the black tank.

[ctbruce]

Unless it was 10's of gallons and sat a long time, the water will not harm anything. Dry it up. Turn a fan on it.

[SummitPond]

We overflowed our bathtub one time (don't ask!) and only noticed it when we saw the river of water flowing from the bathroom. I was quite impressed that no water got under the bed or cabinets. We quickly mopped it up with plenty of towels and ran a fan on the carpet after blotting it as dry as we could. There have been no issues with soft floors or warping in the intervening two years since that event.

[fjr vfr]

I've read that some trailers came through with the drain valves levers marked incorrect. Make sure yours isn't one of them.

[meddie10]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Makes me feel better about things. I'm still going to bring it up to the service guys - I have some other warranty work that needs to be done. We have black and grey valves up front and another pair in back. I'm hopeful it's just a labeling thing, but we'll see.

[NorskeBob]

After we took delivery of our rig we found out that the sink in the bathroom drains to the black tank. First RV to have it drain to the black tank.

Had an overflow on our last RV (toilet fill valve stuck slightly open) - cleaned it up right away and no problems developed.

Contacted Keystone and the service rep indicated:

Info from Keystone:

Good Morning.

Thank you for contacting Keystone RV. Yes, in some models, the determination was made to route the sink to the black tank. If you have additional questions, let me know. Have a great day!

Thank you,

Jeannene Jenks
Retail Advisor
Keystone, Dutchmen and Crossroads RV
Ph: 1-866-425-4369
Fax: 1-866-273-1455

[mtofell]

Yep, pretty common now days for some sinks to empty to black tanks. The manufactures should do a better job labeling and/or making people aware of this IMO.

My front half bath sink empties to front black tank (no surprise with this one)
My outside kitchen empties to rear black tank (not sure why as the sink and shower are very close).

[flybouy]

Our outdoor kitchen sink drains into black tank. Didn't like it at first but it's really only for washing hands or rinsing a vegetable, not for washing dishes. Now I love it. When performing the tank dump routine it's very convenient to let hot water run while dumping the tank. The hot water seems to get things flowing and after dumping I wash my hands before shutting the water off.