Blue Tote along

How do folks use a 30 gal blue tote along tank, with our dump valves so close to the ground? The fill mouth on even the 10 gal tank is higher than the valve opening.
Do you need a lift kit installed? dig a hole? etc. etc.

We have a 32 gal tote and have used it once. Biggest problem I had was connecting the hose to the blue tote from the TM since both the outlet on the tm and the inlet on the blue tote have the circular nubs and my hose only had the hooks on one end (I have since put together a hose with both ends having the clip connectors. I tend to "level" my TM fairly high taking most of the weight off of the tires. This tends in my opinion to give the trailer a "firmer" feel since there is not a lot of weight on the wheels but on the four jacks (with a lot of the weight still on the wheels the trailer "rocks" slightly as we move around inside, even with the tires blocked). Bottom line and an advantage I hadn't considered til now is that the discharge outlet is higher than the tote, even with the large 32 Gal sized tote. See it that doesn't help on your next trip.
Bill

I logged on tonight to see if someone had figured a way around this, as I was not feeling real good about spending $150 for the tote and finding there was no way to use it, unless I dug a hole for it.

Dumb question of the day: What's a lift kit? Where do you get one?

Raising the TM with the stablizers would work, but that makes the leveling more time consuming and uses more of my energy. Of course, the times when the tote is needed would be when we will be staying for several days so effort could be justified. [Normally, I put the stablizers down just to stablize, not to lift]

BTW, toting the tote on the rear of the TM might have some merit in my case. I have a removable bike rack mounted to the sewer bumper and I am guessing the tote would fit between it and the shell and I could use bungee cords to the rack and frame to secure it.

Thanks for the ideas!

We also have a bike rack that we have a reciever for on the back bumper however when I know we are not going to be taking the bikes I also have a wheeless trailer that fits in the reciever (a metal frame 6ft by 2 ft with steal mess bottom and 3 inch raised lip. The tote bungees onto this very nicely! and any inadvertant leakage does not linger as it would if the tote were stowed inside the TM

[Speckul8r]

Bill, You may want to check the bike rack reciever load rating. I'm thinking it is on the order of 150#'s. That blue tote would weigh over 240#'s. Seems a bit much for that reciever.

Yes, we carry the tote empty. It's impossible to open the TM with the tote (and the trailer) in place. It sits very low and out of the slip so we didn't even notice the weight when towing. It was very convenient to know that we didn't have to worry about water usage/stowage while camping with no sewer. They do make a racket when towed full, so be remember to be considerate when choosing your dump times.

[RickNewcomb]

I think there are two simple solutions to the tote being higher than the dump valve.

1. Drive the TM up onto 2" boards or leveling blocks under each tire. This is cheaper than a 2" lift system.

2. Using a standard 10 ft. sewer hose. Lay the hose on the ground between the the TM dump valve and the blue tote. The hose will hold a few gallons of liquid. When the flow into the tote has stopped, starting at the TM dump valve lift the sewer hose higher than the tote and walk the length of the hose keeping it higher than the tote. Repeat thus until no more liquid leaves the sewer hose.

Rick wrote:
Drive the TM up onto 2" boards or leveling blocks under each tire. This is cheaper than a 2" lift system.

Much cheaper and easy, IF the site is flat, otherwise you might have to add another 2 inches to one side to get it level. That much height gives me pause - if not done right it could come down.

Yes, our rig has screw jacks. I use them as stablizers. I level with blocks then drop the jacks just enough to stabilize. Whenever I have tried to "jack" with them, I can never get the door to open/close right.

I think a backhoe to dig out for the Blue Tote is the only way to go.

For CG's where dispersal is OK, I am making up a hose with one or more Y's using irrigation hose. This is for gray water only. The sewer cap has hose fitting on it already. Probably put there for flushing out the tank.

[RockyMtnRay]

Originally Posted by jouster

Rick wrote:
Drive the TM up onto 2" boards or leveling blocks under each tire. This is cheaper than a 2" lift system.

Having noted several references in this thread to using 2" boards for raising/leveling the trailer, I thought it might be good to remind everyone that that whatever you put under the trailer tires, it really needs to be wider than the tire.

If the whatever under the tire (e.g. a 2X4) is narrower than the tire tread and some of the tread area is unsupported, the likelihood is very high that damage will occur to the tire's interior belt structure...even if the duration of the unsupported tread is just a day or two. And that damage will greatly increase your chances for a catastrophic tire failure at some future point in time.

Therefore, it would be exceedingly prudent to use 2X8 boards...or the lego type plastic leveling blocks. I always travel with lego style blocks (2 sets of 10) because I find they give me great flexibility in building a ramp that's as high as I need for the wheels...and they also make great pads (when needed) under the screw down jacks. And theyr'e much more compact/lighter than a set of wooden boards....though admittedly a heckuva lot pricier.

I was confused by the contributions to this thread - some people having fill mouth height problems with even the small 10gal tote while others seem to have no problem with the largest 32gal tote - until I looked up the tote specs on the Camping World web site.
Referring to Hugo's original post, the 10gal tote at an overall height of 12.25" is actually higher than the 30gal version at 11.5". The 32 gallon 4-wheeler is also 11.5" high.
It would seem the best solution, if you think you have a problem, is to get the 15gal tote or the 16gal 4-wheeler. Both are under 6" tall which I'm sure would work for any TM, lift kit or not.

On the Camping World website just click the "specs" tab for the product to see the dimensions.

Paul