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house excitement
Aug. 20th, 2012 09:42 amA couple weeks before the end of CO, I thought it would be smart to bring my tires into town and get them replaced, rather than try to get that done while I was leaving. So I started to jack up my trailer to pull off the tires that needed to be replaced, whereupon my trailer rolled off its supports/over its chocks, a foot and a half down the hill, into my neighbors trailer. Thankfully, there was minimal damage to their trailer - just a few cracks in the fiberglass surface, and he showed me the far more extensive damage he had done a few months earlier that he had yet to patch. My trailer was a little less well off, as the rear supporting scissor jack had broken one of its welds, and pierced my black water tank. (For those not in the know, that's where the toilet empties.) Thankfully the scissor jack, in piercing the tank, also plugged it, giving me time to panic, calm down, and deal.
The coolest thing about this experience was when I was jacking my trailer back up, the extension for my truck jack broke, so I walked up to the blacksmith where they were able to repair it right away. Yes, I walked up the hill to the blacksmith. How cool is that?
So, how do you deal with a pierced black water tank? First: Get your tank pumped. Second, find a blacksmith or welder with a portable welding unit who can remove the jack, and if still usable, repair/replace it. During this step you should be on hand with a tupper to catch the remaining black water that will spill out of the hole (4 gallons of it, yuck!). Third, buy some Plast-Mend, which is the only holding tank patch kit that is the same kind of plastic as the holding tank, and spend two days brushing on layers of toxic plastic stuff (use gloves and a ventilator!). Fourth: Celebrate that you spent less than $200 and two weeks repairing something that would have cost at least three or four times that at a professional RV place. Yay!
Oh yeah, and don't fuck with a level trailer in Colorado. Get your tires changed on the way out of town.
The coolest thing about this experience was when I was jacking my trailer back up, the extension for my truck jack broke, so I walked up to the blacksmith where they were able to repair it right away. Yes, I walked up the hill to the blacksmith. How cool is that?
So, how do you deal with a pierced black water tank? First: Get your tank pumped. Second, find a blacksmith or welder with a portable welding unit who can remove the jack, and if still usable, repair/replace it. During this step you should be on hand with a tupper to catch the remaining black water that will spill out of the hole (4 gallons of it, yuck!). Third, buy some Plast-Mend, which is the only holding tank patch kit that is the same kind of plastic as the holding tank, and spend two days brushing on layers of toxic plastic stuff (use gloves and a ventilator!). Fourth: Celebrate that you spent less than $200 and two weeks repairing something that would have cost at least three or four times that at a professional RV place. Yay!
Oh yeah, and don't fuck with a level trailer in Colorado. Get your tires changed on the way out of town.
