Sewer hose closure

As you may know, I post about RV modification topics every Monday (“Modification Mondays”). I have a long list of potential topics, some smaller than others, so I thought I’d post some of the shorter ones on Thursdays when we don’t have a lot of exploring topics — Thursday for “Tweak Thursdays” (I do enjoy alliteration!). Here’s the first one, about a nice little tweak.

In the wet bay of our motorhome, there is a large hole in the bottom through which one feeds the sewer hose, so the wet bay door can be closed with the hose connected. That is convenient, but it leaves a sizable gap around the hose, through which rodents and such could enter. I previously used some steel wool to close this gap, which worked well, though tended to rust when it got damp, and was a bit of a hassle.

I recently saw a suggestion on Facebook where someone posted about a custom 3D-printed panel that fitted around the sewer hose, and someone else commented that they used one of these flashings instead:

Pipe flashing

That seemed like a great idea, so I bought one (Amazon link) and installed it by cutting a hole and fitting it around the sewer hose:

Sewer hose enclosure

Wet bay

I had it around a 2-foot-long hose, so I could disconnect that and pull it up out of the hole for travel days, leaving the flashing around the hose. But that was a bit of a hassle, so I came up with another approach: I got a clear 10” extension pipe, and put the flashing around that:

Sewer pipes

Plus a 45° adapter:

Sewer pipes

Sewer pipes

Sewer pipes

That will let me leave the pipe and flashing in place, and just remove the 45° adapter for travel days. I just installed this yesterday, so we’ll see how well it works!