We usually stay at full-hookup campgrounds, as we enjoy our creature comforts. But occasionally we stay at more rustic campgrounds or rallies where there isn’t a water faucet in our site. If a week or less, we just avoid doing laundry, long showers, and using our rear toilet (as that is a macerating one that uses more water on each flush), and can cope without difficulties.

But if we’re staying longer, we have the ability to refill our fresh water tank via a water bladder and pump.

I bought an Aquatank II water bladder from Amazon, a drinking-water-safe flexible water container with a 60 gallon capacity. It folds up really small for when we don’t need it, and fits in the bed of our truck when in use.

Our fresh tank is 90 gallons, so it takes two loads if totally empty, though I usually do one load when it’s about halfway.

Here it is empty, spread out in the bed of our truck. It has an upper hose fitting for adding water, and a lower hose fitting underneath for draining:

I drive the truck to the potable water supply at the campground, and use a hose to connect it to the water bladder:

I use a water meter to track how much I’ve added:

The water bladder mostly full:

50 gallons:

I then drive back to our campsite, and use an electric pump to get the water into our coach, via the usual filters and water softener as I use for campsite hookups:

(I also got a drill pump as an emergency backup.)

The electric pump is about 16 PSI:

The water bladder during draining:

It takes about an hour to do the full fill and empty cycle, depending on the water pressure at the campground. Definitely not as convenient as a faucet at our site, but when we don’t have one, this solution lets us stay longer without having to worry as much about water usage.

The black tank flush on my coach stopped working. Apparently this is a common problem, if the flush nozzles get gummed up with crud or water calcification.

One of the members of my Tiffin Allegro Bus 2016-2018 Owners group on Facebook did a post about fixing theirs, which was very helpful. So I embarked on this adventure too.

The hardest thing is getting to it. I needed to remove this panel from the side of the coach:

The right side is easy enough, with a couple of brackets and screws easily accessed with the adjacent basement door open:

But the left side was tricker, with no door there, so I needed to insert a screwdriver between two panels. To protect the paint, I wrapped the screwdriver shaft with painters tape:

Then inserted the screwdriver to reach the four screws:

That done, I was able to remove the panel:

The fresh water fill hose limited how much I could move the panel:

So I disconnected that too:

My little folding work stool was very helpful for this operation:

Let’s have a look around, since I don’t get to see this stuff often. Here’s the black tank; the green circuit board is the See-Level tank sensor, and the yellow rectangle is one of the two sensors for the rear toilet (the other is above that, obscured by wires):

To the left of the black tank is the gray water tank:

Below both waste tanks is the fresh water tank; the pipe in the foreground is the overflow and vent:

Pipes and wires from the bedroom and rear bathroom:

The horizontal-ish pipes are for the central vacuum system:

On the other side of that wall, a vacuum inlet and hatch in the adjacent compartment (we don’t use this vacuum; preferring to use a cordless stick vac):

Anyway, to business. Here’s the culprit, the “No-Fuss” Flush:

I removed it from the black tank; a bit gunky:

Cleaned up somewhat:

I tested it, but it still didn’t work very well, so I drilled out the holes a bit more (on the bottom and sides):

That solved it; the holes sprayed nicely.

To re-mount, I used plumbers putty to seal it:

And re-mounted it (the water is from testing it):

Then just a matter of re-attaching the fresh water fill hose and re-mounting the coach panel.

All better now. Hopefully I won’t have to do that again any time soon, but it wasn’t particularly difficult, other than removing and re-attaching the coach panel.

Jenn didn’t like the bathroom faucets and soap dispensers that came with our coach, as the faucets were rather splashy, and the dispensers let water into them, diluting the soap.

So we bought replacements from Home Depot, and I installed them.

Here’s the old faucet in the rear bathroom:

The new faucet:

Looking under the sink, one can see manifolds of hoses to various parts of the bathroom (sink, toilet, shower, and washing machine); the sink hot and cold connectors are on the top:

This being an RV, of course the hose for the faucet was non-standard, so I needed to get a “hex nipple” to adapt the 1/2 inch MIP hose connectors:

Disconnected:

The old and new faucets:

A new hose, with the hex nipple adapter on the left, and the adapter that came with the faucet on the right:

Holes in the counter for the faucet and dispenser:

New hoses connected:

New soap dispenser:

The soap dispenser bottle installed:

The new faucet and soap dispenser installed:

Similarly, the old soap dispenser and faucet in the half bath:

Hoses under the half bath sink, nicely labeled:

Disconnected hoses:

The new faucet mounted:

Connected hoses under the half bath sink:

The installed new soap dispenser and faucet in the half bath:

Finally, I also replaced the soap dispenser in the kitchen. That was the most difficult to get to. I accessed it by removing the drawers:

A peek of the old soap bottle:

To install the new one, I reached back through the drawers space and poked the assembled soap bottle and tube up through the hole, before screwing the top on:

The new soap dispenser in the kitchen: