Black Water and Airstream Forums
Since last September, I’ve been living in my 2005 25’ International CCD. I couldn’t find much information about how they perform in the cold, but its been relatively painless despite the occasional blizzard. I did have a snag about a month ago. Here is what I posted to The Airstream Knowledge Sharing Forums:
I'm hooked up to a septic system, but my black water tank is no longer draining properly. It only drains very slowly and has backed up all the way into the toilet. My gray water tank is draining fine. My guess is that either the black water tank itself or its outflow pipe is blocked up. I've tried the mild enzyme-based septic tank treatments without success. My only thought is to try something more serious, Drano or the like, but the Airstream manual has made me paranoid about using something so corrosive in the system. Should I not worry about this? Is there something else I can try?
I was overwhelmed by the response from the community. An hour after my post there were already five responses. The most entertaining and most helpful was from “2airishuman”. Here’s an excerpt:
2 approaches to this issue,
into the mouth of the beast or at the exit...
wearing gloves and a mask or bandana and using a 10 foot section of old garden hose...
To see the rest of his suggestion and how it worked out, you’ll have to read the thread.
Peter posted on 2007-05-07 (source):
The best part about this whole thing is the handle "2airishuman". What an awesome name. Did you find a new home? I think I heard as much, but no details. I'm also still interested in collecting telemetry from your 'stream. It would be very cool to me (for no reason other than having the info) to know when your black water tank is full. But I bet if you could have your tank send you a text message when it gets to critical levels it would be very useful to you as well. I have other ideas.