Grey water is the leftover water from when we wash our hands, dishes, take showers, etc. It’s important to properly dispose of grey water to take care of the environment, but also to prevent attracting scavengers and insects near the campsite. 

Having a good grey water setup also means less trips to the grey water dump, and more time kicking back relaxing. 

Finally, a good grey water setup can keep your sink and shower flowing freely. Trapped water and air are a major factor in slow draining camper sinks. Setting up an air gap is a good way to ensure your sink keeps flowing smoothly. 

To make the chore of disposing water easier, we whipped up two setups for connecting our sink and our shower to a grey water tote.

You can also use these setups to connect to one sewer connection, although we recommend using a second, separate sewer slinky to connect to a sewer drain, just to make sure there is no chance of cross contamination. 

Here’s how we put this together. Don’t be scared of the shopping list. It’s pretty easy once you get the bits together. 

You should be able to find all of this at your local hardware store, but I’ve included Amazon affiliate links below to help. If you buy anything through our links, we may get a portion of any sales - which helps keep us running and bringing you content like this. 

Our grey water system for the a-frame is made up of:
 

To assemble:

Glueing anything together is not necessary, but will help minimize pieces floating around and getting disconnected.

1. Starting with the unthreaded female to threaded female adapter (1), use PVC cement to attach one 3” length of PVC (2) to the unthreaded female end.
2. Glue the free end of the first length of PVC pipe (2) into the top/bottom of the tee connection (4) 
3. Glue the next 3” piece of pipe (5) into the other top/bottom of the tee connection (4). Glue the 1” female slip to 3/4” male adapter (6) onto the other end.   
4. Glue the next 3” piece of pipe (3) into side/"tee" socket of the tee connection (4). Glue the elbow (8) onto the free end of the PVC pipe (3). 

We like to leave the 12” piece (9) unglued, so we can disconnect it and store it in a bin more easily. 

To assemble:

1. Use PVC cement to glue the 2” PVC female adapter (1) onto one length of the 1-1/2” black PVC (2). This connects to your shower outlet. 
2. Glue the other end of the PVC pipe (2) into the top/bottom of the reducer tee (3).  
3. Glue one side the second piece of 1-1/2” pipe (4) onto the other wide end of the reducer tee (3).
4. On the other end of the 1-1/2" pipe, glue the 3” x 1-1/2” flush bushing (5).
5. Finally, glue on the 3” bayonet by 3” hub (6) to the 3" x 1/2" flush bushing, with the side with the pegs outward. 

Screw in the male hose adapter (7), and this one is done! 

Grey Water Collection

1. (1x) 15 gallon grey water tote. The tote includes 36” of sewer line.
2. (1x) Garden house with two females adapters, one on each end. We took an old garden hose, cut it to length, and then added a second female end to create this part.

Set up your grey water system

When you’re ready to camp, screw one end of the garden hose to the PVC sink connection, and then connect the brass hose connection to your sink line. Twist the 12” air gap into place. 

If you’re using the shower connection, connect the other end of the garden hose to the 3/4" male adapter on the PVC shower connection, then connect the shower adapter to the shower drain. Finally, screw the "sewar slinky" connection to the adapter on the PVC shower setup, and then onto the large opening on the grey water tanks.

If you aren't using the shower adapter, you can connect the garden hose to the small connection on the grey water tank lid. 

And you’re set!

You’ll have free-flowing water that should last you a few days at a time, depending on your usage. This tote also includes a tow bar, so you can connect it to the back of your tow vehicle to take to the dump station.