Don't call the plumber yet !, by Tony Gawel

If you’ve ever had a problem with standing water in your camper’s sink and you’ve checked the drain line for clogs and kinks, you’re not alone. I was tired of devoting valuable camping hours trying to figure out why our camper’s sink kept backing up so I “fired up” the creative side of my personality to find a solution. I experimented with off the shelf products like a 90° hose connector that worked OK but still failed to solve the problem. I tried some of my own designs, but never found anything that worked consistently until I stepped back and thought about the primary differences between pop up sink drains and those in the big RVs, the answer is a drain vent.

Take a look on top of any house or big RV and the short lengths of pipe that you see sticking out are used to eliminate the vacuum caused by draining water. Since pop up trailer drains don’t have factory installed vents, waste water can sometimes have difficulty draining which can create other problems as well.

Building drain vent for your camper’s sink is simple and inexpensive. It requires less than $10.00 worth of materials from your local home improvement store and only a ½ an hour of your time. Many of the parts may already be in your garage.

Parts needed
3 - 4” lengths of ½” PVC piping
1 - ½” PVC Tee fitting.
1 - Threaded female hose fitting to ½” PVC pipe adapter.
1 - Threaded male hose fitting to ½” PVC pipe adapter.
PVC cement (optional)

Assembly Instructions
1. Dry fit all of the connections before gluing.
2. Fit 1 of the 4” sections into the female / PVC pipe adapter.
3. Fit a 2nd section of PVC pipe to an end of the ½” PVC Tee fitting.
4. Fit a 3rd section of PVC pipe into the male / PVC pipe adapter.
5. Assemble following the diagram below.

Note: I chose not to glue all of the joints in this project for 2 reasons, 1- for easy disassembly and storage, and 2 - since there is no pressure on these connections a water tight seal is not required. However, I did glue the 2 hose adapters to the pipe ends for easy assembly at the campground and to keep all of the loose parts from rattling around in my accessory / tool box. Great things about this little gadget are the parts are readily available in any home improvement store, and it really works!

Happy Camping!