How to Hook Up an RV Sewer Hose (Step by Step)

Gloves on. Confirm both valves are closed. Lay the support. Connect both ends firmly. Black tank first, then gray. The order is not fussiness: gray water flushes the hose on its way out, and doing it the other way round leaves the hose exactly as you would expect.

Part of our sewer and water guide. If you do not own the gear yet, start with the sewer hose roundup.

What you will need

A sewer hose kit with a swivel bayonet fitting and a clear elbow, a hose support the same length as the section you are running, heavy-gauge disposable gloves, and a rubber donut seal if the park requires one. A headlamp, because this job happens at dusk more often than you plan for.

The gear for this job

A complete kit, a support that holds the slope, and a box of gloves that lives in the same compartment as the hose.

Best for The first sewer hose to own

Camco RhinoFLEX 20-Ft Sewer Hose Kit

The complete first kit: 20 ft in two sections, both fittings, and a clear elbow so you can see when the tank is actually done.

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Best for The support most people should buy

Camco Sidewinder RV Sewer Hose Support (20 ft)

The item first-timers most often arrive without: a fixed-slope cradle that makes the tank actually drain instead of sit.

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Best for The obvious thing nobody packs

Heavy-Gauge Disposable Nitrile Gloves (box)

Keep a box in the sewer compartment itself. The gloves that live inside the trailer are the gloves you do not use.

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Before you start

Check both valves are closed. Not assumed closed, checked. This is the single check that separates a routine task from the story you tell for years, and it takes two seconds.

Look at where the inlet is. Work out your run before you unfold anything. You want a continuous fall from the rig outlet to the park inlet, and no section where the hose rises again.

Do not open the black tank early. Wait until it is around two-thirds full. A tank dumped when it is barely full does not have the liquid volume to carry solids out, and that residue is what causes every later complaint about sensors and smells.

The steps

1. Gloves

Heavy gauge, not the thin kitchen sort, because bayonet fittings tear thin gloves. Keep the box in the sewer compartment so there is never a reason to skip this.

2. Lay the support first, then the hose

The support goes down before the hose, so you can see the slope you are building. Aim for a steady, even fall. A gentle continuous slope drains better than a steep one with a dip in the middle, and the dip is what people accidentally create.

3. Connect the rig end firmly

Fit the swivel bayonet over the rig outlet and turn it a firm quarter turn until it positively locks. Then tug it. A connection that is merely resting in place will come off under flow, and it will do so at the worst possible moment.

The swivel matters here: a fixed fitting makes the hose twist as you route it, and twist puts load on the collar where these hoses fail.

4. Connect the park end, and secure it

Push the clear elbow into the sewer inlet. If the park requires a rubber donut seal, drop it into the inlet first and push the elbow through it. Then tighten the threaded ring so the elbow cannot back out.

A loose elbow is the second most common way this job goes wrong. Flow pushes it, and it lifts.

5. Black tank first

Open the black valve fully, not partially. Then watch the clear elbow. What you are waiting for is the flow running clear rather than just slowing down, and that is the entire reason the elbow is clear.

If flow slows to a trickle and never runs clear, you probably have a slope problem. See the hose support guide.

6. Close black, then open gray

Close the black valve completely before opening the gray. The gray water then runs through the same hose and flushes it, which is a great deal more pleasant than rinsing it by hand.

7. Disconnect in the right order

Close the gray valve. Disconnect at the rig end first and lift that end, so anything left in the hose drains forward into the inlet. Then disconnect the elbow. Rinse with your dedicated rinse hose — never the drinking-water hose — and stow it.

Full hookup versus dump station

What goes wrong

Leaving the black valve open all week. The most consequential mistake in this hub. Liquid drains away, solids stay behind, and a pile builds under the toilet until it blocks. Gray can be left open. Black cannot.

The hose lies flat and drains slowly. Not a faulty hose. A missing slope.

The bayonet was not locked. Quarter turn until it positively stops, then a tug. Every time, including the hundredth time.

Dumping gray first. Then the black water runs through a clean hose and nothing flushes it afterwards. Black, then gray.

Using the fresh water hose to rinse. Once is enough for that hose to be a rinse hose permanently. Carry two, as covered in the fresh water hose guide.