Over the course of the past six months, I’ve found that there isn’t really a standard for how hookups are located in an RV park beyond them being on the driver’s side of the RV. The best hookups I encountered were at the park in Oliver where I worked. There, it was exactly ten feet from my tank outlet to their intake, meaning that my sewer hose was stretched out completely and at a slight slope, making for easy dumping. The water intake and electrical plug (as well as phone and cable jacks) were in a pedestal next to the sewer outlet and just a couple of feet from the rig, meaning that I was able to cut my water hose down to six feet, necessitating less heat tape.

Here, the hookups are not working for me!

Water and electricity is provided at a pedestal at the back of the site. My 30A cord is almost stretched to the limit and my 25′ water hose was stretched so taut someone took it upon themselves to provide me with an extension! Yes! I came home one night to find that my hose was hooked into an additional 10′ length! I actually kind of resented that because the 25′ length had enough give that it did not risk pulling away from the tap and spewing water everywhere and it did not rest on the ground. Since I’ve had the extension, the hose has frozen a few times in temperatures where it didn’t freeze when it was hanging in the air. But if it makes the ‘extender’ feel better about some ill-perceived threat, well… *shrugs* 🙂

But the real issue here is the sewer placement. This isn’t a universal problem here; some of my neighbours are hooked up perfectly. But the way Miranda needed to be tucked into this site meant that her tank outlet and the sewer  intake are practically right on top of each other, meaning that my hose is way too long. Once a week, I have to go and shake it a bit to drain the grey water out (lesson learned when my shower flooded!) and let me say that draining the black tank is difficult. Thankfully, proper tank maintenance means that I won’t have any long term repercussions, but each time I go to drain and have to flush the tank with several buckets of water I kick myself for not buying a new hose and cutting down the old one!

So, hookups that work for me need to have the electrical plug and water tap near the electrical cord compartment and water intake so that I don’t have to worry about tripping over my cord and hose, but the sewer needs to be about ten feet from the tank outlet. Seems like someone is slowly figuring out how to spot a good site from a bad!