Re-Purposing a Sink Plunger as a Sewer Hose O-Ring

Tuesday, 18 June
Sea Mist RV Park — NAS Oceana, Dam Neck Annex — Virginia Beach, Virginia

We have mostly been busy with ‘stuff’ at home since arriving in Virginia Beach five days ago.  A few quiet beach walks is all that we’ve done to break the daily routine of reading, and doing errands, and working on chores.

Nothing exciting to write about, so I thought I would use one of Mui’s handyman projects to remind everyone that we’re still out here in blogland.  It’s a simple project, but one that I especially appreciate since it closes off one more access point for mice (and snakes … shudder) to get into the coach.

The sewer hose comes into the bay through an opening in the center of the wet-tub.  When the hose is not connected, there is a twist-lid that seals the hole.  When the hose is connected, however, there is a large gap around it that is an open invitation to critters.

There are lots of critters out there that can easily come through the gap around the sewer hose.

There are some commercial solutions out there, but Mui felt that a simple rubber o-ring around the hose would work just as well.  After scouring Home Depot and Lowe’s — two of his favorite playgrounds — he decided that a sink plunger would do the trick.

[Since some of you eagle-eyes out there will spot the faked-out photos, I’ll admit now that Mui did this little project a while ago.  He did it behind my back to surprise me, so I asked him to run through the steps after the fact so I could take photographs for the blog.]

Left: First step, purchase a sink plunger that is the size of the hole in the wetbay tub.
Right: Remove the handle from the rubber cup.

Using a utility knife, cut off and remove the top of the rubber cup.

With the utility knife, slit the remaining portion of the rubber cup so that it can be
slid around the sewer hose.

Voilà!  The o-ring goes around the sewer hose and the gap is sealed.

Mui could have done a snug fit around the hose, but opted to leave a gap and fill it in with copper wool.  By doing so, any water trickles from the fresh water connection will drain out of the tub rather than pool inside.  It is a wetbay after all ;-)

The Sewer Hose Has a Home

Monday, 6 February

Actually, the hose has had a custom-built home for a while, but I neglected to write a post at the time.

We were storing the sewer hose in a clear plastic bin with a lid, but it took up too much room in the basement.  Before that, we kept the hose in a trash bag in the sewer connection bay, but that was before Mickey’s cousins stopped by for an uninvited visit and built a home inside the hose.  Needless to say, they were evicted — home and all.

We looked at the usual storage options — you know the tubes sold at places like Camping World.  We even bought one and brought it back to the Phaeton only to find that we’d have to remove the collar from the hose if we wanted it to fit inside the tube.  Back to Camping World the tube went.

After surfing the web for ideas, I suggested to Mui that he build his own hose housing from a vinyl fence post sleeve.  After thinking about it, off he went to Home Depot to get a 4” x 4” x 8’ sleeve, a couple of end caps, a few shims to slightly elevate the sleeve, and some mounting brackets to keep it all in place.

A bit of sawing to shorten the sleeve; a bit of drilling to put ventilation holes in the end caps; a bit of screwdriver action to mount it all in place … et voilà — for a fraction of the cost of one of those tube things, we have something that meets our needs and fits nicely along one side of the small basement compartment adjacent to the sewer hook-up bay.  (The compartment in question is marked with blue lines in the photo to the right.)

I wasn’t with Mui when he went out to the coach to build the sewer hose housing, so I’m afraid the documentation of the project is a bit on the ‘lean’ side.

We saved money and the sewer hose is happy with its custom housing.

It’s good that Mui’s such a handyman!  I see many more Phaeton projects in his future :-)