When I Drain The Kitchen Sink In My Motorhome It Comes Out The Drain In My Shower

by Margot
(Canada, Alberta)

When I'm using the sink in my kitchen the water is going to the shower floor. The water is coming out from the drain of my shower. The water stay until I use a container to take it out. Could you help me please?

Sunseeker C 2008 motorhome.

ANSWER: Greetings Margot thanks for submitting your question on our Ask An RV Question Page.

There are a couple of reasons this could be happening.

1. When your grey water holding tank is full and you start to drain water out of your kitchen or bathroom sink it will come up through the shower drain. The solution is to drain the grey water holding tank. What may be happening is that you are looking at the grey water holding tank level gauge and it is not showing full. Holding tank gauges are notorious for not being accurate; even in newer motorhome’s such as yours.

So try dumping the grey water holding tank. If after you dump the tank the problem stops then you know that is what caused it. If that does not resolve the problem then continue reading below.

2. You could have a blockage in one of the drain pipes leading to your motorhome's grey water tank. The first thing I would try is using a plunger on the shower drain. Depending on how your waste system is plumbed, this may break the clog free and allow your shower, kitchen and Bathroom sinks to drain properly again.

If using the plunger does not solve the problem then it is possible that the main pipe leading to your grey water holding tank has a blockage then I would recommend that you use a microbial drain cleaner such as Enza Power All-Natural All-Purpose Drain Cleaner. Enza power contains living microbes that love to eat drain scum such as soap, hair, grease, etc. I would pour the appropriate amount down the Shower, Bathroom sink and kitchen sink drains and let it sit for 24 hours. A word of caution do not pour hot water down the drains when using any microbial drain cleaners as the hot water will kill the microbes.

Hopefully one of the two solutions above will work for you.

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Happy RVing

RVing Al

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