Blackwater plumbing issues - AR-ONE 17RD

[GaryG]

My apologies for not reading/responding to your black tank concerns before now. I too am having an issue emptying my black tank. It seems that I have to fill the black tank up several times to get it to completely empty where the indicator light says "Empty". My TT did not come with a city water black tank back flush ( I can't believe I didn't notice this until I used the TT for the firs time!) It should be standard on all TT's.

It takes me about a half an hour or so to get it to empty and I'm wondering if I have a similar problem with 'strings of adhesive' blocking the main drain pipe? I bought a back-wash adapter to hook to the outside black tank pipe and that still takes for ever. I don't know what to do or how to inspect the line any further.

Anyway, thanks for your post.

[Parkhoppers]

Are there any other AR-ONE 17RD owners here who may have had troubles with the black water plumbing on their campers?

We are long-time campers, and know how to properly operate, maintain, and empty a black water system, but the system on this unit is, well, annoying. The holding tank outlet points away from the dump side of the camper. The plumbing out of the tank is an immediate and very tight U-turn, with a gate valve smack in the middle of the U-turn. In addition to, what in my opinion is a poor design, a flashlight inspection up the pipe, (before our first use), revealed strings and strings of an over application of pipe cement that had dripped inside the pipes. (I did my best to clean that out.) I also find that the valve doesn’t always seat well.

I called Starcraft about the issue, to see if there were any recalls, etc. It took a few days for a “tech” to respond, but he only offered the standard answers passed down to him from his “advisors”…. Such as, “…are you flushing with enough water, or are you dumping the grey water after the black?” Even though I had already explained to him that this wasn’t our first rodeo…. The call resulted in no solution, or even an offer to look into it further.

So I was just curious to know if anyone else is having any issues?