My local post office box service is always curious when I get a big box knowing that I get to share products with you here at RVTravel. Recently the folks at Thetford asked if I wanted to check out their new Thetford Titan Tote four wheel tote which is essentially a portable holding tank and the postman certainly was curious indeed.

Uses of a portable waste water holding tank

The idea of something like this for RVers is that you can have your rig parked somewhere, likely in a place where you’re boondocking, and be able to dump your holding tanks into it.

There are definitely parks where there’s a central dump station and the advantage of having something like this is that you don’t have to move the rig to dump the tank. It can make some kinds of boondocking much more enjoyable.

For example, in Quartzsite, a lot of national forests and local public campgrounds and such there are places where they have a common dump station. Rather than move your whole rig you can move only these holding tanks around instead.

Thetford products

Thetford is a company that makes a lot of RV products including portable toilets, stoves, and a line of products that are related to the holding tanks under the Titan name.

Within the Titan line are “stinky slinkies,” attachments and fittings and both two- and four-wheeled portable tanks such as the one we’re looking at today. Within the four-wheel lineup are 21, 27 and 35 gallon models.

When Thetford contacted me I specifically chose the smallest model in their line for a variety of reasons including the fact that water, and thus sewage, weighs in at eight pounds to the gallon. The 21-gallon Titan tank thus can carry 160 pounds of water. Or sewer water.

Certainly a larger tank would better match the size of the holding tanks in our RV, but I would also be wielding more sewage at a single time. Plus a smaller tank is easier to store when you’re not using it.

Build quality

With this much liquid aboard I would want the tank to be of high quality and there wasn’t an area where I thought it wasn’t. The materials used were sturdy plastics with metal axles and wheels that featured ball bearings.

Even full I pulled this tank with the built-in handle over gravel and it wasn’t overly difficult to do so. The wheels were large enough that it grudgingly followed me along. On more solid surfaces it was easy enough to pull even when full and there was never a feeling that a component was going to fail.

That’s a really good thing if you choose to use this to empty your black tank.

The handle also doubles as a trailer hitch ball connector so you could fill this tank up and then drop the handle on your hitch and haul it to the central dump station. Obviously you’re going to want to monitor your speed as I doubt that this tank, even though it’s well made, can really handle highway speeds. While I write that in jest to some extent there is a campground I’ve visited on more than one occasion where the campground is divided by a main road and the dump station is down a public road.

I don’t know what the speed limit of this tank is.

Operation

The tank is simple enough in that it’s a large 21 gallon tank on wheels, essentially.

At the back end is an attached Titan sewer hose with a bayonet fitting on it. An included cap can be used to plug that hose, which is permanently attached to the tank.

After removing the cap you simply attach the tank via the built-in hose to your dump valves and pull the lever. There’s a floating valve in the back of the tank that is also an indicator when the tank has been filled so a red point sticks up at that stage.

I would think you’d be better off not completely filling the tank as the hose that’s attached to the tank would also be full of whatever you’re putting into the tank.

Further, if the knife valves that control the flow from your RV are further back such as in the case of some RVs where the knife valves are in the underbelly to protect them from freezing if you reach a point where this tank is full there may be enough of the RV’s holding tank’s contents left in the pipe to make you quite famous at the RV park.

Once you’ve filled the tank you simply replace the cap on the hose and take it to wherever the central dump station is. There’s also a fitting included that has a ball valve on it so you replace the cap with that fitting which then goes down into the sewer and you open the valve and “bombs away!”

Choices

The way my wife and I plan to use this tank is predominantly for gray water. We’ve learned that we can go up to nine days on our black tank but only three on the gray water. That also means we’re not hauling around the contents of the RV park buffet in this portable tank which is our preference.

Obviously you can haul whatever you want in the tank and Thetford did provide for a place to rinse out the tank, sort of a black tank flush.

In summary

A few more things worth noting include the fact that Thetford provides an “L” bracket built into the handle such that you can hang this from the ladder of your RV. There are also handles built into the front of the tank itself and one on either side as well so lifting it is pretty easy.

I will say I don’t ever plan to hang this off the ladder while the RV is in transit even though the tank is designed to do so. I just don’t think the ladders on RVs are meant for this large an item shaking around back there so my personal preference is to keep this in the back of my pickup truck.

Since we’re only planning to use it for gray water that shouldn’t be a problem. But, clearly, that’s my choice and I’m not saying what I do is what everybody should do.

However if you are considering one of these types of tanks to extend your boondocking or move water around for any number of reasons I will say that this tank seems sturdy and well made. I do like this model.

Further I recently switched to a Thetford Titan sewer hose which I like much better than the old Camco Rhino Flex model - you can read that story here.

We do have friends who have the Camco Rhino Flex portable holding tank and have had multiple failures with them. Yes, Camco has replaced them under warranty but sewage tank leaks are better if they just don’t happen in the first place.

What has been your experience with this type of device, if you have one?

We did a podcast with Thetford on their holding tank products. Listen to that here.

I recently switched to a Thetford Titan sewer hose which I like much better than the old Camco Rhino Flex model - you can read that story here.