Friday, September 9, 2011

"Full hookup" not the same in Iceland

A full hookup campsite in Iceland means you can plug into 16-amp electricity. RVs don't have big power-hogging devices like air conditioners, so they don't need much power. Water and sewer hookups are not available.

All but the smallest camper vans have fresh water and gray water holding tanks. It's also okay to just drain your gray water right from your sink. I'm not sure about from the shower. There are no toilet black water tanks like we have in North America. Instead, the RVs have cassette tanks below the toilet. They are kind of like built-in but removable porta-potties. When the cassette tank fills up, empty it at the dump station. The small motorhome I rented in New Zealand a few years back had such a system. It worked, but was not as streamlined as ours in the USA and Canada.

Dump stations in Iceland are different from ours, where we insert our sewer hose and then pull a lever to get rid of the waste, all out of sight. Dump stations in Iceland have a wider hole in which to dispose waste. There is usually a nearby water hose to fill your tank.

I didn't use a dump station with my small campervan, which had no holding tanks, and I did not observe the process in action. You can see what a dump station looks like in the photo.

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