Get a Valterra twist on gate valve for the dump end of the system so that you can open both of the greys and let them equalize. Will give you more grey capacity.
Also like Danny said, leave the grey open till the day before dumping black.

I have a gate valve on the line. I learned that from an earlier lesson. Did you ever watch the movie "RV"?

So by keeping that one closed, I can leave the 2 gray open all the time?

Won't that defeat what Danny has proposed?

Leave the bath gray valve open til a,day or so before draining the black.
We love to hear the rain while sleeping & if you think that's loud wait til your first hail storm.
The water heater & the furnace are huge propane hogs. Are you not hooked up to 50 amp, if so why on propane.

Thanks for those suggestions!

OK...Final update on Estate Sale...

After 3 days, I would say that about 3/5 or 9/16 of the "stuff" is gone. Furniture was a hard sale. Little stuff went pretty good. Grand totals were way off. The cause of this was rain on Friday. The State Fair (Texas/Oklahoma Football) and other events at the local High School on Saturday. On Sunday, prices went wayyyy down just to move stuff out.

Other contributors...

Our sorry City has regulations about Garage Sales / Estate Sales. You are allowed 2 per year and there are fees. To cripple your sales, they also evoked that NO signs can be placed ANYWHERE except 1 in your front yard. It can be no larger than 2' x 2' So, unless you are located on the freeway, how does anyone in the City know you're having a sale? The Estate Company did what they could. They ran an ad in the local mini-newspaper that no one reads. They placed additional ads in adjacent towns that no one reads. They also used various social medias. In all, they may have been about 500 people here over a 3-day weekend. Our town has about 13,000 and surrounding in a 5 mile stretch, maybe 30-40,000.

When you figure garage prices for all of your "stuff", get ready to loose more than you expected. Probably a third less than garage sale prices in a premium located neighborhood...The ones who attend are regular followers of the Estate company and they know how the game is played.

Some tips:

If you do this, use an Estate Company that has been in business for at least 10 years.

MAKE SURE you advertise at least two weeks in advance and MAKE SURE they advertise every day!

Do what you can to put up local signs. In our case, it is a $250 fine for each sign outside your yard so check your ordinances and pay your criminal permit fee.

Post up signs at work.

Post up signs at local business corkboards.

Email everyone on your email list.

Run ads on Craigslist, 5 Mile, or FaceBook. Don't be afraid to run stuff ahead of time and get better pricing without paying commissions. We did that BEFORE we called the Estate Company. It's better to take a reduction of a few points versus giving 30-45% to the Estate Company. Do what you can first.

RUN YOUR ESTATE SALE at least a full week. Monday thru Sunday. You'll get better pricing in the beginning and you'll want to drop prices on the last day.

NOW...What do we do with the rest? We have a tentative closing on the house in about 2 weeks. We'll either have to send it to storage and sell from there (which can be expensive if more than a month or two). For now, we are trying Craigslist, etc at reduced prices to see if anything else will move. It's still better than the Estate Company fees. Whatever does not sell from here, we'll likely donate. Books can go to Half-Price Books.

As for this Real Estate transaction, we'll discuss this alternative plan in the first week or so of November. If it holds up, many of you may want to consider this alternative...

Over the weekend, we sent all excess clothing to Goodwill. The DW was emotional over the loss of her wardrobe. She has down-sized from 3 closets to just 1. Me? I just need a pair of pants and a shirt. Shoes are optional. I bet you can go a month without washing. We'll see 🙂

Back to the process of down-sizing...

We're near the end now. It's taken several months to get to this position. We did not receive any instructions on how to do all of this but for those considering it, plan AHEAD and learn from others mistakes.

Begin by getting organized. Clean out a room and use it as the command center. Pile your keepsakes and treasures in this room. In the beginning, don't worry about how full it gets but do keep in mind that you will return to this room for a final showdown. Clean out closets, cabinets, drawers, storage barns, attics and any other hidden or out of the way storage site. You'll be shocked when you get all of this out.

Now that we've sorted out your personal affects, we broke down to rented a storage unit for a while. We'll eventually have to come back to this (quickly) and figure out what to do with this stuff (pictures, winter coats, tools, a couple of SMALL heirlooms). But we have to do something with this stuff while we sell out the rest of the estate.

Next, you have 2 options for tracking:

1) Set up a Excel Spreadsheet and categorize everything by room or by type.
2) Run with your gut and never look back. You'll miss a lot of opportunities with your Estate Company (more about that later). You won't know what is missing or what went for a dirt cheep price. Personally, it might be better if you don't know and just accept the inevitable.

Now, review Craigslist, Etsy, 5-Mile, Facebook Marketplace, etc and get an idea how much you want for things and then set a real expectation of about 2/3 of that. In the end, it will average out. Most furniture these days can't be given away. Furniture will be your hardest sell. Start there. "Small's" are where the money is at.

Figure out what you want to give to family members. There is a lot of "stuff" they may like to have.

You could start with your own garage / estate sale. You'll avoid a lot of commissions but keep in mind that if "time" is of the essence, you probably won't have time to get this done. You'll need a lot of support from family members (good luck with that) and you will spend a tremendous amount of time marking and marketing every little item. You'll need to have extra eyes watching everything and you'll have to give instructions for "haggling". Oh, and you will need a ton of tables to set merchandise on. People don't like to bend over. For our house, we had 50 tables total (and we still set stuff on the floor that did not move). You will get your best prices using this method but your back will not thank you for it.

Also try to run many of your valued pieces on the Craigslist, 5-Mile, Marketplace, etc. The only one we used was Craigslist. Craigslist over the years has really lost market share. They only allow you to post 1 item a day (sometimes you can get away with a few others). You constantly have to update it. But the good thing about Craigslist is that that they don't ask for ridiculous private information or load software onto your phone or computer that siphons everything off of it. Facebook and 5-Mile in particular will gain "permissions" to steal information off of your telephone or computer. How much do you want to give up? I'm not willing to risk it. So our sales were probably slower as a result. You could use the local newspaper but they are expensive and who actually reads one of those any more?

Now that you have done that, move to the Estate Sale. The particulars are listed in the post above. They do all of the work, they bring tables, they advertise, they "pretty" things up. They get good prices. The down side is that you share the profits. It can be 30-50%. Not cheap but remember you have already done what you can above. Now you need help. If you are successful and live in a large town, this will probably get rid of another 40-70% of your stuff. If you are really good, you might even move up to 90%. In addition, DON'T forget to put out flyers on your house at the Estate Sale and Garage Sale! REMEMBER... the object is to get rid of everything! A lot of houses can be sold by owner here and you will save a ton of money!

When the Estate Sale is complete and you split your loot, you'll need to assess what you have left. You could just send the rest to a charity and be done with it. It really depends on what you have left. There are tax deductions available, but if you have over $5000 in stuff, you'll have to hire an appraiser per the IRS rules on charitable donations. In our case, we have moved on to the Estate Auction. By now, we are down to the last few thousand dollars...We have a few options on how to handle this. The auctioneer can charge 3 different ways. Maybe 4 if you hold the auction at the estate. In our case, we had a choice of 3 since they are not willing to hold it here. The traffic is too small in such a small town.

Option 1): 30% Commission if we box up everything and take it too them. This is a lot of work. Remember how you have already worked your tail off getting to this point. If you want to save money, it's certainly an option.

Option 2): 40% Commission if you box everything up for them. They will then come and get it all and you will have still done a lot of the work for them. They do have to pay for labor and a truck to come and get it all.

Option 3): 50% Commission if they come to your estate, box it up and haul it off. They have a lot more invested in it and it provides them more of an incentive to sell it for at least something. Whatever they don't sell, they call you back and you have to come and get it. For us, this is the best option. We don't have to touch anything and they have the risk to sell it in order to collect. There is not that much left to have to worry about it.

And finally, now that the hard work above is done, you can send the rest to your favorite charity. If you have enough, they will sometimes schedule with you and come and get it. They provide a truck and the necessary labor.

Now...Go back to your storage and take another hard look at what you have left. Scan those pictures to an external hard drive. Install a raid operation and make 2 copies. The download to CD's and DVD's in case of magnetic interference's or a broken drive. This is where it gets tough but hopefully you have done a great job of scrutinizing as you have gone along.

Now that you've done the above, it's time to get that house sold (in case it didn't happen at the estate sale!). More on that coming next week...

WOW! I'm tired & stressed just reading about your ordeal.
We weren't nearly that organized, our kids took what they wanted, 1 weekend garage/yard sale, very small donation to Goodwill, house sale went quickly & hit the road, all in about 60 days.
Did we make any money on our stuff, hell no & didn't think we would, except the house. We had a 5' x 10' storage for a couple years but since divided up to the kids or got rid of it, tired of paying rent.
To me it sounds like you weren't 100% ready for this huge lifestyle change, but if you are any thing like us you won't regret it any of it for 1 second. Go out & enjoy & quit sweating the small stuff!

Get a Valterra twist on gate valve for the dump end of the system so that you can open both of the greys and let them equalize. Will give you more grey capacity.
Also like Danny said, leave the grey open till the day before dumping black.

I would never recommend leaving the gray valves open when the sewer hose is connected unless you have an isolating gate valve in the line that remains closed to equalize the gray tanks. When the gray valves are open the sewer system in the ground is vented to atmosphere thru the hose, gray tanks and up the tank vent lines. If you ever smell a poopy smell in a campground it is likely caused by someone venting the sewer system thru their unit. It is especially foul if a roof vent is open and the wind blows from roof tank vent pipe discharge toward the open vent. Do your neighbors a favor and keep the sewer smells isolated in the ground except when dumping the tanks. And for other obvious reasons you never want to keep the black tank valve open.

I have never ran into that problem leaving my grey tanks open for the last 8 years. I close them a day prior to dumping the black to rinse the hose.

I think that the odour coming up from the sewer system depends on how good the system is, we've smelled odours coming up past the sewer hose and in the worst cases, venting through the RV stacks (in the foothills in Yuma, you can smell the odour for blocks! It's a known problem related to the "sewer sisters" who run that system).

Terry's recommendation is a good one!

Oh we were ready and well prepared....We've just accumulated so much junk based on the mass-marketing junk machine that its taking FOREVER to get rid of it all. I really think the house is reproducing on its own. Ever time we get rid of some junk, more keeps coming back. I think we could have filled a mall...

It feels good to get rid of so much stuff.

We already know that we are going to enjoy the heck out of this. Basic rent and utilities is already proving to be less than $275 a month. We know that will change once we start down the road but heck, for now, what a difference! AND we finally get to sleep with the windows open!

Hopefully we go to closing Monday...

Then its time to concentrate on living!

GipC, great job summarizing your tips for preparation. We started full timing in June and went through similar steps as you but didn't use an estate sale - just a big garage sale. Couldn't part with the Model T or vintage TT so they are in storage. One thing we were not expecting...everyone knows that feeling of being on vacation, having wonderful experiences, but at some point having to turn your nose back toward home. When you're full timing you never experience that feeling again. It's great!

x