In 2004, my husband and I purchased an RV. We were so excited until we realized that we have no RV dump sites within 50 miles. Paying $10 or more to dump at a private RV park or the extra fee charged at National Forest campsites (if the campsite even has an RV dump) seemed rather expensive.

If you live in an place with municipal sewer system, you might be in luck. I read that many houses on such systems have an outside port into the sewer pipes that you can open and use to dump your RV tanks. We live in a very rural area and have a septic system.

With further research, we determined that it would be safe to dump our RV holding tanks into our septic system. We do not use the harsh chemicals in our black water tank and have never had any problem with our septic tank. I looked for a replacement access cover for our septic system and found purchasing one was not going to be easy and would be expensive. So, my husband and I decided to construct our own RV dump access to our septic system. This section is a tutorial on how we did this project.

Here are some links that my be helpful to you if you decide to construct your own RV dump access:
RV Tech Tips
Septic Systems
Sanidumps.com
GardenWeb Forum - Septic tank access cover/replacement
Septic System Design

Another plus for our at-ground level access cover is if and/or when we need our septic system pumped, we do not need to dig down to our septic tank again, the sewer guy can use our RV dump access.