Camper sewer hose storage

Earlier this year I shared with you about some of my camper mishaps in recent years, one of which damaged the camper’s rear bumper where the camper sewer hose was stored. Since the mangled cap on the end no longer comes off or goes on easily, and since I needed a place to store my new sewage hose support, I decided it was time to come up with a new storage solution.

After scoping out camper sewer hose storage ideas on Pinterest–yes we do like Pinterest just a bit around here–I started to formulate some ideas. Many of the ideas I found used a 4″ or 6″ PVC pipe for the storage sleeve. But the 4″ pipe would not allow my sewer hose to fit with the fittings on the end of the hose, and the 6″ PVC pipe was just HUGE in my opinion.

I had seen some ideas on Pinterest that used PVC fence post covers. So after scoping out the outdoor section of Lowe’s, I found a 5″ x 5″ post cover–just the right size for what I needed.

Here’s how I made this camper sewer hose storage tube.

Step 1: First permanently affix a fence end cap to one side of the PVC tube. I used the PVC cement adhesive pictured below, and a picture of the end caps I used can be seen in the third picture down:

Step 2: On the other end of the tube, drill two holes about 3″ from the end, one on the top and another on the bottom of the tube. I then put a threaded eye hook bolt (see below) in each hole (with the hook portion on the outside) and used the included nut (threaded on the inside of the tube) to tighten the hooks down. NOTE: I used a Dremel tool to shorten the hooks to leave only about 1/2″ of thread remaining.

Step 3: I purchased a coiled spring and a snap closure (see below). One end of the spring I attached to the bottom threaded eye hook and the other end of the spring I attached to the snap closure, which I clipped to the top eye hook. While I think this would have been sufficient, I like things to be extra secure, so I drilled a 1/2″ hole through the cap and tube. Then I used a 6″ x 1/2″ hex bolt to drop through this hole like a pin. To make things even more secure, I used a small drill bit to put a hole in the bottom of the hex bolt and then, after dropping the bolt through the hole, I slid a cotter pin through the bottom end to hold it in place. I am confident that with both of these in place the end cap will not come off … but we will see what happens when we hit the road.

Step 4: To attach the tube to the bumper I used L brackets, 12″ pieces of 5/16 all-thread, washers, and lock nuts. As I was putting the tube on top of the current bumper I realized that the bolts holding the spare tire rack to the bumper were going to be an issue. To give me the needed clearance on these bolts I added a piece of scrap Trex deck on each side between the all-thread bolts.

To ensure that the brackets were tight I made sure to cut the L brackets to slightly wider than the tube (about 6″). You have to use a wrench and a socket set to put the washers and lock nuts onto the all-threads and then tighten the bolts on both sides of the tube evenly.

Once everything was tightened down, the storage unit was ready for me to put the sewer hose support and sewer hose in. Can’t wait to use it for the first time next month!

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