Will ice cubes in an RV sewer tank dislodge waste buildup?

A buildup of solids in an RV sewer tank is a bad thing. So getting rid of the yucky mess should it occur is a frequent topic of discussion among RVers. Most of us have heard that putting ice cubes down the toilet will do the job. The idea is the hard cubes will bounce around when the RV is moving, banging all that nasty buildup away. So does it work? James of the Fit RV ( http://fitrv.com ) wanted to find out. See the results in this very interesting and enlightening video.

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Don't dump without gloves! Germs lurk!
Disposable dump gloves are designed to keep hands clean from the messy tasks of RVing. Durable all-purpose gloves are perfect for everything from sanitation hose connectors to messy clean-ups and pet care. Almost all RVing experts recommend that gloves be used while dumping, and most RVers who wear gloves wear disposable ones (smart!). Nasty germs can enter through cuts in your hands, and that can be very bad news. Learn more or order.

Fixing that old seeping RV toilet seal

It seems all of us are plagued with RV toilet problems. What? You haven't been? Well, just wait, your turn is no doubt coming.. Harve, in La Crosse, Wisconsin had his own issues with a seeping toilet bowl. Here's Have's problem -- and how the RV Doc helped him rectify his toilet troubles:

I have a question about RV toilets. The one in our older motorhome seems to work fine but I'm wondering if the valve is closing properly. My neighbor says that the toilet should hold water in the bottom bowl to make a seal to prevent odors. All the water leaks out of mine and into the holding tank. I cannot find anything that may be preventing it from closing completely. Is this a do-it-yourself repair or do I need a professional?

Harv, indeed, there should be some water left in the bowl after every flush. Without the water seal, odors from the holding tank can and will enter the coach. There are a few possible reasons for the water to leak out; first, check to be sure that the bolts which secure the toilet to the flange are not too tight, thereby distorting the base of the toilet. If the toilet is mounted on top of carpeting, trimming the carpet so the base rests solidly on the floor is best. If the base is too tight, the flushing mechanism will become warped or wracked and not close fully.

But the most common cause is simply that paper and waste have accumulated inside the slide valve mechanism on Thetford’s Aqua Magic units. On an older SeaLand toilet, the typical cause is a worn seal or a clamp ring that is too loose. Yours is likely to be one of these two brands.

If you have an Aqua Magic, fashion an L-shaped hook out of a coat hanger or a bent screwdriver that will reach into the groove to scrape out the residue. Turn off the water supply, depress the flushing pedal and carefully remove any paper jammed into the groove just below the rubber seal. There is a tool you can purchase from Thetford just for this task if you wish. Take special care not to damage that seal. In severe cases, the toilet will have to be disassembled and the flushing mechanism taken completely apart, then cleaned, lubed and reassembled.

To rectify the situation on the SeaLand toilet, simply tighten the clamp ring. In some cases, a complete seal kit may have to be installed if water still continues to seep past the seal and into the holding tank.

RVers with "electronic" toilet blues: There may be an option

If it's time for you to replace your RV toilet, you may be amazed at some of the options you can choose from. Toilets with foot pedal flush are one thing; toilets with external wash jets (like a kitchen sink spray hose) for that "extra clean" thing. All of these items have been around for ages. How about electric toilets? Sounds like something you might find after you walk "the last mile" with the chaplain down at the prison, huh?

Well, the companies that build these whiz wizards tout them with terms flashy (splashy?) phrases like, "Just push the button and walk away!" "Great performance!" "Superior bowl wash down!" "Minimizes water use!"

Sounds like a whole host of great features. But what about the reality?

After a few years with these fancy units on the market, the feedback is coming back in. Terms like, "Expensive boat anchor," "Control board went wild, flooded my whole bathroom and bedroom," "Makes enough noise to raise the dead." "Ditchinn the d*** thing as quickly as I can and going back to manual," keep popping up. Yes, these fancy "new" toilets with electronic brains have their share of detractors.

If you've already wound up with one of these units in your rig, and are disturbed by their performance – or lack thereof – can you "ditch" the thing? And how hard is it to replace one?

Many unhappy RVers have indeed, replaced their electronically controlled toilet with a much-less-expensive, tried-and-true manual flush job. BUT (and when we talk about toilets, there are a lot of buts), it does depend. Some RVs have toilets perched in odd places. Odd, relative to the location of the black water holding tank. Some manufacturers are putting toilets away from the black water tank, and using a built-in macerator pump system to grind up the toilet's contents, and pump the slurry down a skinny little pipe. In these cases, you are truly stuck with an electronic biffy.

Where an e-toilet is not required, in many cases replacing with a typical 'gravity drop' toilet is a pretty straight-forward process. To make sure, BEFORE you order a new biffy or start ripping out the old one, shop around. When you've narrowed your choices down, call the customer service number for the "new" toilet of your choice, and ask them if it will replace your "Model XYZ," and what extra things may be required for the replacement.

Typical replacement of an e-toilet with a manual system is like replacing a manual for a manual, with the addition of disconnecting the wiring from the e-toilet, and figuring out where to stash the harness (if there is one).

What to do with the "old" e-toilet? Well, you may actually find somebody who wants one. There's always Craig's List.

RV toilet paper test video shows you how to check your own favorites

The perennial question: RV toilet paper versus regular toilet paper. Single ply versus multi-ply. Maybe even standard versus perfumed? You need to do more than just keep the royal tush happy -- keep that holding tank free of clogs.

Here's one way to see how different rolled wipes stack up.

Great dumping test! "Sewer Solution" versus standard hose dumping

If you've been around RVers for any length of time, you know that one of their favorite topics is tank dumping. Don't ask us why -- it does seem a bit perverse, chatting up a subject that by its very nature is a bit on the stinky side. But like it or not, RV campfire chats always seem to wind up here.

Most all RVers agree on the time-honored advice: Wait until your black water tank is nearly full before you dump. That way, you'll whisk away all those little floaters and clingons that can make a black tank a real bad boy. But what about if you use one of those fancy tank dumping systems, the "Sewer Solution." This system allows you to forget about the standard 3" dump hose and, using water pressure, pump out your tanks through a garden hose, uphill, and up to 100 feet away from your RV. Do they really work?

We've had and used a Sewer Solution system for some years. We can say we've been "happy" with it, but could we really say how well it worked in comparison with a standard dump hose? Nope, can't say we've ever poked our eyeball into the depths of the blackwater tank to see how things worked. Enter the folks at The Fit RV, a do-it-yourselfer folk who like to produce videos. They built a test module 'black water tank,' and compared just how well the Sewer Solution system works, compared to the standard dump hose -- and the results were quite revealing -- once you get over what they used to fill the black tank with!

Beware, this is a 17 minute video, so make sure you're broad-band enabled!

RV tank valves: Which is which?

Obsidian Soul on wikimedia

You don't have to be new to RVing to be a bit confused by some of the things RV manufacturers do. Here's a quote from an RVer, "I have a 2008 Pilgrim Lite. And in my old age I can't remember which is my black tank lever and which is the gray tank. Front or rear? The bottom of the trailer is covered so I can't see the pipes."

Bless RV manufacturers, for some reason they seem to like to do things on the cheap. If it cost a penny more for a dump valve handle that was anything other than black, they'd be sure to justify making both the gray water and black water handles black by saying they couldn't afford the colorful one.

This leaves RVers with a "new to them" RV, or who've just can't remember, in the unenviable position of trying to guess which lever to pull first. If you're new to tank dumping, here's something to learn and remember: Always dump the black water first, close the valve, then dump the grey water. Why? Because the gray water will then flush the nasty Klingons out of the sewer hose and make your life, oh-so-much easier.

OK, here's the case of knowing which valve handle is which. If you have an owner's manual for your RV look there first. Chances are, if you bought a used RV, you don't have the manual. And chances are great, if you bought a used RV, the company probably doesn't exist anymore. Next up, if your rig has "compartmentized" your dump valves (a lot of motorhomes do this), look in around in the compartment and on the inside of the compartment door for a diagram that may explain in Egyptian-style hieroglyphics which handle dumps which tank. Don’t understand hieroglyphics? Take a picture of them, and tell your significant other this is a great reason to take that vacation to Egypt to find a translator.

Seriously, if the above two steps fail, we're down to down and dirty. Yep, crawl down to the ground level and hope against hope, that unlike the poor fellow with the 2008 Pilgrim Lite that your bottom isn't covered and you can see your pipes. Well, be careful about that. Anyway, if you CAN see the pipes coming down to the dump valves, a giveaway for what's what is that the black water line coming to the valve will be a BIG one, that is 3" in diameter, while the line to the gray water is smaller, in the neighborhood of 2" or maybe even less.

And what if you find that you can't see what size pipes you have? Then it's going to be (drumroll please), a CRAPSHOOT! Take your rig to a proper dump station, hook up your sewer hose to the outlet port, and repeat after me: "Eeny-meeny, miney-moe," while pointing your finger back and forth between the two levers. With an assistant carefully observing the outfall of the sewer hose, pull one (just one!) of the levers, and have the assistant report what comes shooting out of the sewer hose. Once you've established what's coming out the hose, you can associate the lever you pulled with the tank it's attached to.

Now, using masking tape and other appropriate material, mask off the areas surrounding the dump lever that's associated with grey water, and spray paint that handle with a color other than black. Gray might be an appropriate choice here. That way when dumping your tanks you can repeat the old acronym, TBOF – "Tug Black One First," and you'll be dumping your tanks in the proper order.

Keeping your powder -- er paper -- dry

Our first BIG RV, when we moved away from a teeny-tiny-truck-camper was an even BIGGER truck camper. Just what the dear-heart wanted: An air conditioner and a BATHROOM! No more porta-potty blues for her, no sir! But the big old camper had a big-old bathroom problem: Wet bath.

Yes, some RVs have a bathroom situated in such a way that you can sit on the pot and take a shower at the self-same time. For some, that's a mighty convenient thing, especially for those of us with bad knees or sore feet. But it does tend to create one unintended consequence. How do you keep those bathroom roll goods from turning into a pulpy mess, and useless for their intended purpose?

wackyvorlon on flickr.com

We've heard several ideas to try and resolve the soaking-toilet-roll issue. Some say, "Just stick the toilet paper outside the bathroom when you take your shower, and put it back inside when you're done." Now, admittedly that simple solution ought to do the trick. But I've found that along with bad knees and sore feet, sometimes comes a little disconnect in the upstairs department, too. Mister, it's called, "Got to REMEMEMBER to put the TP outside."

Others said they didn't have any trouble in that way; they simply put the TP roller just outside the bathroom door and left those roll-goods there permanent-like. Uh uh. You've never lived with "Mrs. Fastidious," or her mother, the one who said proudly that after decades of marriage, her husband had never seen her unclothed.

Other suggestions include the illustrious use of clever TP roll covers. Gallon freezer bags as an example. Or coffee cans. One backpacker noted, "Coffee cans are wonderful for keeping your important papers dry and ready for use under any outdoors weather condition. And they come in two flavors, European Roast and Gourmet Supreme.....er, I mean metal cans and plastic cans. The nice thing about the plastic Folgers can is the built-in handle for easy carrying."

We never did resolve the problem suitably. We just got a new rig with a dry bath.