Sewage valve stuck open
Hi I'm new here and new to RV-ing so I'm sure I will be asking many questions in the future- please bear with my ignorance.
I just got married and my husband and I bought a fifth wheel RV; this is our first home (living in it fulltime!). We have it parked on a friend's property for now, as we don't have anything to tow it with (we are looking for a truck). The sewage line is hooked up to a septic tank in the ground, and had been working smoothly for a while....
This last time we opened up the black water valve to dump the sewage, it opened and everything drained okay, but then we couldn't get the valve shut again. We tried pushing and pulling and tapping (lightly) with a hammer, but the lever-stick-thing won't go back in. So we decided to leave it open, figuring better open than shut.
Well, the electronic gauge (with three lights, SO VERY ACCURATE *ahem*) tells us now that the black water tank is filling up. Which suggests to me that it's clogged and not draining properly. We have tried flushing large amounts of water down the toilet, leaving it alone with a full bottle of enzyme treatment sitting without use for two weeks, blasting hose water into the small inlet thingie for the black water tank, and draining the full grey water tank with the hopes that the suction will pull on the black water, all to no avail.
I'm about to get a hand auger from the hardware store and run it down the toilet to see if I can loosen anything up- any suggestions?
I just got married and my husband and I bought a fifth wheel RV; this is our first home (living in it fulltime!). We have it parked on a friend's property for now, as we don't have anything to tow it with (we are looking for a truck). The sewage line is hooked up to a septic tank in the ground, and had been working smoothly for a while....
This last time we opened up the black water valve to dump the sewage, it opened and everything drained okay, but then we couldn't get the valve shut again. We tried pushing and pulling and tapping (lightly) with a hammer, but the lever-stick-thing won't go back in. So we decided to leave it open, figuring better open than shut.
Well, the electronic gauge (with three lights, SO VERY ACCURATE *ahem*) tells us now that the black water tank is filling up. Which suggests to me that it's clogged and not draining properly. We have tried flushing large amounts of water down the toilet, leaving it alone with a full bottle of enzyme treatment sitting without use for two weeks, blasting hose water into the small inlet thingie for the black water tank, and draining the full grey water tank with the hopes that the suction will pull on the black water, all to no avail.
I'm about to get a hand auger from the hardware store and run it down the toilet to see if I can loosen anything up- any suggestions?
