question for full timers re black tank
Hello Friends. We have involuntarily become full timers... We moved into our motor home in January after discovering black mold in our house. I'm no rookie, we've put 70k miles on our pace arrow o...
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If you don't have an internal tank sprayer... and you set still for a long periord of time (Months)... you need something to spray the interior of the black tank. Just waiting until the black tank is full to dump and thinking the vent/suction will be enough to pull the solids from the bottom of the tank, will get you a smelly tank with sludge at the bottom.
We've tried the gadgets that have a place to screw a garden hose to them ...and put water in the black tank from the sewer connection outside... and they don't do enough. We don't have a straight shot into the tank so it loses the spray factor. It's just filling the tank through the black tank valve. It's not squirting or spraying.
The best gadget we've found is a 3 foot long hose that is flexible enough to bend around a corner and has holes in it to spray water. Attach that to a garden hose (that you don't use for fresh water), put it down the toilet and make sure it gets into the black tank. You might have to bend it with your hands first, before you put it down the toilet, to get it to bend enough. (You should be able to see the connection where you've screwed it to the hose - don't push it into the tank so far that you couldn't get it if it came off the hose.)
Then turn the water on and let it spray. It works well to just let the black tank valve be open for a bit. Having a clear plastic piece between the valve and the sewer hose will let you see what's going through it. After a bit, close the black tank valve and let it continue to spray as it fills the black tank. (Having a person inside (with a flashlight to look down the pipe) and another outside works the best... takes the worries out of something going wrong. Use phones or walkie talkies to communicate back and forth.
When the tank is past 1/2 full, pull the black valve and let it drain while the sprayer continues to spray.
We set still for months at a time. The summer months are the smelly ones. Flushing the tanks more often helps a lot.
One more thing - we don't put toilet paper or any paper products in the tank. It goes into a plastic bag and out with the trash. So far, we have not had a problem we couldn't solve "from above".
We've tried the gadgets that have a place to screw a garden hose to them ...and put water in the black tank from the sewer connection outside... and they don't do enough. We don't have a straight shot into the tank so it loses the spray factor. It's just filling the tank through the black tank valve. It's not squirting or spraying.
The best gadget we've found is a 3 foot long hose that is flexible enough to bend around a corner and has holes in it to spray water. Attach that to a garden hose (that you don't use for fresh water), put it down the toilet and make sure it gets into the black tank. You might have to bend it with your hands first, before you put it down the toilet, to get it to bend enough. (You should be able to see the connection where you've screwed it to the hose - don't push it into the tank so far that you couldn't get it if it came off the hose.)
Then turn the water on and let it spray. It works well to just let the black tank valve be open for a bit. Having a clear plastic piece between the valve and the sewer hose will let you see what's going through it. After a bit, close the black tank valve and let it continue to spray as it fills the black tank. (Having a person inside (with a flashlight to look down the pipe) and another outside works the best... takes the worries out of something going wrong. Use phones or walkie talkies to communicate back and forth.
When the tank is past 1/2 full, pull the black valve and let it drain while the sprayer continues to spray.
We set still for months at a time. The summer months are the smelly ones. Flushing the tanks more often helps a lot.
One more thing - we don't put toilet paper or any paper products in the tank. It goes into a plastic bag and out with the trash. So far, we have not had a problem we couldn't solve "from above".
