Sewer smell inside RV....Help needed....

[racerzl1]

I have an issue with sewer smell inside my RV. I have done as others suggested and replaced the air admittance valves under my kitchen sink, and under my bathroom sink. I still have the sewer smell. The smell WILL stop if I close the grey water valve to the RV.
I would like the luxury of leaving the grey water valve open, so I don't have to empty it often, as I am full time living in my RV.
Any suggestions?

[rockhillmanor]

This is a picture of my camping neighbor's sewer hose when leaving valve open! They had 5 people using the camper and the poop that could slide out just started stacking up and stacking up!!!! :B



I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of the poor guy trying to get all that to dump into the sewer hook up it was just a mess. I suggested he fill the black tank up with water to help but it was sooo packed that didn't even help move the packed poo.

[Diesel_Camper]

one_strange_texan wrote:
I may have this wrong, but if you leave your gray water tank drain valve open, hooked up to the sewer hub and therefore empty, you are inviting the fumes from the park sewer system to back up into your tank & sink drain if you do not have a trap in it, if the trap is not filled with water or if it is working improperly. I leave all drains closed and dump intermittently. Gray water is a good flush of the sewer hose after dumping black water.

Yep.

Tried it both ways. Leaving everything open results in an ever-elongating sewer hose for us. Hold and dump as needed.

[Coach-man]

racerzl1 wrote:
I've not posted any about this on facebook,feller. You must have me.confused with someone else!

But,I'll take the advice of these other good.folks and leave it closed and dump as needed.

Thanks yall.

rockhillmanor wrote:

Coach-man wrote:
You posted this same topic on Face Book and were given the same answer, close your grey tank valve, as well as your black tank! Problem solved, oh but you might have to go out every couple of days and drain the tanks? Don't try and take short cuts.

X2
Black AND Gray tank valves closed all the time and only opened when dumping. When parked with full hookups it takes all of 2 minutes to go out and pull 2 valves.

Leaving that gray open allows all the grease, food stuffs, soap scum raw chicken juice, etc to harden and stick to the bottom of your tank AND "stink"!
And now no amount of plain water will get it completely off the bottom. The tank NEEDS water in it to prevent that from happening.

Since you left that valve open all this time all that stuff is glued to the bottom of your tank.

The stink from a gray tank smells just as bad as sewer gas and will fill up your RV.

Get a quart bottle of lemon cleaner from the store and pour it down into your gray tank with a full tank of water added and let it sit for awhile and then dump. Repeat if necessary. AND then keep those valves closed. :C

It may not have been you, but the wording was exactly the same, and the answer was exactly the same, DO NOT LEAVE YOUR VALVES OPEN, FILL THE TANKS AND THEN DUMP! NO SHORT CUTS!!!

[rockhillmanor]

racerzl1 wrote:
I've not posted any about this on facebook,feller. You must have me.confused with someone else!

But,I'll take the advice of these other good.folks and leave it closed and dump as needed.

Thanks yall.

rockhillmanor wrote:

Coach-man wrote:
You posted this same topic on Face Book and were given the same answer, close your grey tank valve, as well as your black tank! Problem solved, oh but you might have to go out every couple of days and drain the tanks? Don't try and take short cuts.

X2
Black AND Gray tank valves closed all the time and only opened when dumping. When parked with full hookups it takes all of 2 minutes to go out and pull 2 valves.

Leaving that gray open allows all the grease, food stuffs, soap scum raw chicken juice, etc to harden and stick to the bottom of your tank AND "stink"!
And now no amount of plain water will get it completely off the bottom. The tank NEEDS water in it to prevent that from happening.

Since you left that valve open all this time all that stuff is glued to the bottom of your tank.

The stink from a gray tank smells just as bad as sewer gas and will fill up your RV.

Get a quart bottle of lemon cleaner from the store and pour it down into your gray tank with a full tank of water added and let it sit for awhile and then dump. Repeat if necessary. AND then keep those valves closed. :C

Just for the record "I" was only X2'ing leaving the valves closed not about the facebook page!! :W

[allen8106]

one_strange_texan wrote:
I may have this wrong, but if you leave your gray water tank drain valve open, hooked up to the sewer hub and therefore empty, you are inviting the fumes from the park sewer system to back up into your tank & sink drain if you do not have a trap in it, if the trap is not filled with water or if it is working improperly. I leave all drains closed and dump intermittently. Gray water is a good flush of the sewer hose after dumping black water.

The sinks and tub drains have water traps in them.

[sdianel_-acct_c]

also if you have the vent fans going and flush you will get the smell inside if the valve is open or not. Make sure water is in the washer trap if you have one. What we use in our gray tank: 1 c. borax powder dissolved in 2 cups hot water and one cup Dawn Platinum (make sure it says Platinum) after we dump the tank with the valve closed. Add about a gallon of water. Let the tank fill up then dump. Repeat as needed to keep the smell away. For the black tank we use Thetford Blue.

[ramgunner]

one_strange_texan wrote:
I may have this wrong, but if you leave your gray water tank drain valve open, hooked up to the sewer hub and therefore empty, you are inviting the fumes from the park sewer system to back up into your tank & sink drain if you do not have a trap in it, if the trap is not filled with water or if it is working improperly. I leave all drains closed and dump intermittently. Gray water is a good flush of the sewer hose after dumping black water.

Correct!

[racerzl1]

I've not posted any about this on facebook,feller. You must have me.confused with someone else!

But,I'll take the advice of these other good.folks and leave it closed and dump as needed.

Thanks yall.

rockhillmanor wrote:

Coach-man wrote:
You posted this same topic on Face Book and were given the same answer, close your grey tank valve, as well as your black tank! Problem solved, oh but you might have to go out every couple of days and drain the tanks? Don't try and take short cuts.

X2
Black AND Gray tank valves closed all the time and only opened when dumping. When parked with full hookups it takes all of 2 minutes to go out and pull 2 valves.

Leaving that gray open allows all the grease, food stuffs, soap scum raw chicken juice, etc to harden and stick to the bottom of your tank AND "stink"!
And now no amount of plain water will get it completely off the bottom. The tank NEEDS water in it to prevent that from happening.

Since you left that valve open all this time all that stuff is glued to the bottom of your tank.

The stink from a gray tank smells just as bad as sewer gas and will fill up your RV.

Get a quart bottle of lemon cleaner from the store and pour it down into your gray tank with a full tank of water added and let it sit for awhile and then dump. Repeat if necessary. AND then keep those valves closed. :C

[RoyB]

Your exhaust fans and windows etc will pull all of those smells into the RV. The exhaust fan in the bathroom is great for doing this...

Like everyone says its best to leave the gray tank alone until you dump. The gray tank flush being mostly liquid is what really cleans out everything once the black tank has dumped. Always dump the GRAY tank last...

You don't want all of that to build up in your tanks - needs to be flushed out...

Just some of my thoughts...

Roy Ken

[rockhillmanor]

Coach-man wrote:
You posted this same topic on Face Book and were given the same answer, close your grey tank valve, as well as your black tank! Problem solved, oh but you might have to go out every couple of days and drain the tanks? Don't try and take short cuts.

X2
Black AND Gray tank valves closed all the time and only opened when dumping. When parked with full hookups it takes all of 2 minutes to go out and pull 2 valves.

Leaving that gray open allows all the grease, food stuffs, soap scum raw chicken juice, etc to harden and stick to the bottom of your tank AND "stink"!
And now no amount of plain water will get it completely off the bottom. The tank NEEDS water in it to prevent that from happening.

Since you left that valve open all this time all that stuff is glued to the bottom of your tank.

The stink from a gray tank smells just as bad as sewer gas and will fill up your RV.

Get a quart bottle of lemon cleaner from the store and pour it down into your gray tank with a full tank of water added and let it sit for awhile and then dump. Repeat if necessary. AND then keep those valves closed. :C

[Coach-man]

You posted this same topic on Face Book and were given the same answer, close your grey tank valve, as well as your black tank! Problem solved, oh but you might have to go out every couple of days and drain the tanks? Don't try and take short cuts.

[tropical_ron]

Jwireman89 has a great suggestion. I have found that some campground sewer systems siphon the drainwater from traps. I think making a loop drop of sewer hose could help minimize the siphoning. We experience the dreaded sewer odor probably once a year. Closing off grey valve always corrects. Often just running water in all drains eleviates issue. Because this happens randomly and we haven't changed our practices I attribute the occurances to campground drain systems sucking our drains dry.

[jwireman89]

If you are using a slinky sewer hose, you might try making a trap by letting the hose slump down in a U shape on the way to the hookup.

[schlep1967]

Do you have a washer/dryer prep in your RV? A lot of times people overlook keeping that trap full if it is unused.