Toilet bowl doesn't hold water

[Monty-Rob]

The toilet bowl in our fifth wheel does not hold water after you flush and add a little water to the bowl. It slowly goes down.
Is there an easy fix or do I need a new gasket?

[SkiSmuggs]

Arcamper wrote:
Had that problem once caused by something stuck in the seal. Used the wife's toothbrush and cleaned it out. No problem with the seal since, wife was another story...

Thanks for the laugh!

[MNRon]

If it's not the obvious like something stuck in the seal, I would then suspect the seal compression. Does the pre-fill work fine (hold lever down to fill bowl)? If not it could well be that the rubber seal is not compressed sufficiently. We had this a year ago. Simple fix by righting the four bolts that hold the top of the toilet down and compress this seal.

[laknox]

Spa / Pool lube also would work, if you have a pool and have some around. Stuff you put on pool filter gaskets.

Lyle

[Monty-Rob]

Thanks again for all your suggestions.

[ScottG]

Ours has been occasionally failing to hold water for several years now. It never smells so I've left it alone.

[woodman1]

Pour a little CLR product in toilet 1 or 2 times.

[Hermes1]

I agree you should first thoroughly clean the mouth of the toilet, paying particular attention to the rubber gasket. Then as long as you are at it, just lube the gasket, but do not use Vaseline or any other petroleum based product, instead use plumbers lube which is not expensive, readily available and the right product for the job. If it still leaks, then the gasket needs replacing.

[larry_barnhart]

I have had the leaking issue on different trailers because of the hard water. ready bad in Ca and Az. I would pour some vinegar in the bowl and the rubber seal would go to black from the grey buildup that would cause a leak.

chevman

[Arcamper]

Had that problem once caused by something stuck in the seal. Used the wife's toothbrush and cleaned it out. No problem with the seal since, wife was another story...

[bad99ram]

I used disposable plastic gloves and a old toothbrush ( bent) to get under seal. Cleaned it up used silicone grease and not a problem since.

[Monty-Rob]

I think I will use dawn to clean and get the thetford conditioner....looks like a bottle is $6 that will do a number of treatments

Thanks folks

[rockhillmanor]

Before you start running for parts:

Just a tiny piece of toilet paper will prevent it from sealing.

Get a brush with a long handle and hold open blade and run the brush around the opening to clean.

Every time mine wouldn't seal the brush cleaning fixed the problem.

[md_procouple]

Thetford makes a toilet bowl seal conditioner. Softens the seal, we had the same problem, bought the conditioner, cleaned the "Rim" with a small brush, added the conditioner. No more leaking ! Just took one treatment, now when storing the 5'er between trips pour a bit in the bowl, and flush it before we leave on the trip. Good Luck and Happy Camping !!!

[jrs1871]

NMDriver, if it was me I wouldn't put cooking oil in there while in storage. I would think the oil would get rancid and very smelly if it set very long. We put RV antifreeze in our toilet when storing it. The antifreeze doesn't evaporate like water and won't get smelly over time. JMHO