toilet treatment for black water tank

We keep ours in a, not very tight, pole barn, and never had a problem with odor.

Dusty

lane hog wrote:

ron.dittmer wrote:
We just can't afford sewer gas or poop smell in our garage from a poop tank that we are unable to thoroughly clean. My wife and I are both concerned about it.

If one of us had an emergency, we'd surely poop in the toilet. But we've managed to avoid doing so up to this point.

Yeah, you don't want smells in your garage, but I'd be curious to see if that would even be a problem with normal use & cleaning...

Sewer gas is heavier than air, so I'd think you'd need quite a lot of build-up to have enough volume to exit the vent stack absent a vacuum effect (e.g. driving or wind). Worst case, you could always rig up a vent to the outdoors with some dryer vent hose... ;)

We noticed a foul odor in our garage back in the early years 2007-2009 during the RVing season May thru September when we did not power-flush the black tank between trips. That was from urine alone in the black tank. So we power flush between trips during the season and continue to practice no-poop, and bleach the waste system at the end of the season. My wife is totally on-board with the practice as she actually suggested it from the beginning. I am sure as we continue to age, the need to yield to number two will become essential. But until then, this works well.

Please don't misunderstand me. I surely don't suggest others follow our practice. I shared our process (especially our end-of-season bleach-cleaning portion) to contribute to the original question.

We do the GEO method. Never had an issue

ron.dittmer wrote:
We just can't afford sewer gas or poop smell in our garage from a poop tank that we are unable to thoroughly clean. My wife and I are both concerned about it.

If one of us had an emergency, we'd surely poop in the toilet. But we've managed to avoid doing so up to this point.

Yeah, you don't want smells in your garage, but I'd be curious to see if that would even be a problem with normal use & cleaning...

Sewer gas is heavier than air, so I'd think you'd need quite a lot of build-up to have enough volume to exit the vent stack absent a vacuum effect (e.g. driving or wind). Worst case, you could always rig up a vent to the outdoors with some dryer vent hose... ;)

^To each there own, but omg, yes, never thought of cleaning my tanks like a surgical prep room!
Fill, dump, sometimes use the stinky packets, cause yeah after a week or so of not dumping if it's not an option, poop stinks. End of the year, when I dump the last "load" I will put some more water in and do a lap, maybe, and dump again if I have the time, but this is not the science project some make it out to be.
And fwiw, you'll never get "sewer gas" from an empty rv tank. Period, end of story.

lane hog wrote:
It amazes me that people would be afraid to poop in their RV toilets. You paid good money for that privilege...

We are not afraid to poop in it. We just can't afford sewer gas or poop smell in our garage from a poop tank that we are unable to thoroughly clean. My wife and I are both concerned about it.

If one of us had an emergency, we'd surely poop in the toilet. But we've managed to avoid doing so up to this point.

It amazes me that people would be afraid to poop in their RV toilets. You paid good money for that privilege...

It amazes me the lengths people go to clean their poop tank.

My RV is 30 years old. We've owned it for 10. I have not put any cleaners or anything in the tank in about 5 years. Before that I used to put the usual RV blue powder down the toilet but figured this was a waste of money. When I get home, I fill the tank full with water, and then pull the valve and let 'er rip to dump.

That's it. Gauges work well after the RV has been sitting for a while. Obviously if you have just flushed or otherwise the sides of the tank are wet the gauge doesn't work so well.

Because we store our motor home under our master bedroom as shown, we are very concerned of RV sewer gas.

We don't poop in our toilet to avoid the challenge of removing stuck-on waste. We only urinate in the toilet.

For off season storage, I clean our tanks squeaky clean. This is how I do it. I've been doing it this way for 12 years now with no ill effects. Through all the years, our waste tank sensors work properly.

At home at the end of the RV season, I fill each waste tank with warm water and 1/3 gallon of household bleach. I fill the waste tanks to the tippy-top for maximum bleach solution contact. The gray tank I fill to the point where water starts to back up into the shower pan. The black tank, I fill to the toilet valve. The treatment is done with both waste valves open and the 3" waste end cap installed. We also have a macerator so I run it a bit to get the bleach solution throughout that system too. I also fill the sinks and toilet with water and bleach solution and let some into the traps to clean them too. One gallon of household bleach treats everything.

I let the bleach do it's job for 2 to 3 hours, then drain everything with a rush out onto the driveway. I then repeat the entire process with only fresh water to remove bleach residue because I understand that long term exposure to bleach is hard on some of the RV components and seals.

The bleach solution neutralizes any concern of residual waste to the environment and it makes the rig smell fresh and new inside with no sewer gas emitted into the garage below our bedroom.

Since 2007 when we bought our rig new, all our tank sensors continue to work right.

I have no ties to this product but just wanted to pass on some info as we are talking about sensor malfunctions.

When I used the liquid Odorlos back in the 90's I never had a sensor problem. I was not able to find Odorlos for a period of time and switched to another chemical. I think the business dissolved for a number of years.
From 2005 to 2015 I used another product that I bought at Wallyworld, it was a powder drop in product and I had sensor problems with them not working while treating my tank in the same manner. They controlled odor but not sensors.
When I bought my new 2018 Sunseeker, I found Odorlos at Amazon again and went back to using the liquid form and so far in 2 seasons of use, not one sensor problem or odor problem. I have no proof if its because of this product or not but it seems like its working well the two times over a period of years that it has worked for me.

Odorlos does also make a granular form and that must be diluted as per instructions. If you do not dilute that type it might coagulate in your plumbing elbows and cause problems. Its environmentally friendly but I have read it can be pretty wicked to some inexpensive plastics in its concentrated granular form. So, if anyone does try this product just be aware of that. As a liquid it has been fine.