Lets talk about the science of poo. It’s important to know the science of poo to know what happens to poo in your RV. This will be a long read even though I will try my best to keep the length down to a minimum.(didn't happen)
😞I have seen some wild claims on this site so lets take a look at a few shall we.
“My poo don’t stink.” Sorry, but it does. It really does! Bear poo, camel poo, dog poo, cat poo and even people poo; it all stinks! Why? Because of that pesky little unicellular microorganism called bacteria. You see, when living they emit gases. Most of them smell really bad! You have good bacteria and bad bacteria in your gut. All bacteria produce gases. If you have a diet high in sugar, (and who doesn’t now days!) it can make your poo smell really bad! Eat things high in sulphur will also cause you to have a real stinky stool. Really makes no difference, because all poo smells no matter what some members of RV.net say.
So why do people on here claim their poo “don’t stink?” Well; a few reasons I can think of. One of the biggest is losing the sense of smell with age. We lose a lot of things with age and one of them is the sense of smell! If you are older than 60 you have lost a lot of your sense of smell according to the Mayo Clinic. Do you smoke? If so, you have lost a lot of your sense of smell. Smoking damages the olfactory nerves in your nose and when this happens you lost a lot of your sense of smell. For those of you that have smoked and quit you know what I’m talking about. Now that steak or that chicken tastes soooooo much better doesn’t it!
“The pressure of poo.” Another reason is pressure, or lack thereof. You see, when you flush your RV toilet you are directly exposed to the contents of your holding tank. Unlike your home toilet, your RV toilet does not have an air lock. So when you open that toilet trap door the gases have two ways to go. They can come up and waft all over your RV or they can be held down by positive pressure in your RV and go out the roof vent. What is this talk about positive pressure? You see, your RV might have a slight negative pressure and your holding tank might have a slight positive pressure. That is bad because gases, much like electricity, they like to take the easy path, and in this case the easy path is to the negative pressure inside of your RV when you flush. This is the reason you really should not run your overhead fan when you flush your toilet. If you do, you are creating a negative pressure and drawing that sewer gas out of the holding tank into your RV. Ya, not good! Kind of like being in meeting room all day long for a bean convention…….but worse!
“Heat, cold and bacteria.” Much like us, heat and cold can effect how lively bacteria is. “Most” bacteria does not do well when it’s cold. Hence the reason we refrigerate our food. Bacteria does very well when it’s warm or even hot. So if you RV in cold areas more than likely you won’t have much of an odor problem with your poo. Because of work, I typically RV during summer months. This being the case, most of the places I RV in and when I RV are in the 90’s or even the 100’s. This can be a big problem with odor! Ever wonder why you can smell that city sewage treatment plant on the hottest days of summer and not in the winter? Well this is the reason why! Ever wonder why most hospitals are kept cold? See above. Now you know!
“The concrete myth.” I’ve seen many time on here that poo can turn to “concrete” in your tank. They don’t mean it literally can turn to concrete, but that it can get very hard. No, not really. This is ridiculous! You see, poo is a water soluble organic material. If it dries out and gets hard, you can just add water and wala, you have a poo shake again! It really is that easy! When traveling, your black tank is having a literal aaaaaaaaaaaa “# storm “ inside of it. Sloshing and banging, back and forth and up and down. Kind of like a poo blender if you will. Believe me on this, if you have a tank with hard poo in it, all it will take is some water and a little time and some agitation and will turn right back into a poo shake again!
“Water will stop the poo smell.” Aaaaaa, no it won’t. If this were the case, embalmers would use water in mortuaries instead of formaldehyde. If this were the case sewer plants would not smell! Not to say that water is bad; not at all. Water is good! And water is very good in your black tank! Water can dilute the poo and that is a very good thing for several reasons! The more water to fecal mater you have the “less” concentrated the poo will be and the “less” the smell will be. Notice I used the word “less”, and not all. On hot days it won’t do hardly a thing for the smell in your black tank. Remember that the bacteria that is in your black tank is making it smell so bad. Water won’t kill it. As a matter of a fact, bacteria loves moist, damp and wet areas!
“Chemicals.” Oh boy, here we go! Let me begin by saying water does not kill the bacteria that causes black tanks to smell; “some” chemicals do. < Read that again! Now read it one more time! Stomp your feet, jump up and down, cry, snivel and whine; it’s true whether you like it or not. The real question is do “you” need chemicals? I can’t say? You might be a smoker and over the age of 70 and you can’t smell hardly anything. In that case, I would say no, it’s a waste of money. You might have a positive pressure in your trailer at all times and when you flush, hardly any gas comes out. If that’s the case, I would say no and a waste of money. If you camp when it is cold and your black tank stays cold, I would say it’s a waste of money. For “me” I have to have chemicals in my tank. Ok; not have to have to have;………. but let’s say it’s very unpleasant in my trailer when I flush my toilet without chemicals in the tank!
What do those chemicals do anyway? Well, that depends. Some RV black tank chemicals are nothing more than perfumes. IMHO they are not good. What will happen is your poo will have a pine scent smell or a lemon unfresh smell! Looking on the bottle “I” use, it says the major ingredient is formaldehyde. And why do morticians use formaldehyde? To KILL bacteria! And dead bacteria does not gas off like live bacteria do. Hence the reason dry poo doesn’t really smell that bad. When poo is dry, all (most) of the bacteria is dead; and dead bacteria does not have much of a smell; at least compared to live bacteria!
If you want to kill the smell in your black tank you NEED to KILL the bacteria. No if’s and’s or “butt’s” about it!
I hope you had a great time learning about the science of poo and how to mitigate the smell of it in your RV. Happy RV’ing!
~ Too many freaks & not enough circuses ~
"Life is not tried ~ it is merely survived ~ if you're standing
outside the fire"
"The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly."- Abraham Lincoln
