Dawn Dish Detergent

If you look up the Geo Method of black tank odor control, you will find detergent in there. It may not be Dawn, but it is still about the same stuff.

I use Dawn in my black tank all the time! Dump the tank at the dump station completely. Flush it out if you have the time. Close all the outside valves, add about 4 gallons of water to the empty black tank, pour about a 1/3 cup of Dawn dishwashing liquid down the toilet, and drive away!

It cleans the tank, cleans the sensors, and keeps it smelling good. At your destination, you don't need to drain the dawn, just use your toilet until the tank is full. Contents will just "slide" right out. No fuss.

Not traveling, put some Dawn in the black tank anyway. Use your toilet as normal. When full, drain, and do it again. I've been doing this for the last 14 years.

Dawn is a great grease cutter.

The first time I ever used Dawn was when I worked at McDonalds in Morganton, NC (about 1980 ish). I was the maintenance man (glorified janitor). One day we ran out of the McD's floor soap and the manager had someone run over to the grocery store across the parking lot. He came back with Dawn, add it to the mop bucket water and proceeded to mop the floor. It cut all the grease, and left the floor spotless! That was the first time I'd ever, even heard of Dawn.

It's fantastic for washing motor oil and motor grease from your hands, clothing, and pets. It's great for removing bug goo on from the grill of your car or truck and from your camper nose. Although it does strip the wax.

Any kind of grease, oil, cooking or motor, slime, sludge, goo, or poo, it cuts through it all.

OK. Do I sound like a commercial now! Anyway.... I've been using Dawn since at least 1980, and I'm STILL impressed what all it can do.

Edit Edit:

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Try it, but Dawn is useful for cleaning OIL from wildlife, depending on your diet it may have a lesser effect on human waste. I worked the Exxon Valdez spill and we used dawn extensively as a dispersant.
As a dispersant it chemically reacts with oil and makes it sink to the bottom whereas oil normally floats. In wildlife it breakes the bond to other items as it tries to let the oil seperate and eventually sink.
For a holding tank I have no Idea how it will work, but will offer one point of caution Be prepared for bubbles and foaming, you could end up with a trailer full especially if you have a black water flush.

One problem with using Dawn....
if you are one of those who waxes the inside of your black tank, Dawn will also remove the wax....

downtheroad wrote:
One problem with using Dawn....
if you are one of those who waxes the inside of your black tank, Dawn will also remove the wax....

That is an awesome post. I can think of many posters that will need to heed this extremely important warning!

I used Dawn to help clean out a boat fuel tank with a hole in it. That stuff works great. We use a small amount occasionally in the black tank. Sure can't hurt and cheaper than most additives.

Dawn will kill fleas on your pets as well. Wet them down, suds them up with dawn, rinse of about 10 minutes later and watch dead fleas rinse down the drain.

We've used dish soap in our black tank a time or two and water softener too.
Drove some time before filling completely and flushing. I'm not sure we needed to but there is no buildup in the tank and sensors in all tanks work fine. The gray tank gets daily soap and shampoo, and dish soap and laundry detergent and softener. No grease except minute trace amounts. After we flush tanks, the gray as last the hose smell like a cologne. So soap certainly hasn't hurt them.
i wouldn't be putting grease in the holding tanks and certainly not the black tank.The water softener we add and black tank additives seem enough. Probably the softener and soap is wasted but done when we sit a while not emptying.
We don't leave the black tank nor gray tank valves open after seeing something crawl out of the sewer systems. And witnessing what happens with prymids, when sitting for a long time or short time, with no water in the tank.
If your sensor and not working well the short of it is put some soap and softener in it and mostly fill the tank and drive a bumpy road. Won't hurt.

K3WE wrote:

downtheroad wrote:
One problem with using Dawn....
if you are one of those who waxes the inside of your black tank, Dawn will also remove the wax....

That is an awesome post. I can think of many posters that will need to heed this extremely important warning!

X2. One of the best responses I've seen in a long time. :)

I just finished cleaning my Roof with Dawn (origianl unsented), much cheaper than so called roof cleaner products.