Ice Cubes in Black Tank

[TXcampingfamily]

I've put ice cubes in our black tank from time to time. I ran across this video on youtube where this practice is tested. I thought some of you might find it interesting. 🙂

[Reedga]

You sound like a novice with your 24/7/365 traveling!
Do you really need the graphic definition (your post "Amazing? Seriously? Foreign? What do you expect to come out of a sewage holding tank?") I can provide in a separate email to you to define the foreign material!
Perhaps your sensor system is not working ("We stopped bothering with those "sensors" about 6 months into the experience. A complete waste of time") because of your total commitment to H2O ,inserted somewhere in your system! What to you think comes out of a garden hose attached to a home and used to directly flush the black tank from the toilet "H2O"!. We also add (2 caps full) a product called Calgon (available at Wal-Mart) to the tank which conditions the water and prevents tank contents (foreign material) from sticking to the sides and bottom of the tank and makes empting and flushing the tank with H2O, what ever means used a successful procedure.

[Old-Biscuit]

Just driving with some water in waste tanks will clean as good as dumping ice in which just turns to cold water after a few minutes anyway.

[Reedga]

noplace2 wrote:

Reedga wrote:
It is amazing the foreign material that come out with this type of flush.
G

Amazing? Seriously? Foreign? What do you expect to come out of a sewage holding tank?

If the goal is to make sure that those silly sensors work, good luck with that if you go out more than a couple of times/year.

Think about it. Even if they doubtfully work,what do those sensors tell you? And what actions will you take when they tell you what they tell you, and why?

Been out here fulltime 24/7/365 traveling now in our 14th year and with 2 rigs. Have never used anything but H2O and darned if everything isn't still flowing well! And, we do a lot of boondocking.

We stopped bothering with those "sensors" about 6 months into the experience. A complete waste of time.

[noplace2]

Reedga wrote:
It is amazing the foreign material that come out with this type of flush.
G

Amazing? Seriously? Foreign? What do you expect to come out of a sewage holding tank?

If the goal is to make sure that those silly sensors work, good luck with that if you go out more than a couple of times/year.

Think about it. Even if they doubtfully work,what do those sensors tell you? And what actions will you take when they tell you what they tell you, and why?

Been out here fulltime 24/7/365 traveling now in our 14th year and with 2 rigs. Have never used anything but H2O and darned if everything isn't still flowing well! And, we do a lot of boondocking.

We stopped bothering with those "sensors" about 6 months into the experience. A complete waste of time.

[Reedga]

I periodically put the garden hose with a high pressure spray nozzle directly into the black tank ( just a few inches from the bottom) from the toilet. I rotate the nozzle in a circulate pattern for 2 or 3 minutes. This is done twice, once with the black drain closed and once with the black drain open.
We are able to do this at home as we have a direct dump set up for our TT to our village sanitary system. It is amazing the foreign material that come out with this type of flush.
G

[Raymon]

ol Bombero-JC wrote:

TXcampingfamily wrote:
I've put ice cubes in our black tank from time to time. I ran across this video on youtube where this practice is tested. I thought some of you might find it interesting. 🙂

Genuine waste of time.

However, if that rings your black tank chimes (sensors?)... find a twisty mountain road, get to the top...ICE UP...and head down as fast as you dare.

Post results.

Watch for "Gee Whiz" and "attaboy" posts!!..:C

Just maybe you should read my above post! I said nothing about my "chimes'. At the suggestion of other RVers at a dump station, I said I used ice to clear the blockage in my black tank and it worked. I also did not say anything about driving recklessly.

I did NOT request any "attaboys". Try to have a blessed day.

Ray

~

[dewey02]

Alan_Hepburn wrote:
Does it work or doesn't it? Does it really matter? We do it whenever we're heading home - the ice-maker in the fridge gives us a bucket of ice. We can either throw it all away, or we just put it down into the black tank. It may do absolutely nothing to clean anything, but it does provide a small amount of extra water to keep the tank moist...

X2. I don't do the ice cube thing, but hey if people want to do it, it sure won't hurt anything. I'm sure that if people listed all the things they do in their stick built houses, we'd have lots more techniques to argue about. (and I am NOT suggesting that we do that!)

[Alan_Hepburn]

Does it work or doesn't it? Does it really matter? We do it whenever we're heading home - the ice-maker in the fridge gives us a bucket of ice. We can either throw it all away, or we just put it down into the black tank. It may do absolutely nothing to clean anything, but it does provide a small amount of extra water to keep the tank moist...

[2gypsies1]

One other thing...black tanks are not very high. They are shallow and have a slope to them. Ice cubes wouldn't even have room to do anything in there.

[RCMAN46]

Turtle n Peeps wrote:
What is all this obsession about a spotlessly clean black tank anyway? 40+ years of camping and I never did get that? For me a 5er of water down the toilet at the end of the season and good enough.

All well, scrub away you obsessive compulsive people! :B

I tried it not to get a spotless tank but to get the level indicator to work.

My level indicator did work for a short time. Not worth the effort to only have a level indicator for a couple trips.

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

What is all this obsession about a spotlessly clean black tank anyway? 40+ years of camping and I never did get that? For me a 5er of water down the toilet at the end of the season and good enough.

All well, scrub away you obsessive compulsive people! :B

[noplace2]

I too did an experiment many years ago when I first heard of this "method". Being the inveterate skeptic that I am, I did the following: Put 5 gallons of water in a flat plastic bin. Bin in the shade with the ambient temperature at 81 and the water temp. at 78. Added a 10 lb bag of ice. It took precisely 4 minutes 17 seconds for ALL of the ice to melt and that with no agitation. Hardly enough time for most folks to get out of their driveways.

[dieharder]

Now I know he drove like an idiot, but, reality is, I know my MH bounces around a hell of a lot more than my car, or his truck, does.

In addition, how big is the tank on his truck compared to the tank on a MH? I honestly don't know because I haven't seen one off a MH. When bouncing around, accelerating, stopping, if the ice has more distance to travel in the MH tank, that would cause more cleaning action upon collision with the sides of the tank. The ice didn't have much room to move in his tank.

[egh33]

I think this guy's trial failed because there was no water in the tank when he first placed the ice in the tank. The ice needs to be able to slosh around in order to work.
That was the first thing I noticed, he put all that stuff in a dry tank.