More newbie questions - black tank flush system

[Heavy_Metal_Doc]

We just started our TT life in the fall with the purchase of our first one.
I have read up a lot on the care and feeding of this new "animal", but am finding some minor issues in spite of all my attempted preparedness.

Today's adventure: using the black tank flusher for the first time.
I knew we had some solids piled up in the tank that need to get out of there, so I got situated to dump at home and connected the water hose to the outside and turned it on. I ran the flusher and watched the tank level come up past 2/3's before I went outside and pulled the handle to open the vale and drain. It seemed like very little of the solids came through. So I turned on the water and let it fill till it read full this time. Draining seemed like all liquid again.
Round 3: Filled to full and looked down through the toilet to see that it really was nowhere near full even though the indicator said it was. Turned the water back on while monitoring through the toilet and filled until the liquid level was just bellow the bottom of opening into the tank. I could see a lot more moving around inside the tank this time, but it still left a lot of solids laying in there when I drained it.

The first thing I realized during this process is that the flusher system sounds great in theory, but there is no outside way to monitor the level in the tank to know when you need to shut off the water / or open the drain. Maybe this doesn't matter if you are dealing with routine dumping, but for my situation of trying the loosen up stuck solids, it's a pain running in and out around teh TT to turn on and off the water. This leads to a change I'd like to make. I'm thinking of putting a valve for the flusher on / off inside under the bathroom sink so you don't need to run outside to shut it off.

Then I stepped back inside the TT again and realized I now had a sizable puddle of water growing across the bathroom floor. I quickly traced it back to the flusher system water line. There is some sort of check valve / vacuum breaker valve under the sink. It appears that water pressure is supposed to seal it shut and then let air in when you stop flushing to let the line drain. I leaks about on drop per second while the water pressure is on. It does not look like an item you can repair so, something to get replaced to fix the leak.


At the moment, I have filled the black tank completely, and am letting it sit to soak / loosen up solids overnight. I will see how much better it drains out tomorrow morning. If it does not clear out much better, then I am thinking I may need to go get one of the through the toilet wand type washers at this point.

Any advice is appreciated!

[Bumpyroad]

Heavy Metal Doctor wrote:


And the flush system is a permanently installed part that came with the unit. Nothing more than a hose connection on the outside that runs to a nozzle mounted inside the black tank.
.

how often do you use that sprayer? every time you dump your tank? how often is that? if you had overflow into the bathroom, you way overfilled things.
and when using ice, do not use a lot of water as if you do all the ice will do is bob along in the water. let the ice slide along the bottom of the tank, and bang into "stuff".
bumpy

[Heavy_Metal_Doc]

NHIrish wrote:

Be careful with the way you are doing that or you may burst your tank! If your blank tank rinse is like mine, you are not supposed to use it with the gate valve closed...too much pressure or a blocked vent and you'll have a burst tank. Having said that, I will close my gate valve for a minute and then open, repeating the process while letting the rinser do its job. I would suggest you get a clear elbow attachment to go on the sewer hose connection so you can monitor what is coming out. Fill it with water and load it up with an enzyme digester....let it sit for as long as you can. Good luck!

http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/90-Degree-Clear-Sewer-Hose-Adapter-with-Bayonet-Lugs/22171

Yep, I know the tank valve is supposed to be open for a routine dump / flush, but I have been trying to fill the tank and loosen the "pyramid". It worked, by the way. I just went out and drained and I can tell 99% of solids are now broken up / mixxed. Not everything flowed out, but enough to tell that one more fill / dump cycle will probably be all it needs.

I guess I will get the toilet wand and the Johnny Chock (Thanks to the poster who put that up! I would not have thought of it.) and be prepared to use that since this installed flusher is not good for this situation, in spite the sales guys promises that "You'll never need anything else!"

Now I just have to get the leaking vacuum breaker / check valve fixed and I'll be all set.

[wmoses]

Heavy Metal Doctor wrote:
Working with the industrial equivalent to black tanks makes me think this flusher is not very well designed. When we want to clean out a tank, we set fan spray nozzles so they sweep the floor of the tank towards the drain. You can have dried / caked material laying in there and it's gone in seconds.....but I don't want to tear apart my new TT and re-invent the system......

Headed back out to drain again.

I suspect that the head on these flushers is a standard head similar to what is on a Tornado or a Quickie Flush, but I don't know if the head rotates. Maybe there is someone here who actually KNOWS what is commonly used on RVs.

I do know that the head is most likely plastic with simple holes drilled in it in all around, and the efficacy of the head will depend on the pressure of the water and where the water jts impinge upon, say, the tank sensors and the sides of the tank. Obviously no one size will fit all, so I would venture to say that (a) degree of cleaning will vary depending on tank-nozzle configuration and even from campground to campground, and (b) on average they are probably not as useful as we'd like to believe - more useful as a marketing gimmick. If it just hits my sensors I'd be happy. I'd not rely solely on my flusher for BW tank cleanliness.

[NHIrish]

Heavy Metal Doctor wrote:
Well....I actually have done all the right things, or at least tried to, in terms of leaving a few gallons in the tank, flushing the toilet with lots of water, not draining 'till at least 2/3's full and not leaving the valve open when hooked up at a site. Of course, what I learned yesterday makes me think I will not drain 'til the indicator reads full from now on.

I guess what screwed me up was that the first couple of trips where short and I did not want to leave it sitting without draining since we where coming into winter at that time as I was concerned about freezing.

I do have the dreaded "pyramid" - that's what started this whole ordeal.



And the flush system is a permanently installed part that came with the unit. Nothing more than a hose connection on the outside that runs to a nozzle mounted inside the black tank.

Working with the industrial equivalent to black tanks makes me think this flusher is not very well designed. When we want to clean out a tank, we set fan spray nozzles so they sweep the floor of the tank towards the drain. You can have dried / caked material laying in there and it's gone in seconds.....but I don't want to tear apart my new TT and re-invent the system......

Headed back out to drain again.

Be careful with the way you are doing that or you may burst your tank! If your blank tank rinse is like mine, you are not supposed to use it with the gate valve closed...too much pressure or a blocked vent and you'll have a burst tank. Having said that, I will close my gate valve for a minute and then open, repeating the process while letting the rinser do its job. I would suggest you get a clear elbow attachment to go on the sewer hose connection so you can monitor what is coming out. Fill it with water and load it up with an enzyme digester....let it sit for as long as you can. Good luck!

http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/item/90-Degree-Clear-Sewer-Hose-Adapter-with-Bayonet-Lugs/22171

[wmoses]

Old-Biscuit wrote:
That's a new trailer.....2014 model

So I take it you have done some No-Nos
Either have left the back tank dump valve OPEN when using trailer
Have dumped black tank after each use with very little water in it
Have not added a couple gallons back into black tank after dumping so bottom stays wet
Are not using a full toilet bowl (+) when flushing solids

You have the dreaded 'poop pyramid'
Your tank flusher is just a sprayer in top of tank to help rinse down the sidewalls and rinse out tank.
It will NOT power flush the tank
You will need to power flush with a stream nozzle on end of garden hose down thru toilet to blast the pyramid. Have dump valve open

The RV Digest product does work.....but takes a while.

X2.

Could not have responded to the OP's post better myself - right on point.

OP - you need to solve the poop pyramid problem first, and then after that maintenance of a properly functioning BW tank is easliy done using the butil-in tank flusher as well as the occasional complete cleanout at a full hookup site using any of the above suggested techniques.

For me, each camping trip I focus on ensuring that the BW tank is as full as possible before dumping, dumping grey water into the BW tank as needed to assure that the tank is full. That way when the tank is dumped most solids are pulled out of the tank with the sudden gravity flow through the 3" slinky. Then the flusher is used to knock out any remainders and clean the sensors. I would not worry too much about filling the tank using the flusher - that take such a long time that the flusher ceases to be fully effective long before that. It works best on an essentially empty tank.

To fill my BW tank using FW, I use a Johnny Chock, which incidentally is what you need to use in conjunction with a toilet wand, to break up the poop pyramid.

[Heavy_Metal_Doc]

Well....I actually have done all the right things, or at least tried to, in terms of leaving a few gallons in the tank, flushing the toilet with lots of water, not draining 'till at least 2/3's full and not leaving the valve open when hooked up at a site. Of course, what I learned yesterday makes me think I will not drain 'til the indicator reads full from now on.

I guess what screwed me up was that the first couple of trips where short and I did not want to leave it sitting without draining since we where coming into winter at that time as I was concerned about freezing.

I do have the dreaded "pyramid" - that's what started this whole ordeal.

And the flush system is a permanently installed part that came with the unit. Nothing more than a hose connection on the outside that runs to a nozzle mounted inside the black tank.

Working with the industrial equivalent to black tanks makes me think this flusher is not very well designed. When we want to clean out a tank, we set fan spray nozzles so they sweep the floor of the tank towards the drain. You can have dried / caked material laying in there and it's gone in seconds.....but I don't want to tear apart my new TT and re-invent the system......

Headed back out to drain again.

[Bumpyroad]

your description of your tank flusher/sprayer confuses me. my systems have all been external to the RV. sprayer mounts on side of black tank and hose stays outside to hook up or are you talking about that tiny wash down the toilet sprayer that some RVs have?
re-reading your post leads me to believe that you don't have a black tank spraying system at all.
bumpy

[opnspaces]

How do you know you have solids piled up in the tank? Are you seeing a pyramid like Old-Biscuit mentions or are you just generally concerned?

If just concerned I would say don't worry about it. Just drain the tank, run the flusher for a while to refill it, then drain it again. Add a few gallons of water to the tank to keep things from drying out and put the trailer away. There's just no need to get the tank spotlessly cleaned.

Now if you have a pyramid from too much use with not enough water then you're going to have to get it out. But personally I would just fill the tank with water and let it sit for a week or more and I'll bet that pile dissolves on it's own.

[Old-Biscuit]

That's a new trailer.....2014 model

So I take it you have done some No-Nos
Either have left the back tank dump valve OPEN when using trailer
Have dumped black tank after each use with very little water in it
Have not added a couple gallons back into black tank after dumping so bottom stays wet
Are not using a full toilet bowl (+) when flushing solids

You have the dreaded 'poop pyramid'
Your tank flusher is just a sprayer in top of tank to help rinse down the sidewalls and rinse out tank.
It will NOT power flush the tank
You will need to power flush with a stream nozzle on end of garden hose down thru toilet to blast the pyramid. Have dump valve open

The RV Digest product does work.....but takes a while.

[Dfresh]

The fellow who I bought my TT from suggested the easiest way to clean out the black tank was to dump a couple bags of ice cubes down the toilet then go for a drive. The cubes will essentially sandblast all the******(literally) off the tank, and melt.
Drain and you're done.

Haven't tried it but I can't dispute the logic behind it.

[shakyjay]

I haven't used it but have heard good things about this product RV Digest-It.

[Trackrig]

It sounds like more water needs to be flushed into the tank from now on each time it's used to prevent the solids from being stuck in there.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, letting it sit full of water should loosen things up in a couple of days. There is the old ice cube trick. Fill the tank about 1/4 full, put a bunch of ice cubes down the toilet and go for a drive with lots of curves, corners, stopping and starting that will cause the ice cubes to slosh of the solids to wear them out of there - the ice cubes sort of serve as sandpaper. The more ice the better - several bags as it melts quickly.

And leave some water in the tank (when it's not freezing out) to keep any left overs from drying out into solids.

Bill

[path1]

.

[Golden_HVAC]

Why?

What I might suggest is dump the tank, and then always make sure that you have about 5 gallons of water left in there. I was told that a dry tank and turn the soft "Left behinds" into a powdery sludge, that will become somewhat like mud, and difficult to wash away. By moving the trailer with 3-4 inches of water in heh tank, then that will break up the stuff, and the next time you drain it should all come out. A 10 mile drive should break it up, but a camping trip of 25+ miles is typically more fun.

Fred.