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Old 11-30-2011, 03:56 PM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jammer View Post
Hi, Air-Texas. Welcome to the forums.



Ordinary household bleach is 3% sodium hypochlorite. So you would get maybe 0.3% chlorine, not 10%. Since the hypochlorite will react with any organic material that is present to produce chloramines, the amount of free chlorine remaining will be much lower.

If there is a large accumulation of organic solids, it may take more than 3 gallons to break down all the organic material.

I agree with others that you should be sure there isn't a problem elsewhere. Sometimes people mistake propane leaks for a sewer odor. Vent pipe may not be attached, toilet to flange seal may leak. Though rare you may have a crack in the top of the tank.

In any case, yes, the tradeoff you make in running up the chlorine levels is that you will shorten the life of the seals and gaskets, and may end up having to replace them as a result.
Thanks Jammer, I hope it is not the tank! That is a lot of work on a New-to-Me AS..
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Old 11-30-2011, 04:15 PM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Air-Texas

Thanks Jammer, I hope it is not the tank! That is a lot of work on a New-to-Me AS..
this is a long shot but I recently pulled, toilet to replace valve and inside underside of toilet was disgusting I didn't stick my nose in it to see if it smelled but out could be your culprit
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Old 11-30-2011, 04:30 PM   #23
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this is a long shot but I recently pulled, toilet to replace valve and inside underside of toilet was disgusting I didn't stick my nose in it to see if it smelled but out could be your culprit
When I check the seal, I will clean that area.. It is the only place we have not gotten into! My Wife and I spent 3 days cleaning and maintaining it.
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Old 11-30-2011, 04:44 PM   #24
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Someone (Rip-off World?) makes a cleaning 360 degree wand that we have for the black water tank, works , sorta. Nothing like a high pressure hose with a single-steam nozzle to get the skunge out.
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Old 11-30-2011, 05:10 PM   #25
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When I said "10% solution" (unlike Holmes' 7% solution), I wasn't referring to the technical concentration of chlorine ions, but rather the simple concentration of household chlorine bleach relative to water that one would typically use to sanitize, say, a-water tank, etc. And those proportions have built-in fudge factors since off-the-shelf household bleaches are typically sold with a range of concentrations of sodium hypochlorite. Name brand household bleaches are typically in the 6% sodium hypochlorite, while "bargain brands" are somewhat less to enable the reduced price. No matter how you slice it, 3 gallons of bleach in, say, 30-40-50 gallons of water is a potent solution, and it would certainly tie-dye any clothes it incidentally came in contact with. I'm sure it will kill the bad bugs.
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Old 11-30-2011, 05:39 PM   #26
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Originally Posted by Kamiak View Post
When I said "10% solution" (unlike Holmes' 7% solution), I wasn't referring to the technical concentration of chlorine ions, but rather the simple concentration of household chlorine bleach relative to water that one would typically use to sanitize, say, a-water tank, etc. And those proportions have built-in fudge factors since off-the-shelf household bleaches are typically sold with a range of concentrations of sodium hypochlorite. Name brand household bleaches are typically in the 6% sodium hypochlorite, while "bargain brands" are somewhat less to enable the reduced price. No matter how you slice it, 3 gallons of bleach in, say, 30-40-50 gallons of water is a potent solution, and it would certainly tie-dye any clothes it incidentally came in contact with. I'm sure it will kill the bad bugs.
LOL, I hope so!
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Old 11-30-2011, 05:41 PM   #27
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Take your toilet apart.
It's not that hard. You will be grossed by the residues that have accumulated on the seals and various inner workings.

Tom
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Old 11-30-2011, 06:11 PM   #28
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I agree with others that you should be sure there isn't a problem elsewhere. Sometimes people mistake propane leaks for a sewer odor.
I want to second Jammer's observation. A year or two ago we chased a faint bad odor in our trailer for months. Flushed out the black and grey tanks, checked tank vents, washed traps, and practically took the trailer apart looking for a dead rodent behind a cabinet or something like that.

We couldn't identify the smell except that it was putrid, and couldn't localize it. My best guess was that it was coming from somewhere under the kitchen sink.

The problem practically solved itself in the wee hours of one morning when the LP gas detector went off. (Trust me, it will wake you up! I think I came three feet straight up out of the bed!) For the rest of the night we turned off the gas at the tanks and left the door and windows open to ventilate the trailer.

The next morning I went looking for the gas leak and it wasn't hard to find. We seldom use the oven, but the last time we had, we had turned the control knob back to OFF. We hadn't noticed that you had to turn it a little past OFF to a small mark that said "pilot off". So a small amount of LP gas had been leaking from the oven pilot all that time.

We turned the oven knob all the way off and that satisfied the LP gas detector. And our putrid smell immediately disappeared and never came back.

The LP gas detector is quite sensitive--alarms at a gas concentration less than 10% of the lower explosive limit--but it turns out your nose is even more sensitive. You can smell the odorant they use in LP gas at extremely low concentrations, but it doesn't smell like "gas" until it reaches higher concentrations--it just smells bad.

So don't rule out a very slight LP leak, greywater tank smell, or anything else in your search.
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Old 11-30-2011, 06:36 PM   #29
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nuvite-F View Post

-it just smells bad.

So don't rule out a very slight LP leak, greywater tank smell, or anything else in your search.
.
I had that in my Argosy!
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Old 11-30-2011, 06:38 PM   #30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by henw View Post
Take your toilet apart.
It's not that hard. You will be grossed by the residues that have accumulated on the seals and various inner workings.

Tom
Tom,
I did, all but taking it off the floor, I will do that this weekend
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Old 11-30-2011, 10:20 PM   #31
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Might be the battery.
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Old 11-30-2011, 10:45 PM   #32
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Might be the battery.
Good point. One time a battery "maintainer" overcooked the battery on our riding mower and the next time I walked into the barn the stench was indescribable. I fully expected to find a dead animal. But it was just a dead battery.

If that is the case I wouldn't expect the 12 volt system on the Airstream to be working. And, like the black tank, the battery should be well ventilated overboard.
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Old 12-01-2011, 04:59 AM   #33
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Originally Posted by Splitrock View Post
Might be the battery.

It has 2 sealed 12V Lifeline batteries in the front, so I do not think that they can be causing the smell in the bathroom. I also took them out to check and clean over the weekend.....and they seemed to be in good shape, working fine, but a little old...
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Old 12-01-2011, 01:50 PM   #34
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This worked on our 63 Safari when the flush seal went bad...very hard to open/close.

Off the water...empty/soak up bowl, add a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Wait 12hrs (hard part)......, open/close manually if necessary, Repeat clean as needed, and finish with a good flush and fresh chems.
Ours did work well afterward.

Bob
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Old 12-01-2011, 02:37 PM   #35
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If the trailer is new to you and it has not been used for a long while, either of the shower or lavatory sink traps could be dry, letting gasses from the tanks pass up into the bathroom. You might try pouring some liquid in the traps to see if it helps before tearing things apart.

If your toilet's flush/dump valve is holding water above it in the toilet bowl without leaking down, that is not your problem. You should not get a smell inside the trailer through the flush/dump valve even if the tank is foul, except at the moment you flush.

Could be the toilet gasket where it is connected to the flange is leaking. The trailer I have now had an improperly installed toilet gasket when I got it. It definitely had a funky smell. It was allowing waste liquids to run into hidden spaces and the pan every time I flushed. Hope that is not your problem. It is stinky and nasty but a fairly easy fix. It took me about half hour to take the toilet out, install a new gasket/seal, clean the toilet dump valve, and reconnect everything. Removing a portion of the pan and replacing some insulation to clean out the mess that had accumulated is a whole other story, that took almost a whole day and it's not pleasant.
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Old 12-01-2011, 06:08 PM   #36
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Air-Texas View Post
Sanitize Black Water Tank with Bleach

I have looked through this thread, but I could not find an answer on using bleach to sanitize the holding tanks on the used AS (2004 Classic 34’ I just bought..

We are smelling a foul odor coming from the toilet area, we filled and flushed x3, ran the tank flusher for 30 mins……
I now want to try 3 gals of bleach in a ¾ full tanks over night…..but will the bleach harm anything in the tanks?
If you ever used the formaldihyde RV additive do not use bleach, like mixing ammonia and bleach, killer fumes , you may have a leak somewhere that has collected in a hard to get spot, like the wood underneath.
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Old 12-01-2011, 06:56 PM   #37
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Greetings Air-Texas!



I noticed that you mention this coach being new to you. If it has sat unused for an extended period of time, is it possible that some of the odor that you are experiencing might be coming from a drain trap that is permitting odor from the wash water tank to enter the coach? I experienced this problem with my coach after is had been stored for an extended period of time and the shallow drain trap below the shower had dried out and was permitting the odor to enter.

Good luck with your investigation!

Kevin
Wash water can smell terribly, as Kevin mentions, and is often overlooked as the source of foul smells, particularly if the trailer has been sitting idol for some time. The shower & sink get some pretty slimy stuff down them that can accumulate and smell, especially in the traps. I regularly pour a bit of the blue stuff down all the traps. It was so bad in a SOB trailer I once owned I resorted to "flushing" the traps out with a garden hose . Took care of it.
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Old 12-01-2011, 07:12 PM   #38
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One thing to think about is sink traps for the kitchen sink are often full of food since you are trying not to use much water so the food never gets washed out of the trap. We had this happen and I put a little bleach in them to get the smell out. I still think you have a toilet seal issue. Also it is easy for the black water to back stream into the grey tank if you have a bad valve or if you opened both valves at the same time. There are all kinds of new and wonderful ways to make bad smells. Don't this get your creative juices flowing.

Perry
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Old 12-02-2011, 05:33 AM   #39
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Wash water can smell terribly, as Kevin mentions, and is often overlooked as the source of foul smells, particularly if the trailer has been sitting idol for some time. The shower & sink get some pretty slimy stuff down them that can accumulate and smell, especially in the traps. I regularly pour a bit of the blue stuff down all the traps. It was so bad in a SOB trailer I once owned I resorted to "flushing" the traps out with a garden hose . Took care of it.

We did a very thorough top to bottom cleaning (Field Day for my fellow Marines). We were connected to a city water and sewer hookup it my house, so bleach in the sinks and showers, removed the hair screen in the shower and cleaned down into the drain as far as we could. So, we will see tomorrow when I take the toilet up and check the donut gasket if that is the problem.
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Old 12-02-2011, 05:47 AM   #40
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We did a very thorough top to bottom cleaning (Field Day for my fellow Marines). We were connected to a city water and sewer hookup it my house, so bleach in the sinks and showers, removed the hair screen in the shower and cleaned down into the drain as far as we could. So, we will see tomorrow when I take the toilet up and check the donut gasket if that is the problem.
Bye you'r leave Sir...

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