toilet test?

[TomW]

Dotti,

I take it that you parked a functional Airstream somewhere, and hooked a sewer hose to it, and left the black tank gate valve open?

If so, then quoting thenewkid64, you probably have a "tower of terror" in your black tank.

Your RV toilet does not drain through a pipe like your home toilet does. When flushed, your RV toilet dumps into a tank where the solids more or less stay put, and the liquids drain off through the open waste gate. In time, quite a tower of... solids can form. Given enough time, the tower can block drainage.

The best thing at this point would be to shut the valve & fill the black tank up with water. Let it sit a few hours & then open the dump valve. Repeat until, with the aid of a flashlight, you see nothing in the tank while holding the toilet's foot pedal down.

Tom

[bobechs]

In addition I would add a bacterial and enzyme digesting product like Rid-X and fill the black tank at least 3/4 full with water. Leave the solution to work as long as you can.

I used this technique to dissolve a mound in my tank when I bought it. I left it alone for about three months and when I drained it the effluent was yellow, clear and ran like water. It smelled really, really bad- which is good. The mound was completely digested.

[Foiled Again]

It was a hint I got from a link in this forum that allowed moi (relative newbie) to assist a total virgin who had bought a used SOB with severe "black hills" syndrom. Close your valve, dump about a gallon of cool water in the black via the toilet, add a 5lb bag of ice - then go driving down a bumpy road for about 25 miles, or as we did, drive through the campground very slowly, braking hard, then backing up and braking hard again. The ice cubes scrub the bottom of the tank and collide with the black hill, chipping away at it.

By the time the ice melts the mountain has broken down considerably. Then add 2 gallons of pretty hot water and your Rid-X, wait 24 hours and hook up the slinky. (This is one place where the little sewer solution hose would be useless.) When the stuff stops running, go pour buckets of warm water in the black tank, agitate gently (we cranked the tongue jack up and down a couple of times, and jumped around in the camper with the stabilizer jacks up) and repeat. When we could shine a flashlight down the toilet without totally retching we declared victory. (It isn't perfect but most of the problem was gone.) She will continue to put lots of Rid-X down her toilet and not leave the black gate open all of the time. I've never believed in formaldehyde based products - formaldehyde is the main ingredient in embalming fluid and I have no desire to preserve my poo.

Tin Lizzie