If you haven’t been around RV’s you may not know that they have holding tanks. Usually two. One tank, the “grey water” tank, holds what goes down the drain of the sink and bath tub. The other, the “black water” tank, holds the byproducts of human digestion*.
As you can imagine having 21 gallons of “black water” just inches from your living area can have, implications. A key defense in this air quality battle is a nice tight air seal over the tank entrance which coincides with the bottom of your toilet bowl.
An RV toilet isn’t like the one in your house. You house toilet uses a column of water in a “trap” that separates your living space from the nether world below. RV’s don’t have the luxury of using that much water or that much space to separate the two realms. Instead RV toilets have a ball valve that pivots out of the way when you want stuff to move from the bowl to the tank. Around the ball is a rubber seal. The flushing process leave a half inch or so of water in the bowl and that forms the all important air seal. If the ball or rubber seal have issues, no water, no air barrier, big smelly problem.
Instead of trying to fix the toilet we had, we decided to replace it with what our research suggested was a top-of-the-line-ish model. (As an aside, remember that we planned to live in our RV full time. RV’s are generally only used for some number of days per year and are not designed for daily living. They may not have the most robust fixtures and appliances.) Our toilet of choice was the Thetford 42063 you can see above.
Installing the new toilet was a relatively quick process. Disconnect the water, unscrew two nuts on the floor and lift the old tank away. Put the new bowl in place, screw down the nuts, connect the water and your done. I believe the water connection fitting was wrong but a quick trip to Home Depot solved that problem. An hour or so at most.
While the seal in the toilet is your first line of defense against offensive smells, most people also want to treat the tank contents with something to lessen the odors. This involves additives to the black water tank and take two basic approaches. One is to utterly kill, destroy, annihilate the bacteria that cause offensive odors. The other is to work in harmony with those bacteria and nurture them into kinder, friendlier and less smelly bacteria. Being the good souls we are we chose the latter approach. After each dump (that’s when we empty the holding tanks and yes, RV’s need to occasionally take a dump too), we add the recommended amount of Happy Campers Organic RV Holding Tank Treatment. It works, though we have modified the recommended procedure somewhat. We mix it thoroughly with some water before pouring it into the bowl. This ensures that none of the powder sticks to the ball valve and all of it winds up in the tank. Once we had the crystals solidify around the ball, freezing it in place. Yikes!
*The Woman did not approve of my use of the word poop.
B190 Expedition 