toilet doesn't hold water

[Bob RV]

When we flush our toilet there is a small amount of water that is supposed to stay in the bowl when done flushing-well ours slowly seeps out into the black tank. For us to keep water in the bowl we have to fill the bowl w/ the fill lever. When we do this the water doesn;t seep out. The serviceguy told us the toilet doesn;t need to hold water and that this is fine. I always thought there had to be a small amount of water in there to keep the seels properly sealed. Let me know what you think.

[Bob RV]

When we flush our toilet there is a small amount of water that is supposed to stay in the bowl when done flushing-well ours slowly seeps out into the black tank. For us to keep water in the bowl we have to fill the bowl w/ the fill lever. When we do this the water doesn;t seep out. The serviceguy told us the toilet doesn;t need to hold water and that this is fine. I always thought there had to be a small amount of water in there to keep the seels properly sealed. Let me know what you think.

[gordon23]

In my opinion the water in the bowl should seal out any odor from the black tank.

Mine is a little tempermental too so I just give the lever an extra jab after if flushes and that seems to set the seal better and retian a small amount in the cup.

[Steve Val]

The toilet does need to hold water to keep out odors, as you and Gordon have stated. I'd question the "serviceguy" as to why he disagrees - either he's lazy, or worse yet, actually believes that.
What type of toilet is it? If it's a Sealand, you need tokeep the grooved seal clean of debris - a cleaning tool comes with it, or you can use a toilet brush and the sprayer to clean it.

[jbeck]

pick up some sea land toilet bowel cleaner and follow the directions to clean your rubber seal. It works for me.

["007"]

Right on "jbeck" thanks for your input and welcome to irv2 "007"

[Bob RV]

Well it turns out that when we confronted the serviceguy in person-after the phone converssation-he said that the toilet should hold water after it's flushed and when we bring it back in for the parts that they needed to order for other stuff he will address the 'leaky toilet' issue.

Thanks everyone for your responses--I thought I was right in thinking the toilet should hold it's water!

[kayo]

Nine chances out of 10, there is a small bit of toilet paper caught in the casket. Get a "L" shaped tool made for it or make one yourself. Run it aroung the inside of the gasker, clean the paper out, and all will be fine.

[Ken Roberts]

Had same problem once and stopped at a Camping World. I was surprised to see what the tech used: he had a regular slotted screw driver with a 1/4" wide blade that was bent at the end to form an "L". Well, duh I had plenty of old screw drivers kicking around and now one of them has an "L" on the end and resides inside my RV toolbox. Mine also has a 12" lanyard on the handle as you definitely do not want it to do a disappearing act down the toilet- my wife's arms are not long enough to do a retreival, Ken,'04 DSDP...

[Rainbow]

ko and ken are on the right track. However I'd be very careful about using anything metal to clean out the seal. It is easy to puncture the rubber. I heated a little bit and bent the handle of a plastic spoon into an L shape. Works great and reduces chances of puncturing seal. After you clean it out, remind all users of stool to be sure all paper goes down while flushing before releasing pedal. Took me a while to get this across to certian user of ours, who I will not name, but no more problems

[abn]

Would not a large tobacco pipe cleaner work for this?

[Tom N]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Would not a large tobacco pipe cleaner work for this? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, but it'll make your pipe taste terrible.

Tom