Ventana 1/2 Bath Sewer Smell

[powerwoofs]

Bumping my old thread back... Still having smell issues. Our last few stops, I've been emptying the black tank before we roll (no smells in the cabin), but this last stop, I didn't have time and gray water to do it. It was an awful 2.5 hours of smells! I sniffed all the cabinets where the pipes are and couldn't get a wiff of anything. But around the base of the toilet I could, so I'm convinced it's the toilet letting loose the black tank demons.

Before I try and rip that toilet up, is there a wax seal like a normal house? Anything I should know before I do? We're still on the road traveling, so don't want to get into a can of worms. Will try and do some forum research in the meantime.

[GUS2000]

One thing I noticed in ours is that the left side of the kitchen sink sometimes will hold water in the drain pipe as the angle of that pipe isn't good enough for it to drain into the P trap.. we were always using the right side of the double kitchen sink and never the left side... every few days we have gotten in the habit of rinsing out the left side of the sink with hot water and adding a few drops of peppermint oil.. smell gone!

[MrMark52]

Reading your story, I would agree that there may be a connection issue between the toilet and the black tank. I would think that if this were true, when the coach wasn’t full of odor that you would be able to close off the bathrooms for a few hours, then open up and walk in sniffing around. Don’t smell anything - move your sniffer closer to the base of the toilet.

But I also read your black tank dumping methodology. Please know that your black and gray tanks are “holding tanks”, not bio-digesters. And you never really want to just dump them dry without adding some water back in - usually about 5 gallons of water.

With that water, you need to add about 1/2 cup of Dawn dishwashing detergent and 1/2 cup of powdered Borax. You can also add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of citrus cleaner/degreaser to help cut the muck in the tanks as well as provided a deodorizer.
Then you go driving - which allows the 5 gallons of water to slosh around inside the tanks and clean them.
The above is also called “the Geo method”.
You do this every time you dump the tanks (although if your glamping, you don’t have to go driving unless you just want to - the concoction will tend to help break down the residuals in the tanks that contribute to odor.

What happens is the waste muck builds inside the tanks, particularly the black tank. Not being bio-digesters, enxpzymes and yeasts don’t have a chance to break the wastes down and it will begin to coat the insides of the tanks - fouling sensors and causing odor.

Not to forget that the more empty the tanks are with a coating of muck all over the inside, allows for more exposed surface area to emit odor. Your better off traveling with full tanks than empty if your trying to control odors AND there is an accumulation of waste muck inside the tanks.

And just FWIW - for me, all waste tanks will burp at different times - but then from your story, I’m inclined to think that what you are experiencing is more than just a burp.

And one last thing - check your roof vents. Make sure they are clear, the caps are positioned properly, and both the caps and pipes have not been clogged by dirt daubers or varmints of some kind.
Waste tanks need to breath - and when your driving down the road, the agitation of what is in the tanks combined with whatever else may cause the tanks to need to burb needs to go out the roof.