Black Tank Odor

[themexicandoctor]

I have what was known commercially by a terrible marketing name, called A LIL STINKER.

It was essentially a computer fan installed in a house you put on top of your vent pipe & it had two speeds;

1. Which was a very low amp draw that created the exhaust pressure or 2. Still a low draw but to be used after making a deposit if needed - I never realised how this #2 worked as everything went into the sealed black tank.

I took mine off because in the Third World that is Los Angeles, there are forever branches, etc that are knocking little Humpty Dumpty off or asunder, hanging by the wires.

The wires to power it were connected to some I found controlling the bathroom lights.

It wasn't a design flaw of the unit, it was its vulnerable position on the outer edge of the Roadtrek roof.

I have it in storage if you need it but it may not fit or you can see if you can find one on the internet.

Before I got the Porta Potti, I considered every option including mounting it towards the center & braced by the solar panels but there would have been a shadow & I woukd have to use a piece of vacuum cleaner hose to make the turn at the vent pipe & travel to the centered location.

No Black Tank issues now, because of the Porta Potti, or, really in the recent past because I am a savvy Class B owner.

[themexicandoctor]

With some ingenuity, you could design & fit your own unit, here is the link to the product;

https://www.wanderlodgeownersgroup.com › ...PDF
Web results
The Lil' Stanker™ MK-IV Holding Tank Deodorizer Fan ... - Wanderlodge Owners Group

1. If you were to temporarily remove a solar panel*, easier said than done.

2. Cut down the vent pipe enough so water didn't travel along the roof & into the tank you would have enough space to mount a wired, 2 speed fan (or just one speed), small computer fan to draw the games up & out.**

3. Put the solar panel back on that gives you the perfect protection against low lying branches, etc & protection from the elements

*little is easy on a Class B, everything has to be done properly
**you may have the same DRIVING = GASES issue but I doubt it

his was a great product, should have been an OEM on all manufacturers

[avanti]

I honestly think that the easiest (and certainly the best) approach would be to find the leak in your plumbing that is allowing the sewer gas to enter your van and fix it.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by themexicandoctor

I have what was known commercially by a terrible marketing name, called A LIL STINKER.

There seems to be a lot of that going around. Those guys who print photos on glass are called "Fracture". There is a company making a supersonic passenger jet called "Boom".

[themexicandoctor]

It may not be a leak, it sounds like the driving is the trigger & like more informed, engineer types have suggested, a problem with positive pressure (or negative), forming.

Lil Stinker, a terrible name for a great product.

Like the Chevy Nova for Latin America translates to Chevy NO GO.

[sdunn4]

Thanks again! We have a 2 week trip coming up and will flush / clean the black tank very well prior to departing. These are great ideas and much appreciated!

Steve

[themexicandoctor]

Originally Posted by sdunn4

Thanks again! We have a 2 week trip coming up and will flush / clean the black tank very well prior to departing. These are great ideas and much appreciated!

Steve

But Steve,

The gray or black tank is NOT the root of your challenge, its the modified space of the vent closely nestled under the panel, causing pressure into the cab when driving as per your original post.

None of us posted want your next adventure to be the same.

And I do agree with Avanti in part, a possible leak in your system, perhaps a cracked vent pipe, etc.

A Black Tank is just the reservoir, the genesis of the gases.

Normally vented by a simple pipe without need for an exhaust except on very, very hot days.

The Engineering Giants amongst us have spoken, its the pressure created by driving, forcing the gases to exhaust into, the rig.

That camera idea might reveal a broken pipe at the top or the bottom above the tank or God forbid, when I was sawing through my bathroom wall to make an access panel to plug the toilet line, I could have easily cut through the two vent pipes.

Or when I screwed on my replacement panel, I had to be careful not to have long screws that perforated the pipes.

People fob off g4ay & black tank issues perhaps put of the social dynamics at play but these threads & conversations around toilets seem to generate the greatest amount of posts per average because almost everyone with nasal functionality, who owns a Class B, has their learning curve experience.

[avanti]

Originally Posted by themexicandoctor

It may not be a leak, it sounds like the driving is the trigger & like more informed, engineer types have suggested, a problem with positive pressure (or negative), forming.

Yes, it is a leak.
How else would the gas move from the tank to the van? Pressure from driving might force the gas out of a small leak, but a leak there is. It needs to be repaired.

The only other possibilities are:
1) A dry trap, but I believe OP has checked that already.
2) Enough pressure so that air bubbles are forced through the water in a trap. This is improbable and would be obvious from the noise that would be produced.

As I have said several times before, RV sewage plumbing is essentially the same as you will find in your home. Nobody expects their toilet to smell of sewage at home. There is no reason to expect it in an RV either.

[themexicandoctor]

Originally Posted by avanti

Yes, it is a leak.
How else would the gas move from the tank to the van? Pressure from driving might force the gas out of a small leak, but a leak there is. It needs to be repaired.

The only other possibilities are:
1) A dry trap, but I believe OP has checked that already.
2) Enough pressure so that air bubbles are forced through the water in a trap. This is improbably and would be obvious from the noise that would be produced.

As I have said several times before, RV sewage plumbing is essentially the same as you will find in your home. Nobody expects their toilet to smell of sewage at home. There is no reason to expect it in an RV either.

Well said, could it be something as simple as traveling down the road & hitting bumps causing the flapper, etc moving & the hot gases generated by driving components adding to the fermentation?

[avanti]

Originally Posted by themexicandoctor

Well said, could it be something as simple as traveling down the road & hitting bumps causing the flapper, etc moving & the hot gases generated by driving components adding to the fermentation?

There is no mystery where the smell comes from--black tanks that have been used will stink, no matter what. No need to add to the fermentation. Grey tanks stink, too.

The question is how it gets into the van. A bad flapper valve could certainly do it, but one normally leaves some water in the bowl to help with the seal. If the valve's seal is damaged or if it is opening on bounces, the bowl will not hold water. That would be a very good clue.

Some RV toilets apparently have some kind of a design flaw that has been described here in the past. I don't really understand it, but it apparently can cause gas leaks.

There are many possibilities, starting with a PVC slip fitting that was never glued somewhere. But, the idea that "they all do it" is nonsense. As I have said, negative pressure devices on the roof can help, but they are palliatives--covering up the problem rather than fixing it.

[booster]

Yes, you certainly would need a leak into the van, no question to that. I do think that in the shallow traps they often use or vacuum valve no stack venting, the odds of leakage are higher than in stationary application.


The seal from the toilet to the floor would be of particular interest to me, as they usually don't fit all that great, toilets rock a lot the time, and they are not designed to hold any pressure at all.

[themexicandoctor]

Avanti,

Point taken as to my suggestion "they all do it ..."

I had some issues at the beginning but within a couple of months of ownership, I enjoyed practically 9 years of not noticing the odors except for whenever the ptrap failed in some way.

Plus as I mentioned on another thread, I had a bulk supply of Patchouli available on date nights, I could have suppressed the smell of a dead Billy Goat ...

[sdunn4]

Good reasoning all around; I just ordered the endoscope. It makes sense that there may be a leak, and I’m in agreement that I don’t want that odor again! Neither does my wife! I’ll update once we have the camera and snake the vent.

Thanks!

[GeorgeRa]

Odors issue are not completely black or white. We had once a completely new septic system on our just finished new home. I asked our contractor to add an accessible sewer service inlet on top of the driveway. So here is the story. The septic system worked very well for our family of five.

Unfortunately, it worked only for about 2 weeks, and the odor started.
Houses were far apart but neighbors started to complain. We called contractor back, he installed one-way flap valve but odor was unbearable.

After two odorfull weeks I realized, it was me. It was the food; it impacted my brain. With my brain dead I dumped the black tank goodies from our trailer treated with the blue formaldehyde. I have done in in previous houses but always to city treatment system so septic was new to us.

I never digested in full the biochemistry of this event, likely the good bacteria died. We added huge dose of septic startup bacteria kit and with good water dilution the odor vanished in a day.

So, the system was perfect, all odor likely came from the roof vent.

[GallenH]

Originally Posted by sdunn4

Good reasoning all around; I just ordered the endoscope. It makes sense that there may be a leak, and I’m in agreement that I don’t want that odor again! Neither does my wife! I’ll update once we have the camera and snake the vent.

Thanks!

Couldn't you just put a hose in the roof vent and listen for it splashing into the black tank thereby verifying that it was clear?

[themexicandoctor]

It might not be an issue of being blocked but of being cracked or as many suggest, the roof vent affected by being so close to the bottom of the solar panel when driving causing back pressure.

[themexicandoctor]

Originally Posted by GeorgeRa

Odors issue are not completely black or white. We had once a completely new septic system on our just finished new home. I asked our contractor to add an accessible sewer service inlet on top of the driveway. So here is the story. The septic system worked very well for our family of five.

Unfortunately, it worked only for about 2 weeks, and the odor started.
Houses were far apart but neighbors started to complain. We called contractor back, he installed one-way flap valve but odor was unbearable.

After two odorfull weeks I realized, it was me. It was the food; it impacted my brain. With my brain dead I dumped the black tank goodies from our trailer treated with the blue formaldehyde. I have done in in previous houses but always to city treatment system so septic was new to us.

I never digested in full the biochemistry of this event, likely the good bacteria died. We added huge dose of septic startup bacteria kit and with good water dilution the odor vanished in a day.

So, the system was perfect, all odor likely came from the roof vent.

That is an amazing story, it shows how everything can be tipped, out of balance.

[SteveJ]

I have a Thetford Aqua Flush V with the foot flush. After owning it for over a year I started getting odors from it.

The fix was to seal the pivot shaft that penetrates the housing at the top. I removed the toilet and sprayed the seal liberally with motorcycle chain wax lube. I then wrapped a couple of pipe cleaners around the external shaft and sprayed liberally with the same lube and a bunch of white aerosol grease.

Problem solved.

[sdunn4]

Thanks, did you by chance take any pictures?