The Hybrid Solution to a Black Tank for some of you perhaps ...

[themexicandoctor]

9 years of Roadtrek Ownership = 350 Black Tank Experiences for a somewhat handy guy who has a Black Belt or 2 in the Martial Arts & a Brown Belt, Pants & Shoes in those times my Dump experience became an exercise in Loving Kindness & Meditation.

Not including an average 9 years history of Dump Valve replacement & Maintenance in Los Angeles, a huge town with only 2* Dumping Stations, both within a mile of each other on the Coast, Hyperion Sewage Plant ($0.00) & Dockweiler RV Park ($15 a dump).

*Dockweiler is closed & is being used as a Covid Quarantine Facility.

This was my last modification at Poop Management; a 5.5 Gallon Thetford 365 (square unit) Porta Potti.

At the same time, I still have my existing 10 gallons of Black Tank & Plumbing presently capped off but should i need more capacity and or I want to revert back to the OEM Solution, everything is intact.

[themexicandoctor]

Here is the view of my toilet removed.

Your floor doesn't have this Marine Teak, its part of a slab my Marine Carpenter Andy Bessette installed for me a year or two ago after 15 years of the occasional drips & the deterioration of the standard floor.

Thetford toilets leak at the back where without a mirror, you cannot see the damage.

That little addition was a lot of work to notch & fit but hey, its a beautiful boat type floor.

No more damp smells from the previous wood.

Wood that also became wet through those hundreds of showers, splash by drip from the Shower Curtain, etc.

Underneath we installed a piece of 2x4 to support any weight, see little trap door below.

[themexicandoctor]

That white piece of Pex is the offending Water Line to the previous Inlet - cheap, crappy design.

I cut it off temporarily while I study the Giants amongst us & the solutions you discovered. The round hole in this photo is what I cut out to find what is behind the walls - be very careful, lots of key components. I then capped off the cold water behind the wall.

I looked very diligently at the option of a Composting Toilet, for me its too many unnatural steps in what should be an unadulterated, flowing & effortless human moment.

But I am interested further in the Incinerator Toilet but another story.

[themexicandoctor]

I then purchased the 5.5 Porta Potti, if I am judicious with how much water I add to flush or pee in* the toilet, I can get 5-7 days between dumps, in any typical toilet.

*I bottle my Pee for the neighbour's, & clients, a gallon jug of my Urine, stored for 2 weeks, is a deterrent to Coyotes in suburban areas. Lasts for up to 2-3 months in the Summer, 1-2 months in the Winter.

I will say that when near full, it would be a handful for some women to cart a long way & I have learnt, to pay full attention when dumping into any toilet. I do use the Therford Chemicals, they seem to work.

Then I had a piece of Ine Inch Plywood cut & notched to size & routed out on the inside where the drain hardware inserts above the floor.

As you can see, I have 3 Inch up that seals off, an empty Black Tank that also has 1/2 a gallon of Water & Soft Soap in it to lubricate the valves & seals

[themexicandoctor]

The Wood was sealed with Wax & Creams I use in my Practice, set out in the hot Sun to cure & then put in place as you see.

The small round opening from where the Water Supply was also covered by a 1/4 Inch similar ply.

As you see, we routed out a small opening for the flat wood to be placed on top of the existing drain hardware without any impingement.

Unfortunately its late & I am too ornery to change the photo which is facing the wrong way.

[themexicandoctor]

You will notice some non-native air vents on the left side of the Bathroom wall - throughout many of the cabinets in my rig I have added vents (the other are aluminum PERCO Vents to improve air flow throughout the van along with the addition of the highest quality Essential Oils in the World I use in my Practice.

The Rig smells better than Four Seasons Spa.

[themexicandoctor]

You will notice some non-native air vents on the left side of the Bathroom wall - throughout many of the cabinets in my rig I have added vents (the other are aluminum PERCO Vents to improve air flow throughout the van along with the addition of the highest quality Essential Oils in the World I use in my Practice.

The Rig smells better than a Four Seasons Spa.

The Porta Potti sits inside but it is never used as a Depository there simple because of a key factor that is critical in improving your Elimination - the closer you are to a Squatting Position, the closer you are to having a complete evacuation.

So what I do is bring it out from there, have it sit in the Aisle, the front facing the rear of the unit, with my heels sitting above the aisle floor on the raised platform in front of the bed.

[themexicandoctor]

And then to rinse away anything in the bowl, I use the Hot Water of the shower nozzle, another little upgrade along with the hose.

Here, in this photo, you can see the huge 6+ Inches of step.above the aisle floor, think of your Sigmoid Colon as a Playground Slide - anything you can do to increase that degree of drop by adopting more of a squat, the better you can void the business end of your own internal plumbing.

Many people at home & a couple of diehards health fanatics, by the raised steps you can use at home but they take up a lot of space as they difficult stow away but I might buy one & see if I can keep it stored on top of the toilet.

[themexicandoctor]

Here is the Thetford at West Marine:

https://www.westmarine.com/buy/thetf...42?recordNum=6

[themexicandoctor]

Here is the Science, in layman's language, behind what I have described above;

Squatting relaxes the puborectalis muscle, allowing the anorectal angle to straighten and the bowel to empty completely. Squatting lifts the sigmoid colon to unlock the “kink” at the entrance to the rectum. This kink also helps prevent incontinence, by taking some of the pressure off the puborectalis muscle.Nov 19, 2019
Squatty Potty › blogs › blog › 5-pro...
5 Problems With Sitting On Your Toilet | Squatty Potty

[themexicandoctor]

Here is a photo of the toilet open & closed, facing what on many Roadtrek models is known as the trademark "lowered floor ..."

My Heels are placed on the raised wooden floor, giving my Anatomy, more height, for Evacuation.

As you can see, the Bed is permanently down but not fixed.

I utilize the space underneath to store some heavy equipment.

Another poor design of the Roadtrek back then was the floor at the bed which was carpet I believe would get wet & could cause mould along with the rotting of the floor boards.

Here you are seeing when instead if the wood platform I had the Roadtrek #@%& lifted & in this iteration, new floors, new beaded carpet and, a piece of slate.

I did this twice until the third time the slate cracked due to heavy objects occasionally falling on to top, now its a thin piece of ply that you see in the photo with the toilet.

[themexicandoctor]

I explained to a Newbie the other day there is a real phenomena called RV Envy.

No matter how well you dial your rig in, there is always features of other people's rigs you wish you could add to yours.

My truck has a phenomenal amount of deep storage Cabinets of which I have these PERCO Vents from West Marine installed all throughout the cabinetry.

More relevant is the Porthole Feature of the later model, Airstream toilet doors. Not to be outdone, I installed this in one cabinet door & then two more up front, behind the Driver & Passenger seats at the head of the cabinets ...

I hope this simple idea about Toilet options gives you another option outside the box.

I wish that I had started with the Porta Potti after my first Black Tank Dump or the hundreds lost to Valves & Repairs, many at the beginning caused by the lowest part of the RV, hitting driveways & such.

Now my Rig is many more inches off the ground, a step by step series of installs all over California, over a few years.

https://www.classbforum.com/forums/f...ades-7607.html

[PleasantonMac]

Originally Posted by themexicandoctor

... & a Brown Belt, Pants & Shoes in those times my Dump experience became an exercise in Loving Kindness & Meditation.

I have nothing to contribute to this conversation except to say that that comment made me laugh out loud and brightened my morning. Remind me to buy you a beer one of these days.

[themexicandoctor]

Thank you for the offer my Friend.

But one beer is not going to make a dent in my Black Tank PTSD.

And I am a competent Operator in my previous life & these last 9 years as a Civilian, living out of my RV.

I consider myself an RV Dump expert.

Its always a black comedy on those rare occasions when I am near other RV users and the local dump station & you see a happy couple as they pull out all the parts (the hoses, the elbows, the various connections to their dump paraphernalia), & you seem them trying to remember all the steps the Rental Agency tried to share with them as their only thoughts were those around impatiently wanting to get on the carefree, open roads of their vacation.

Not unlike Paleontologists trying to find connections between the scattered bones of a million year burial site.

Ar moments like these, depending on how much coffee I have had, how grateful I am to being alive & how much sleep I have banked the previous night & not forgetting my naive, helpful Honda Salesperson character I usually find about 1002 urgent reasons to leave the scene as quickly as possible, without making any further eye contact.

And in the scenario above, I speak for many other seasoned owners.

[themexicandoctor]

For those owners still dragging a hose through a window or the aisleway of your rig so you can flush your rig intelligently (critical to most Class B tank configurations, especially the older Roadtreks), this is the solution I designed.

I had cut into the outside of my van on the fridge heater side where there is access to the rear of upper level of the kitchen cabinetry (specific to the Versatile), an opening for a device I purchased at West Marine called a marine deck plate fixture, manufactured by Perko.

When I used to flush out my tank in the act of dumping, one of the steps would be to open this plate with an accompanying tool that comes with it, then put in my clean hose that never touched the ground (I would use a system like those that raise the RV Corrugated Dump Hoses off the ground), and then through a gap between the Hot & Cold Water Pex Lines, would emerge my baby butt clean hose to which I would have fitted a spray nozzle & then proceed to flush my tank at least twice, without a dirty snake/hose having slid into & then out of my rig.

Because of the Roadtrek configuration, the hose emerges from the cabinet in almost a straight line to the cabinet which housed the Toilet.

And then I would reverse the process.

[themexicandoctor]

Here are some pictures.

[themexicandoctor]

Warning; for those of you with helpful friends who like to take the initiative of filling your water tanks, etc take the time to educate them that although the plate has the word WATER stamped in its presentation, this is NOT THE OPENING YOU FILL THE WATER TANKS WITH.

[themexicandoctor]

Here is a photo of the lower floor beneath the platform I added - water damage & black mould, now gone forever.

[honeyboy]

Doctor! You are the a Grand Sage Master Of the church of The Roadtrek dump!
I especially like your idea of the hole for the pass through Hose for tank flushing. Really enjoyed your posts!

[themexicandoctor]

I became a Grand Master the same way the Karate Kid archetype was created.

Bullied by opportunities for disaster that every Black Tank Dump is. And the transportation of such a nuclear waste.

I mean when you have a new girlfriend, you want enough of a Honeymoon period together before you are ever stuck & need to empty the black tank together. Its always far easier & more healthy if one can control the water pressure outside & you can work the flush process inside..

I always make sure she has made "her own deposits" before this.

And the fact LA only has 2 facilities, within a half a mile of each other but 45 minutes away from the center of town.