Comprehensive Guide to RV Black Tanks

Hi guys, today we're going to be talking about the RV black tank. I'm going to show you everything in one video. The components of an RV black tank, how to properly use it, how to clean it, and how to maintain it. We're going to roll the intro and then we're going to talk about Hello everyone, I'm Ross with RV Tips and Travels. If you're new to the channel, we hope you enjoy the video and if you do and want to help us out, please consider subscribing and hitting that like button down below. So last year I made a video showing our top five black tank cleaning and maintenance tips. Don't worry if you haven't seen that video, I'm going to show you everything from that video in this video today. This video however is going to be a little bit more comprehensive, so what I wanted to do was consolidate. There's much information into a one-stop shop, if you will, for everything black tank related. I'll show you what we've done for four years to keep our black tank clean, along with some other tips and tricks that we've learned along the way. Because of the large amount of information that's going to be in this video, I thought the best way to lay out this video would be in chronological order. First, let's cover the components of an RV black tank and how they are designed for anyone who is new to RVing. If you aren't a newbie, you can scroll ahead to this time right here, where we get to the cleaning and maintenance portion of the video. But you may learn something if you do stick around for this portion. The Blackpink System. is only for your toilet. Sinks and showers on the other hand drain into a gray tank system which is completely separate from the black tank system. You have your toilet, the ball valve in the toilet that opens via a flush pedal and activates a spray of water. Below that is a drain that is directly above your black tank and this presents the infamous poop pyramid which we're going to talk about a little bit later. Then you have the black tank itself and in most cases you have three components inside your black tank. tank. One is an electrical sensor system that will tell you how full your black tank system is. The majority of tank sensors on the road these days don't work, so if yours don't work properly don't worry about it too much. I'm not going to talk about sensors too much in this video because there's not really much you can do other than try to keep them clean. Second, there is a pipe inside your black tank that goes up and out to the roof of your RV and that vents gases from your black tank. The third component inside your RV black tank is what's called a black tank flush port. A sprayer inside your RV black tank that allows you to spray water inside of it and clean anything that may be stuck on the walls of your RV black tank. The black tank flush is plumbed to a connection port somewhere on the outside of your RV or at your connection panel. Now there are some components on the black tank flush port like check valves and vacuum breakers but we're not going to to talk about them because they don't really pertain to cleaning your black tank. It's just part of how the black tank flush port works. Now, depending on who you talk to, you're going to get different opinions on how well these RV black tank flush ports work, but it is there for you to use it and we'll talk about how to use it a little bit later. So moving back to the black tank near the bottom there is a drain with a valve on it. That valve opens, sends the waste to a pipe on the outside of your RV and that is where you're going to hook up your RV sewer hose to dump everything into. an external septic system. There's also a bunch of adapters and fittings that you can get for your RV sewer hose and we'll talk a little bit about those when we get to the dumping process. And that's all there really is to these RV waste tank systems, they're fairly straightforward. For full timers, the black tank cleaning and maintenance process really starts when you buy your RV before you put anything into that black tank. For seasonal campers and weekend warriors, the process begins after you de-winterize your camper. That is really the only time your tank is going to be empty. Water is your friend when it comes to keeping your RV black tank clean and odor-free. So the first thing you're going to do right out of the gate is go ahead and fill up about 10% of your black tank capacity with water. I add... five gallons of water to my RV black tank, which is a little bit more than 10%, but a little bit more water's never going to hurt anything. The two main reasons, number one, it's going to dilute anything that goes into that tank, and it's also gonna prevent anything from sticking inside that tank as well. Because the tank is directly underneath your toilet, everything that goes into that tank falls at the same place, solid waste that's going in there, it's going to start building up on top of each other, and that's what forms the infamous poop pyramid. With no water in the tank, that pyramid's going to start to harden, it's going to start to smell, and that water will add a buffer between the actual tank itself and the solid waste that's going in there. Now there are a couple ways that you can put water in your RV black tank. One is holding the flush pedal on your toilet and letting it run in. This is the slowest process of all of them. Plus you don't know how much water you're actually putting in your RV tank. Here are three better ways that you can get water in your black tank. You can fill your toilet bowl by pressing the pedal just enough to turn the water on but not open the ball valve. I know that when the water level reaches the bottom of my spray port I have about a little over a gallon of water in my bowl. and then I'll just dump that down into my black tank. The next option which is what I do is you can fill up a bucket and dump that right down into your black tank. It's a good idea to carry a bucket with you in your RV anyway because it can be used for 10 different things and this is one of them. I know a lot of people are buying covers to put over their tongue jacks to protect them from the rain and I'm sure they work fine but you can actually use your bucket. After you park your RV, just put your bucket right over top of your tongue jack. You can keep your chains off the ground by simply putting them on the handle of the bucket, and that will keep your bucket from flying away. Plus, the underneath side of the bucket is open, so you're not going to really see any condensation building up underneath there either. It's just a quick little tip to save you a little bit of money if you don't want to buy a cover for your tongue jack. So back to filling the black tank with water, the third way is using a flow meter. They go on the end of a hose. And then you would plug that right into your black tank flush port. It will tell you how much water has flowed through the hose so that you don't overflow your black tank. If you do something different, please let us know in the comments down below. The idea of these treatments is very very simple. It's just to break down the solids that are in your waste tank and that's going to allow you to easily flush everything out of there every time you dump your black tank. I can't claim to say that I've used them all, but I will tell you what we use, and I'll tell you what I know other people have used that works as well. So the first black tank treatment I'll talk about is by a company called Thetford. It is called AquaChem, and that's what we've been using from day one. It has great reviews online, and we've never had a problem using it. It is a strong deodorant, and it will help break down solids that are sitting in your waste tank. It calls for eight ounces per tank, and you could just mix that in. with the five gallons of water that you put in when you backfill your tank. Another popular product is called Happy Camper. I know a lot of people use this as well. It's very similar in that it will break down solids that are in your black tank. This product, however, is odor-free. The third option is called the Geo Method, which uses borax and Dawn dish soap. There are a ton of videos online about the science behind the Geo Method and how it works. Now I've never personally used it, but I have seen enough to know that I would recommend it. But it is a very popular method of treating your black tank. But those are the three that I think are the most popular, and I've seen enough to know that I'd recommend any three of those options. So to summarize step number one, always keep water in your black tank. That means when you're driving to your campground, especially so because the water is sloshing around and cleaning the walls of the inside of your tank. That also means when you're parked at your campground. That also means between trips. Always keep water in your black tank. Moving along in chronological order, you've parked at your campsite, you're all set up, and now you're going to start using your toilet. The first thing worth mentioning with using your toilet is to be generous when you flush. You're putting waste in there, so you want to follow that up with more water to keep it more diluted. So this is easy when you're on a hookup, right? But when you're dry camping, you need to be a little bit more frugal with your water. So something you can do is put a little bit more than 10% of your capacity of water in your tank before you leave for your trip, and you won't have to use as much water when you're on the road. You always want to make sure that you keep one to two inches of water above your ball valve. This accomplishes two different things. It keeps your ball valve seal moist and prevents it from drying out. It also creates a vapor barrier between your black tank and your living space. Just like a p-trap on a sink creates a vapor barrier between your drain pipes and your living space. The second thing I want to mention when you're using your toilet is toilet paper. RV toilet paper really is not what it's cracked up to be. In fact, much of the RV toilet paper out there dissolves slower than a simple two-ply septic-safe toilet paper. My friend Corey over at Wandering Weekends made a great video comparing cost, how soft they are, and how quickly they dissolve in water. I'll tell you how to find that video later. But ultimately it proves that you don't need to buy RV toilet paper. It's very expensive and it breaks down slower than some of the other options that are out there. At the end of the day we use a two-ply septic safe toilet paper and we've never had any clogs or problems with it. Be generous with the water that you're putting in your tank when you flush. Just go a little bit lighter than the amount of toilet paper you use at home. So step number three, when is it time to dump your black tank? So you want to be dumping your black tank when it's about two-thirds full or three-quarters full. If your sensors don't work, the good news is you can just look down your toilet with the flashlight and see the level of water. If it's getting close to the floor of your RV, you know it's time to dump. The reason you want to wait until your tank is close to full to dump, it's going to give you a better flow, better flush. With all that weight and that water in there it's going to push things out of the tank a little bit better if it's full. So before we go ahead and dump our black tanks let's talk about some accessories real quick that will make the dumping process easier for you. First before dumping I'd recommend wearing rubber gloves. Make sure you put rubber gloves on your inventory checklist if you haven't already. Second there are fittings and adapters that will make your life a little bit easier when dumping. The clear elbow is a must in my opinion. You'll want to pick one of these up. We use this one because it has four different sizes that will fit in a variety of sewer inlets. There's also this collapsible ramp that will keep the water flowing downhill so nothing gets stuck in your sewer hose. So this is the sewer hose that we got. It's the Camco Rhino Flex. We bought it in 2017 and have had no problems with it since. So this is the only one that I've ever used and the only one that I could really recommend. I will put links to this along with all the other products shown in this video down below in the video description. I'd also recommend getting two sewer hoses because some campgrounds are spaced out a little bit further than others and you may need more than a 10 or 15 foot length that you get with one sewer hose. Dumping is pretty easy. Just find your wastegate valves and pull them open. They will almost always be on the service side. or the driver's side of your camper. Now there are some fancy coaches out there that have an electrical wastegate system that will open with the push of a button, but most of these will be mechanical. You'll know that your waste tank is empty once you see nothing coming through that clear elbow. But this is the important part. After you're done dumping, close that valve again, go back in and fill your tank with some more water and dump again. So you don't have to fill your tank all the way up. I usually put about 5 to 10 gallons back in my tank and then I'll dump it once more. You're going to be very surprised how much more stuff you see come through that clear elbow the second time you do this. I will do this at least twice and every once in a while I'll do it three or four times just to get everything out of that tank. Last, after you're done dumping, go ahead and fill your tank back up with about five gallons of water or 10 percent. You can put your treatment in at this point in time, but you need to remember to do this after you dump. And a quick little bonus tip is once you're done dumping your black tank, go ahead and dump your gray tanks because that's a little bit cleaner water. It's usually soapy water from shower. and sinks and that will help clean out your sewer hose. So to summarize step number four which is dumping, wait till you're about 2 thirds or 3 quarters full, dump the black tank, close the valves, put some more water back in that tank and dump it. Dump again two or three times max is really all you need to do. You can flush out the sewer hose by dumping the gray tank and make sure that you put water and treatment back in the tank once you're done dumping. So even though this video is about the black tank, you can kind of follow the same procedures for the gray tank. Now I know a lot of people will open their valves and leave the gray tank completely open so that anything that goes through the sinks and the shower will... immediately go out to the septic system. You still have soap, shampoo, food particles, oil, grease, you know, things that will go down your sink and shower drain going into those gray tanks. There's nothing to say that that stuff isn't going to stick. inside your gray tanks, just like solids aren't going to stick in your black tank. I will still use pretty much the same procedures that I use for my black tank. Usually I'm just putting a little bit of Dawn dish soap. Or any type of dish soap really will work. That's polarized to work against food oils and grease because that's really what's in your gray tank, not human waste. There's also gray tank treatments that you can buy. We don't use them because the dish soap has worked well for us. So real quick I want to talk about some additional cleaning procedures outside of the normal dumping and filling process. If you think you might have a poop pyramid because you haven't been following these procedures in the past, one thing that you can do is just take a hose with a nozzle on it and shoot it straight down into your toilet. This high-pressure jet of water will help break up anything that falls directly down. and may sit at the bottom of your tank. Another thing that you can do if you're experiencing odors is before you go to bed at night when you're on a camping trip, go ahead and fill up your black tank. You can put some Dawn dish soap in there or you can put some black tank treatment that you use and let it sit overnight. Just like you let pots and pans sit with water in them to help break everything up, you can do this with your black tank. In the morning just dump your black tank using the same process we previously talked about. Another thing you can do is just run your black tank flush port for a while. Now the manual says that you should always have your wastegate valve open when you're running your black tank flush. As we talked about before, some people run their black tank flush to fill their black tank. So if you're going to do this, make sure that you have a flow meter on your hose so that you don't overflow your toilet. There's also Cleaning wands that are available out there. You can put these right down your toilet and they spray a jet of water in different directions to help clean your tank. It's also something that I've never used because I've never had any issues, but it is available if it's something that you want to look into. Another thing that a lot of RVers do, including myself, is put the remainder of their ice cubes in their black tank as they're leaving their camping site and they're driving. The idea is you have something solid, something rigid. moving around inside your tank, scraping anything that may be stuck to the walls off of your black tank. Sounds like a great idea. I don't know if it's truly effective or not, but it can't really hurt anything and we still do it too. So if you're experiencing clogs there's a couple different things that you can do. There's other fittings like this one that will allow you to spray water back up into the pipe in case you have a clog. I've never used it because I've never had a clog, but it is available. My friends over at Brazen Brits created a really nice video showing you how to clear a black tank clog just using water pressure and suction, and I'll show you how to find that video at the end of this video. So what should you be doing to maintain your RV black tank components? Let's start from the top. There's a seal on your ball valve. Thetford makes a toilet seal lube and conditioner. You can also use any silicone seal conditioner that is water resistant and will not damage rubber. Thetford also makes a drain valve lubricant that they claim will protect all waste tank seals as well as protecting plumbing lines for smooth flow through. And that's all you can really do to maintain any black tank seals. Now unfortunately there really isn't much that you can do to these wastegate valves to maintain them. Unless you gain access to the wastegate valve itself, which is underneath your underbelly of your RV. But what a lot of people are doing is using PB Blaster, putting it on the tank handle, moving the tank handle in and out a couple times to help lubricate this area. It's a good idea to do this after you've emptied your tank. If one of your wastegates ever fail, you can get these external wastegates that go right on the end of your sewer hose. And you don't have to worry about pulling your underbelly down and changing those wastegate valves out. Most RV rear bumpers are sized to fit a standard sewer hose. Another thing a lot of people are doing is putting a PVC pipe and mounting it underneath their RV and storing their sewer hose there. The reason people are doing this is to prevent the bumper from rusting from the inside out because your sewer hose most likely will be a little bit wet when you put it inside your bumper. It really is just personal preference, but no matter what you do, you really should be storing your RV sewer hose in a good place. and any accessories in a sealed box so that they don't contaminate anything else in the RV. So in this video we've talked about a couple different black tank treatments and there's a lot of other ones available out there but I do want to mention one thing that you should not be putting in your black tank and that is bleach. Bleach is a great cleaner for a lot of different things. The problem with bleach is it will kill the good bacteria that is in your black tank that eats up and breaks down the solids. So no matter what you put in there, don't ever put bleach in your black tank. There is nothing we do that isn't in this video, but I also realize that there's a lot of things that other people may be doing. If you do something different that you've had success with, please put it in the comments below so that everyone watching this video will have as many options as possible. I mentioned two other videos in this video. from Wandering Weekends and Brazen Brits. I'm going to put links to those videos down in the video description so you guys can check those out as well. I'll also make a list of all the summarized steps from this video down in the video description if you want to add that to your RV checklists. If you found this video helpful please guys help us out and hit that like button and we hope you will consider subscribing. As always thanks for watching guys, happy camping!

If you're new to the channel, we hope you enjoy the video and if you do and want to help us out, please consider subscribing and hitting that like button down below. So last year I made a video showing our top five black tank cleaning and maintenance tips. Don't worry if you haven't seen that video, I'm going to show you everything from that video in this video today.

This video however is going to be a little bit more comprehensive, so what I wanted to do was consolidate. There's much information into a one-stop shop, if you will, for everything black tank related. I'll show you what we've done for four years to keep our black tank clean, along with some other tips and tricks that we've learned along the way. Because of the large amount of information that's going to be in this video, I thought the best way to lay out this video would be in chronological order. First, let's cover the components of an RV black tank and how they are designed for anyone who is new to RVing.

If you aren't a newbie, you can scroll ahead to this time right here, where we get to the cleaning and maintenance portion of the video. But you may learn something if you do stick around for this portion. The Blackpink System.

is only for your toilet. Sinks and showers on the other hand drain into a gray tank system which is completely separate from the black tank system. You have your toilet, the ball valve in the toilet that opens via a flush pedal and activates a spray of water.

Below that is a drain that is directly above your black tank and this presents the infamous poop pyramid which we're going to talk about a little bit later. Then you have the black tank itself and in most cases you have three components inside your black tank. tank.

One is an electrical sensor system that will tell you how full your black tank system is. The majority of tank sensors on the road these days don't work, so if yours don't work properly don't worry about it too much. I'm not going to talk about sensors too much in this video because there's not really much you can do other than try to keep them clean.

Second, there is a pipe inside your black tank that goes up and out to the roof of your RV and that vents gases from your black tank. The third component inside your RV black tank is what's called a black tank flush port. A sprayer inside your RV black tank that allows you to spray water inside of it and clean anything that may be stuck on the walls of your RV black tank.

The black tank flush is plumbed to a connection port somewhere on the outside of your RV or at your connection panel. Now there are some components on the black tank flush port like check valves and vacuum breakers but we're not going to to talk about them because they don't really pertain to cleaning your black tank. It's just part of how the black tank flush port works.

Now, depending on who you talk to, you're going to get different opinions on how well these RV black tank flush ports work, but it is there for you to use it and we'll talk about how to use it a little bit later. So moving back to the black tank near the bottom there is a drain with a valve on it. That valve opens, sends the waste to a pipe on the outside of your RV and that is where you're going to hook up your RV sewer hose to dump everything into.

an external septic system. There's also a bunch of adapters and fittings that you can get for your RV sewer hose and we'll talk a little bit about those when we get to the dumping process. And that's all there really is to these RV waste tank systems, they're fairly straightforward. For full timers, the black tank cleaning and maintenance process really starts when you buy your RV before you put anything into that black tank.

For seasonal campers and weekend warriors, the process begins after you de-winterize your camper. That is really the only time your tank is going to be empty. Water is your friend when it comes to keeping your RV black tank clean and odor-free.

So the first thing you're going to do right out of the gate is go ahead and fill up about 10% of your black tank capacity with water. I add... five gallons of water to my RV black tank, which is a little bit more than 10%, but a little bit more water's never going to hurt anything. The two main reasons, number one, it's going to dilute anything that goes into that tank, and it's also gonna prevent anything from sticking inside that tank as well. Because the tank is directly underneath your toilet, everything that goes into that tank falls at the same place, solid waste that's going in there, it's going to start building up on top of each other, and that's what forms the infamous poop pyramid.

With no water in the tank, that pyramid's going to start to harden, it's going to start to smell, and that water will add a buffer between the actual tank itself and the solid waste that's going in there. Now there are a couple ways that you can put water in your RV black tank. One is holding the flush pedal on your toilet and letting it run in. This is the slowest process of all of them. Plus you don't know how much water you're actually putting in your RV tank.

Here are three better ways that you can get water in your black tank. You can fill your toilet bowl by pressing the pedal just enough to turn the water on but not open the ball valve. I know that when the water level reaches the bottom of my spray port I have about a little over a gallon of water in my bowl. and then I'll just dump that down into my black tank. The next option which is what I do is you can fill up a bucket and dump that right down into your black tank.

It's a good idea to carry a bucket with you in your RV anyway because it can be used for 10 different things and this is one of them. I know a lot of people are buying covers to put over their tongue jacks to protect them from the rain and I'm sure they work fine but you can actually use your bucket. After you park your RV, just put your bucket right over top of your tongue jack.

You can keep your chains off the ground by simply putting them on the handle of the bucket, and that will keep your bucket from flying away. Plus, the underneath side of the bucket is open, so you're not going to really see any condensation building up underneath there either. It's just a quick little tip to save you a little bit of money if you don't want to buy a cover for your tongue jack. So back to filling the black tank with water, the third way is using a flow meter.

They go on the end of a hose. And then you would plug that right into your black tank flush port. It will tell you how much water has flowed through the hose so that you don't overflow your black tank.

If you do something different, please let us know in the comments down below. The idea of these treatments is very very simple. It's just to break down the solids that are in your waste tank and that's going to allow you to easily flush everything out of there every time you dump your black tank.

I can't claim to say that I've used them all, but I will tell you what we use, and I'll tell you what I know other people have used that works as well. So the first black tank treatment I'll talk about is by a company called Thetford. It is called AquaChem, and that's what we've been using from day one. It has great reviews online, and we've never had a problem using it. It is a strong deodorant, and it will help break down solids that are sitting in your waste tank.

It calls for eight ounces per tank, and you could just mix that in. with the five gallons of water that you put in when you backfill your tank. Another popular product is called Happy Camper.

I know a lot of people use this as well. It's very similar in that it will break down solids that are in your black tank. This product, however, is odor-free. The third option is called the Geo Method, which uses borax and Dawn dish soap. There are a ton of videos online about the science behind the Geo Method and how it works.

Now I've never personally used it, but I have seen enough to know that I would recommend it. But it is a very popular method of treating your black tank. But those are the three that I think are the most popular, and I've seen enough to know that I'd recommend any three of those options. So to summarize step number one, always keep water in your black tank. That means when you're driving to your campground, especially so because the water is sloshing around and cleaning the walls of the inside of your tank.

That also means when you're parked at your campground. That also means between trips. Always keep water in your black tank. Moving along in chronological order, you've parked at your campsite, you're all set up, and now you're going to start using your toilet.

The first thing worth mentioning with using your toilet is to be generous when you flush. You're putting waste in there, so you want to follow that up with more water to keep it more diluted. So this is easy when you're on a hookup, right? But when you're dry camping, you need to be a little bit more frugal with your water.

So something you can do is put a little bit more than 10% of your capacity of water in your tank before you leave for your trip, and you won't have to use as much water when you're on the road. You always want to make sure that you keep one to two inches of water above your ball valve. This accomplishes two different things.

It keeps your ball valve seal moist and prevents it from drying out. It also creates a vapor barrier between your black tank and your living space. Just like a p-trap on a sink creates a vapor barrier between your drain pipes and your living space. The second thing I want to mention when you're using your toilet is toilet paper.

RV toilet paper really is not what it's cracked up to be. In fact, much of the RV toilet paper out there dissolves slower than a simple two-ply septic-safe toilet paper. My friend Corey over at Wandering Weekends made a great video comparing cost, how soft they are, and how quickly they dissolve in water. I'll tell you how to find that video later.

But ultimately it proves that you don't need to buy RV toilet paper. It's very expensive and it breaks down slower than some of the other options that are out there. At the end of the day we use a two-ply septic safe toilet paper and we've never had any clogs or problems with it. Be generous with the water that you're putting in your tank when you flush. Just go a little bit lighter than the amount of toilet paper you use at home.

So step number three, when is it time to dump your black tank? So you want to be dumping your black tank when it's about two-thirds full or three-quarters full. If your sensors don't work, the good news is you can just look down your toilet with the flashlight and see the level of water.

If it's getting close to the floor of your RV, you know it's time to dump. The reason you want to wait until your tank is close to full to dump, it's going to give you a better flow, better flush. With all that weight and that water in there it's going to push things out of the tank a little bit better if it's full.

So before we go ahead and dump our black tanks let's talk about some accessories real quick that will make the dumping process easier for you. First before dumping I'd recommend wearing rubber gloves. Make sure you put rubber gloves on your inventory checklist if you haven't already. Second there are fittings and adapters that will make your life a little bit easier when dumping. The clear elbow is a must in my opinion.

You'll want to pick one of these up. We use this one because it has four different sizes that will fit in a variety of sewer inlets. There's also this collapsible ramp that will keep the water flowing downhill so nothing gets stuck in your sewer hose.

So this is the sewer hose that we got. It's the Camco Rhino Flex. We bought it in 2017 and have had no problems with it since.

So this is the only one that I've ever used and the only one that I could really recommend. I will put links to this along with all the other products shown in this video down below in the video description. I'd also recommend getting two sewer hoses because some campgrounds are spaced out a little bit further than others and you may need more than a 10 or 15 foot length that you get with one sewer hose.

Dumping is pretty easy. Just find your wastegate valves and pull them open. They will almost always be on the service side. or the driver's side of your camper. Now there are some fancy coaches out there that have an electrical wastegate system that will open with the push of a button, but most of these will be mechanical.

You'll know that your waste tank is empty once you see nothing coming through that clear elbow. But this is the important part. After you're done dumping, close that valve again, go back in and fill your tank with some more water and dump again.

So you don't have to fill your tank all the way up. I usually put about 5 to 10 gallons back in my tank and then I'll dump it once more. You're going to be very surprised how much more stuff you see come through that clear elbow the second time you do this.

I will do this at least twice and every once in a while I'll do it three or four times just to get everything out of that tank. Last, after you're done dumping, go ahead and fill your tank back up with about five gallons of water or 10 percent. You can put your treatment in at this point in time, but you need to remember to do this after you dump. And a quick little bonus tip is once you're done dumping your black tank, go ahead and dump your gray tanks because that's a little bit cleaner water. It's usually soapy water from shower.

and sinks and that will help clean out your sewer hose. So to summarize step number four which is dumping, wait till you're about 2 thirds or 3 quarters full, dump the black tank, close the valves, put some more water back in that tank and dump it. Dump again two or three times max is really all you need to do. You can flush out the sewer hose by dumping the gray tank and make sure that you put water and treatment back in the tank once you're done dumping.

So even though this video is about the black tank, you can kind of follow the same procedures for the gray tank. Now I know a lot of people will open their valves and leave the gray tank completely open so that anything that goes through the sinks and the shower will... immediately go out to the septic system.

You still have soap, shampoo, food particles, oil, grease, you know, things that will go down your sink and shower drain going into those gray tanks. There's nothing to say that that stuff isn't going to stick. inside your gray tanks, just like solids aren't going to stick in your black tank.

I will still use pretty much the same procedures that I use for my black tank. Usually I'm just putting a little bit of Dawn dish soap. Or any type of dish soap really will work. That's polarized to work against food oils and grease because that's really what's in your gray tank, not human waste.

There's also gray tank treatments that you can buy. We don't use them because the dish soap has worked well for us. So real quick I want to talk about some additional cleaning procedures outside of the normal dumping and filling process. If you think you might have a poop pyramid because you haven't been following these procedures in the past, one thing that you can do is just take a hose with a nozzle on it and shoot it straight down into your toilet.

This high-pressure jet of water will help break up anything that falls directly down. and may sit at the bottom of your tank. Another thing that you can do if you're experiencing odors is before you go to bed at night when you're on a camping trip, go ahead and fill up your black tank. You can put some Dawn dish soap in there or you can put some black tank treatment that you use and let it sit overnight. Just like you let pots and pans sit with water in them to help break everything up, you can do this with your black tank.

In the morning just dump your black tank using the same process we previously talked about. Another thing you can do is just run your black tank flush port for a while. Now the manual says that you should always have your wastegate valve open when you're running your black tank flush.

As we talked about before, some people run their black tank flush to fill their black tank. So if you're going to do this, make sure that you have a flow meter on your hose so that you don't overflow your toilet. There's also Cleaning wands that are available out there. You can put these right down your toilet and they spray a jet of water in different directions to help clean your tank. It's also something that I've never used because I've never had any issues, but it is available if it's something that you want to look into.

Another thing that a lot of RVers do, including myself, is put the remainder of their ice cubes in their black tank as they're leaving their camping site and they're driving. The idea is you have something solid, something rigid. moving around inside your tank, scraping anything that may be stuck to the walls off of your black tank.

Sounds like a great idea. I don't know if it's truly effective or not, but it can't really hurt anything and we still do it too. So if you're experiencing clogs there's a couple different things that you can do. There's other fittings like this one that will allow you to spray water back up into the pipe in case you have a clog. I've never used it because I've never had a clog, but it is available.

My friends over at Brazen Brits created a really nice video showing you how to clear a black tank clog just using water pressure and suction, and I'll show you how to find that video at the end of this video. So what should you be doing to maintain your RV black tank components? Let's start from the top.

There's a seal on your ball valve. Thetford makes a toilet seal lube and conditioner. You can also use any silicone seal conditioner that is water resistant and will not damage rubber. Thetford also makes a drain valve lubricant that they claim will protect all waste tank seals as well as protecting plumbing lines for smooth flow through.

And that's all you can really do to maintain any black tank seals. Now unfortunately there really isn't much that you can do to these wastegate valves to maintain them. Unless you gain access to the wastegate valve itself, which is underneath your underbelly of your RV.

But what a lot of people are doing is using PB Blaster, putting it on the tank handle, moving the tank handle in and out a couple times to help lubricate this area. It's a good idea to do this after you've emptied your tank. If one of your wastegates ever fail, you can get these external wastegates that go right on the end of your sewer hose. And you don't have to worry about pulling your underbelly down and changing those wastegate valves out. Most RV rear bumpers are sized to fit a standard sewer hose.

Another thing a lot of people are doing is putting a PVC pipe and mounting it underneath their RV and storing their sewer hose there. The reason people are doing this is to prevent the bumper from rusting from the inside out because your sewer hose most likely will be a little bit wet when you put it inside your bumper. It really is just personal preference, but no matter what you do, you really should be storing your RV sewer hose in a good place.

and any accessories in a sealed box so that they don't contaminate anything else in the RV. So in this video we've talked about a couple different black tank treatments and there's a lot of other ones available out there but I do want to mention one thing that you should not be putting in your black tank and that is bleach. Bleach is a great cleaner for a lot of different things. The problem with bleach is it will kill the good bacteria that is in your black tank that eats up and breaks down the solids.

So no matter what you put in there, don't ever put bleach in your black tank. There is nothing we do that isn't in this video, but I also realize that there's a lot of things that other people may be doing. If you do something different that you've had success with, please put it in the comments below so that everyone watching this video will have as many options as possible. I mentioned two other videos in this video.

from Wandering Weekends and Brazen Brits. I'm going to put links to those videos down in the video description so you guys can check those out as well. I'll also make a list of all the summarized steps from this video down in the video description if you want to add that to your RV checklists. If you found this video helpful please guys help us out and hit that like button and we hope you will consider subscribing.

As always thanks for watching guys, happy camping!

Transcript for:Comprehensive Guide to RV Black Tanks

Transcript for:
Comprehensive Guide to RV Black Tanks