Cleaning RV Black Tank

[Music] hi it's Jerry and it's that time yes it's time to clean out the black tank now I'm not talking about just dumping it I'm talking about a good thorough scrub well Jerry how in the world are you gonna do that well here's what happens with these black tanks we've been using ours and cleaned it out for over 18 months I mean a good scrub sure we've dumped it yeah we've got one of these built-in little sprinkle systems that you know kind of washes it out but it really doesn't do a super super great job and then all of a sudden your sensor start mistreating you'll dump your tank and you'll see that it's half full or three-quarters full or even worse it's completely full and you know it's not because you've dumped you tank so what do you do the other thing that happens with these as well is that you're just going to get gunk buildup I don't care what you do you can do the ice cube tricks you can put Calgon and water softener and all those types of things in and ride around with a couple of gallons of water in it but you're still going to get a gunk build up it's just the natural thing that's going to happen with these black tanks well it's not really that big of a deal yeah some people get a little carried away when they think they have to deal with this but I'm not you're not gonna see me do that that's just a little bit maybe too much but there's a couple devices that you can use I've seen homemade devices you can go out on some of these YouTube channels and see devices that you can use that are homemade that work really really well this little unit here I'm gonna put it down in the show notes this thing is absolutely fantastic I'm gonna show you hooking this up to a water hose what it does but just a couple things about it is one of the things that's important you're gonna have to run your water hose inside your camper and when you do that somebody and I'm going to be doing this by myself today Jones out doing some other things you need an on and off valve that's very very important this is springy as you'll notice so if you've got a hook or a band as you go down in your toilet some of that will happen sometimes you'll have a slight elbow and you can't get a straight unit I can take this in and kind of fish it around I'll back up here a little bit you know I can take it and fish it around and lift it up and down but here's what's really incredible about this if you'll notice and I'll let the camera focus in on this real quick this has got a revolving brass head on it and you can see the little holes on it and if you've got a little bit of water pressure this thing is a scrubber let me show you what this thing looks like I'll stand out here and turn on the water hose on the outside just to show you the intensity of what this thing does I'm inside the RV now I'm in the our bathroom I'm going to actually film me using that unit and scrubbing out the black tank I'll leave the set on so you can hear the screams no hopefully there won't be any of those but I do want to talk to you a second about keeping a healthy black tank there are things that you should do and you should not do and there are things that you can put in your black tank and there are things that you should not put in your black tank so you in my opinion you should never put in a Clorox product because that has a tendency on those seals that are around your dump it can rot those out and you're going to end up with a drippy black tank well I can't even imagine having a drippy black tank that would be bad so I never use anything like that also the type of toilet paper that you use look I'm sure I'm going to get a ton of comments on this but I don't use a toilet paper that is not considered RV or marine safe I know a lot of people go to Walmart and buy the same applied look if that works for you that's fantastic but I've had some bad experiences I've tried it and I ended up with what they referred to as a poo dam in other words when I went to dump it the paper did not break down quick enough and then it got stuck at the end and there are some tricks that you can do to unstick that stick that poo dam and it is a mess and it's nasty and I'm not gonna ever film that justice hatch it's one thing you leave some comments and I'll share with you how you do it but I hope I never have to face it again and I never film that removing a poo damn this is what we use this is what Joan and I used this is a Scots rapid dissolving RV and boat paper we buy this off of Amazon that septics ain't safe it's four rolls we buy a case at a time and last us a long time it's double ply for those of us who may have sensitive back sides this is a really nice comfortable paper I put it in the class of something like a Charmin or something like that it has that kind of a feel to it I should give you a demonstration and show you you can take a sheet of it drop it into glass of water and shake it a couple times and it completely breaks down but it doesn't do that until it hits the water and it's been agitated a little bit when we use this in our tank we never have a problem and we've been using it now over two years and it has served us incredibly well so I'll put a link in there where you can buy this and I'll use we do like I said we buy a case of it it's in the mid $30 range and the prices change a couple of dollars from time to time depending on demand this stuff is wonderful the other thing is what do you do as far as keeping the odor down sure you've got the green stuff you got the blue stuff you got the orange stuff I don't like them they have this perfumey smell and that just doesn't work with me it's it just overcomes the camper I don't know that it hides the black tank smell as or mask it as much as combined with it so you get bit of a black tank odor when you flush and then you get that well that perfumey purple blue stuff that comes up what I have found is if you use an enzyme type tank treatment then that will work much better reviews as we stayed in Florida for two months in one stationary location and it was hottest blue blazes when we left it was coming up as the first of July when we left this year we use this all through May all through June no problem whatsoever what these enzymes do is it breaks down all the particles literally the solid waste that you put in there it liquefies those and any paper especially if you use the marine grade you you'll see in the show notes this kind of a clear elbow that I use when I break the dump the black tank and that clear elbow you can you know monitor the solids and make sure you're getting your tank clean and all those types of things if you want to watch stuff like that it's not that terribly gross but when you use these enzymes style tank supplements then it liquefies it is just nothing but just a dark liquid that comes out of your black tank and that is a great thing if you're getting chunks of paper and things like that then you could have a possible problem here's what we use and we use the hundred and thirty serving is cheaper this way this is called a happy camper I heard about this on another blog about again about two years ago we'd been using the blue stuff and just complaining like crazy and this is just an enzyme and you you take this and I'll see if I can do this it's just a white powder and you put this little scoop in it's just a white powder you can see very fine grade has no odor to it no scent again it's called a happy camper odor free and honestly it just breaks down everything in the black tank and we take and put a scoop of this about once or twice a week in the kitchen sink as well where you get food particles that go down inside your gray tank and what it will do is it will help liquefy those as you go to Dan go to dump that tank gets rid of that odor if you've ever had the dreaded food and that bread out to where you're in a hot climate and you had a a great tank with a lot of particles in it food particles you know those types of things it's almost impossible not to grease it's almost impossible not to do that even if you use strainers and things like that you're still going to get some things inside that tank this holding tank treatment the happy camper will break that down liquefy it and get it out as well but if you use a good quality marine grade RV grade paper again this the Scotts has served Joan and I incredibly well Joan's very particular about her tissue paper very very particular and she's happy with it so it's passed the test and then this happy campers passed the Jerry test I don't like those perfumey smells and if you break that black tank down and you've got those enzymes in there breaking all those particles down then you don't end up with that horrible whoa that odor that comes up and knocked you out even in the higher the climates liar hotter climates we were up in Virginia and the furqan epitaphs whole you've probably seen the blogs of those back in January and February this year it was freezing and I mean you know water hoses froze the kitchen frozen one night we're using the happy camper even in those very frigid environments it still works still works works in the hot works in the cold breaks everything down makes everything work great okay enough of that so let's get the magic wand and let's clean out the black tank make sure you have your black tank valve open outside and you're hooked up to you know either you know if you're at home to a blue boy if you have something like that or if you're in the campground you're hooked up to the the dump that you have next to your unit as well turn off the water you don't want to have the toilet spewing and carrying on why you do this because what you've got to do is open up the tank and I go show you a picture of it you're going to take this unit and you're going to feed it down inside of it and then here we go [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] well that was all it was to it it took me probably I'm guessing maybe a good ten minutes to give a good scrub and our toilet here is we go down into the black tank we did have that turn that Bend so if I were to use one of those straight units that you see on the websites Amazon Camping World etc that would not have worked in my situation I would not been able to get down into the bottom of that tank and give it a good scrub the results were perfect I kept reading 3/4 of a full tank even at a even at empty when I knew it was good and well empty look at this now how about that so now that's a little scrubbing 10 minutes of work pulling the hose around took me about an extra five or six minutes less and less than thirty minutes to be able to do this gave me a good sparkly clean black tank with all the residue I ran some more water through it I didn't put that on the video here just ran some water through it look through that little clear connection and everything is coming out nice and clean so after two years of gunking up this thing perfect so again this is Jerry I love RV life even when I have to clean out this black tank can you imagine that [Music]

Channel: I Love RV Life

Views: 258,959

Rating: 4.8637924 out of 5

Keywords: rv travel, 5th wheel travel, rv living, rv upgrades, 5th wheel living, cleaning black tank, rv holding tank, rv waste tank, rv holding tank cleaner, black water holding tank, rv waste water tank, rv toilet paper, camping toilet paper, rv black tank treatment, camper holding tank, rv holding tanks, rv black water tank, black tank cleaning

Id: K3QZmqf77FQ

Length: 12min 59sec (779 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 22 2017