It seems that we are in some kind of cycle of repairs. Over the past couple of months I've had to repair or replace a number of things on our rig that I wouldn't have expected. One of those was the lid to the dirty clothes hamper built into the top step as you go up to the bedroom area of our Montana fifth wheel. This is attached with a metal piano type hinge, and at least six screws. All but one of the screws had broken in two. I simply drilled new holes and added more screws.
The next repair was at the toilet. Ours is a Dometic Sealand model 210. The water valve located at the side and operated by the flush pedal was the culprit. I removed it and found that the neoprene seal inside had worn out. I knew I would never find a new seal but could possible buy a new valve. I found one at Tillamook RV in Tillamook Oregon. Across from the cheese factory. It cost me $30.90 but solved the problem. The next minor repair will be the little light in the switch that turns on the water pump. It decided to quite the other day. I'll look at it more closely when we stop traveling for a few days.
Showing posts with label handleing RV toilet paper. Show all posts
Showing posts with label handleing RV toilet paper. Show all posts
Friday, January 8, 2010
Monday, June 22, 2009
Tissue Issues
Don't let this article scare you away from becoming an RV'r. It's just one of the lessons we've learned and should be passed on. Sooner or later all RV'rs face tissue issues.
You will recall that in the previous post on this subject I mentioned that using lots of water would prevent clogged toilet problems. Well what if you are in a situation where you don't have lots of water to spare? In those situations, putting paper in the black tank leads to toilet clogs if you aren't careful about it. The paper and other solids pile up at the bottom of your tank and can actually accumulate back up the pipe. When this happens you have a serious problem. So how do you prevent this?
We had this problem on our first long term trip to the desert. When we went over to a friends rig for a visit they said not to put the paper down the toilet. Instead they told us to roll it up and put it in the little trash bin for that purpose. Surprisingly, there was no odor in their bathroom and they had been using this system for months. Also, they only had to empty their tanks about once every two and half to three weeks. I had been servicing my tanks twice a week. This can be a real task if you use a blue boy to empty your tanks and some other source to haul water to your rig. Motor homes usually have larger tanks than trailers and can go longer between services.
Of course it took us a while to accept and get used to the idea of not dropping the paper down the toilet. We found a container suitable enough to put in the bathroom for this purpose. It had to be small enough to be out of the way in a small space yet large enough for that job at hand. We then used one of those plastic food covers with an elastic band to cover the top. We cut a small slit in the cover and would drop our paper through the slit. You actually become quite talented at rolling the used papers into little rolls to drop in the container. We put the bag of papers from the little trash bin out in the regular trash every day. Now the paper doesn't clog up the sewer line and you can conserve water and possibly time since you don't need to empty your tank as often.
You will recall that in the previous post on this subject I mentioned that using lots of water would prevent clogged toilet problems. Well what if you are in a situation where you don't have lots of water to spare? In those situations, putting paper in the black tank leads to toilet clogs if you aren't careful about it. The paper and other solids pile up at the bottom of your tank and can actually accumulate back up the pipe. When this happens you have a serious problem. So how do you prevent this?
We had this problem on our first long term trip to the desert. When we went over to a friends rig for a visit they said not to put the paper down the toilet. Instead they told us to roll it up and put it in the little trash bin for that purpose. Surprisingly, there was no odor in their bathroom and they had been using this system for months. Also, they only had to empty their tanks about once every two and half to three weeks. I had been servicing my tanks twice a week. This can be a real task if you use a blue boy to empty your tanks and some other source to haul water to your rig. Motor homes usually have larger tanks than trailers and can go longer between services.
Of course it took us a while to accept and get used to the idea of not dropping the paper down the toilet. We found a container suitable enough to put in the bathroom for this purpose. It had to be small enough to be out of the way in a small space yet large enough for that job at hand. We then used one of those plastic food covers with an elastic band to cover the top. We cut a small slit in the cover and would drop our paper through the slit. You actually become quite talented at rolling the used papers into little rolls to drop in the container. We put the bag of papers from the little trash bin out in the regular trash every day. Now the paper doesn't clog up the sewer line and you can conserve water and possibly time since you don't need to empty your tank as often.
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