The crappy truth about living in an RV
October 05, 2019Anybody who has ever seen the movie RV with Robin Williams can relate to the event we had.
Over the last couple of weeks, our toilet started to have problems. It seemed we had a blockage and no matter how many times we drained the sewage tank nothing was moving. The smell got to be nasty, and we were somewhere out of nowhere between Osoyoos and Salt Lake City. Off course we did not bring a snake. We tried different chemical treatments, but nothing worked. Cliff found a somewhat bendable PVC pipe, but it could not make it around the 90 decree corner. With the toilet sloshing dangerously with unpleasant content right up to the rim, we pulled in to a Cabelas parking lot which had a sanidump area. Now What?
Everybody knows that to flush an RV toilet; you have to pull a lever to open the trap door. So to plunge and keep the trapdoor open, this is turning in to a two men job. With me kneeling dangerously close to the unpleasant content while holding the lever and Cliff snaking the hose with water shooting down the toilet, the content is moving towards us and not into the tank. I was prepared for the unthinkable to hit my face.
What to you need to unclog
The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools.
Confucius
What You Will Need for Clog Clearing
To do this job, you will need another person’s help along with
- a hose that is attached to an outside faucet,
- a large bucket,
- the clothing you can throw away,
- a good pair of rubber boots,(we don`t own rubber boots)
- a pair of rubber gloves,
- a plumber’s snake and ( We did not have this either)
When you have all of your equipment and clothing ready to go, you can begin working on the clog.
The solution
The real problem is what to do with the problem-solvers after the problems are solved.
We carefully moved the soiled hose out through the bedroom window onto the pavement. Cliff started to blast water from the hose into the tank drain with as much pressure as possible. We heard a promising sound of movement in the tank. I ran into the bathroom to see if the content moved into the holding tank. Nothing! But then I remembered the lever at the toilet which I pulled and the brown stinky mess disappeared into the tank.
Well, problem solved. Now we need to clean up and air out the stink.
Thank you, Cabelas for letting us use your sanidump
Oh my!!
Good thing you two are a team!!
Keep the stories coming!
Mein Gott, das muss ja furchtbar gewesen sein. Bis der Gestank draussen ist, geht es
eine Zeit.
Wenn man Abenteuer sucht, dann findet man sie ob gut oder schlecht.
Ursula
I had a similar problem twice at my former cottage with a RV toilet just like yours. I had to make an emergency 90 minute drive on a holiday to get a snake. I taped the snake to a garden hose, pushed the snake down to the blockage, and turned on the hose. Boom crap all gone.
Dick