Toilet and Black Tank Care

RPOD TOILET AND BLACK TANK CARE

BEFORE YOU LEAVE HOME TO TAKE THE RPOD SOMEWHERE:

1. Pour a couple of ounces of Calgon (a water softener sold in the grocery store with washing machine fabric softeners) into the toilet drain.  This will coat the walls of the blackwater tank to make them slicker so solid waste won’t stick to them.

2. Place a toilet chemical pouch (Organic Orange) in the toilet drain.  This is for odor control and to help solids break down.

3. Add 2-5 gallons of water to the toilet.  (You can pour it from a sheetrock bucket or flush the toilet if you have water in your holding tank or from city water connection.)

4. This prep allows the chemicals to dissolve and slosh around in the blackwater tank while you are on the road so it coats the tank to the max.

USING THE TOILET

1. We don’t throw toilet paper into the toilet any more.  Instead, we deposit it into a disposable plastic shopping bag that I hang on the door handle.  I throw the bag away each day.  This keeps paper waste, which is difficult to remove, out of the blackwater tank.

2. Before making a solid deposit into the toilet, pump a little water into the bowl.  (Hold the flush valve open but don’t let the drain open.)  That way, solids can begin mixing with water and flow down into the drain with the final flush.

3. Don’t empty the black water tank until it is at least 2/3 full.  If you want to empty it before this, pour water (gray water or fresh water) down the toilet to increase the fluid level.  This will help flush the tank when you are ready to empty it.

4. Don’t rely on the idiot indicator lights on the tank levels gauge.  (They are notoriously wrong.)  Look into the toilet to see how full it is.  It holds 30 gallons so it will take a while to fill the black water tank.

BLACK WATER TANK CLEANING (AFTER YOU HAVE DUMPED IT)

1. Add water (gray or clean or from toilet flush) to the black water tank via the toilet.

2. Put on Nitrile gloves and, if desired, disposable shoe covers.

3. Connect sewer clean-out hose (located in the black round tube under the A Frame) to Black Water clean-out and place open end in dump station drain.

4. Open the black water tank valve and let the black water tank contents flow out.  Make sure there is positive drainage flow in the sewer clean-out hose.

5. You can add clean or gray water to the toilet if you want a “clean flush” after the initial flush.

6. Once the flow has ended, close the black tank valve and move the sewer clean-out hose to the gray water flush valve.

7. Open the gray water flush valve so the tank can drain into the dump station drain.  Emptying the black water drain first means the gray water draining will help clean out the sewer clean-out hose!

8. Close the gray water flush valve.  Keep both ends of the sewer clean-out hose in the air while carrying it to a hose bib at the dump station.  Fill the hose with dump station water until the entire hose is full.  Then, drain the hose into the sewer drain.

9. Cap the sewer line and stow it away.

10. Hose down the black and gray water drains, the sewer drain and the area around the sewer drain.

11. Go in to the bathroom and pour 2 ounces of Calgon into the toilet drain.

12. Add a chemical packet to the toilet drain.

13. Flush the toilet, adding a gallon or two of water to the black water tank. 

14. Remove your gloves and any shoe covers sanitarily and dispose of them properly.

15. Wash (soapy water) or cleanse (hand sanitizer) your hands thoroughly.