Left black tank clean out hose on!

[rideadeuce]

So all I have to say is thanks to a good neighbor at the campground and thankfully I had just emptied the grey and black tank, and that the Ollie is as waterproof inside as it is outside. I had hooked up the black tank clean out turned it on and got distracted with kids, dog, etc. we were getting ready to leave to check out the rest of the campground for the afternoon. We went back to our campsite after an urgent phone from the camp office to check on our camper. Like I said earlier, thanks to a fellow camper they had shut off the water coming from the spigot and helped a bad situation from getting worse. When we walked up there was water running out the front door and about 2-3 in had settled to the rear interior hallway and made its way all the way back up to the front door. After about an hour of bailing, cleaning and disinfecting I have to say it could have been worse. Not a drop in the basement. The shower drain valve was open and from what I saw when I came in, the sequence of water over-flow was not from up through the toilet but rather up through the shower drain, over the shower stall wall and into the hallway. SO hopefully that was our big one for this trip. Always an adventure. Sharing this to help others avoid the same mistake.  On to the great state of MI to see my Dad.

[Townesw]

If you left water flowing into the black tank clean out then the water in your floor came up through the toilet. Not up through the shower drain. The water may have first filled the grey tank and then the shower pan and then your trailer but it came up through the toilet first.  But what doesn’t make sense is how did the water get past the gate in the bottom of the toilet bowl? Was your grey tank full after you discovered the problem? Was your toilet bowl full?

[rideadeuce]

I know it doesn’t make any sense to me neither. The toilet bowl was clean and at normal level, the area around the bowl was clean. Since I wasn’t here to see the water flow, hard to say, maybe it slowly leaked out of bowl and filled gray tank retrograde through the shower. But both tanks were full when we came back. The only strange thing to me is the toilet bowl definitely looked untouched.

[Townesw]

Check the condition of the gasket in the bottom of your bowl. The pressure from the clean out hose may have blown the seal out of place which would explain the water coming up and then receding once your neighbor turned the faucet off.

[Landrover]

I feel for you. I had the same experience with my airstream, lucky i caught it just as the water was coming onto the floor from the shower stall. It was a hard clean up with a wet plywood floor. Days with a fan on to dry out.  My big mistake with the Ollie is forgetting to pull the  valve in the shower stall. Wet feet makes you remember. Even though I’ve been rving for many years their are still times you forget  or things you haven’t experienced before. These mistakes make for good camp fire story’s down the road.

[STEVEnBETTY]

Water will take the path of least resistance, with your toilet flush valve closed, the water was forced down the drain line to the black tank valve and up the gray and into your shower pan.

 

Steve

[rideadeuce]

From what I saw, that makes more sense.

[Townesw]

So both the black tank and grey tank drains were left open and the drain line was capped at the rear of the camper?

[rideadeuce]

Both valves were closed.

[ScubaRx]

I left the Facebook folks guessing on this issue.

 

Sequence of events:

 

Flushing water fills the black tank. It can’t escape up through the toilet bowl because of the flushing valve mechanism.

 

Water begins to travel up the black tank vent pipe toward the roof. This is the black pipe you see transversing the inside of the common wall between the bathroom and closet.

 

Water would exit the roof in a geyser of excrement (just like in the movie RV) except it encounters a tee in the vent system that leads back to the gray tank and the bathroom drains.

 

Taking the path of least resistance, the water flows back downhill into the drain system finding the lowest point - the shower pan.

 

From here, two things can happen both with the same ultimate end.

 

If the back-flow preventer valve on the shower drain system is open the water will eventually fill the gray tank, exit from the shower drain, fill the bathroom to the level of the door, overflow into the coach, run out the door and covers the earth with your poop.

 

If the back-flow preventer valve on the shower drain system is closed the same thing will happen, only quicker since it doesn’t have to fill the gray tank first.

[rideadeuce]

Wow, nice explanation! That matches what I observed when I got there. The shower drain valve was open and the gray tank was full (which had me puzzled until now) because the toilet bowl did not overflow. Thanks again.

[mossemi]

Once again the “SME” shines the light so the rest of us can see.

 

Thanks Steve,

 

Mike

[STEVEnBETTY]

Yeah, what he said!

[ScubaRx]

Thanks, folks. We had this happen once and it took me a couple of days to figure out how it could happen.

 

Flushing the black tank is just one of those things that we have to monitor closely while we’re doing it.

 

Remember, this can’t happen while the the black tank dump valve is open.

 

Tali and I make it a two person job. I watch the toilet inside and she operates the dump valve outside. The day our incident occurred, I was outside talking to someone and got distracted (imagine that!)

[Mike and Carol]

Like Steve and Tali, Carol and I make dumping a two person job. I’m outside and she is inside watching the readout and tells me when we hit 80 or 85%. I don’t hook the flush hose to the trailer until we’re ready to dump. I use one of those expanding hoses so I know if the water is on because it expands. It’s black and is a single use hose. It attaches to the faucet via a splitter with a back flow preventer and on/off valves for each side of the splitter.

 

I’m a bit paranoid about a black tank “accident”. We had an incident coming down a hill at Quartzsite with a near full tank due to an unattached black tank vent pipe which resulted in some spillage under the bathroom sink. Another time I noticed the hose felt full as we were setting up at a new site. I didn’t know if it was black or gray. I was able too attach a second hose section which gave enough slack to attach to the dump while holding the middle of the hose up. Turns out I had something stuck at the black valve preventing it from closing all the way. Those were both 2-3 years ago.  So, I’ve become methodical and deliberate, checking and then checking again!  Mike

[DavidS]

Sometimes I need to dump and flush the black tank when I am alone. My solution was to buy a small digital water meter that I leave attached to the black tank flush hose. The black tank holds 18.5 gallons, so I usually halt the flush when it hits 14 gallons.

 

[KWRJRPE]

This discussion reminds me one of the reasons I got a composting toilet. Just sayin

[Corcomi]

ScubaRX since I was the one who,posted having the black water episode I now understand how the sewer water came out the shower drain. With your explication can I ask if there is now a way to sanitize the sewer water that went up the black pipe vent ?

[Overland]

Trained mice with little disinfectant scrubbers on their feet.  That's the usual way.

 

I wouldn't worry about your vent pipes.  They're stinky by design.

[mossemi]

Trained mice with little disinfectant scrubbers on their feet.  That’s the usual way.

 

???

 

I saw some at PetSmart and didn’t understand their purpose.  And now I know the rest of the story.?

 

Mike

[Landrover]

Most of the instructions for black tank sprayer say keep the black drain valve open while using the flushing system. But i also like to keep it closed for a short time to fill the tank then have it flush out. I can see it would be a two person operation 18 gals is a small tank and will fill quickly.

[STEVEnBETTY]

Flushing out the black tank doesn’t have to be a two man (or woman) job, that’s what the valve on the inside under the forward dinette seat is for. Unless it’s been deleted from the newer trailers.

[Mike and Carol]

[postquote quote=180972][/postquote]

Yes, it doesn’t have to be a two person job. It’s just how we like to do it. If I was camping single I would use the valve to stop the flush then go out and dump. It’s quicker as a team. I like to dump, then fill and dump two more times. It’s always clear at the end. Mike

[ScubaRx]

[postquote quote=180897][/postquote]

The easiest way to do it would be to close the shower back-flow valve. Cover the shower drain with duct tape (it may still leak back a little.) Remove the cover from the vent pipe on the outside top of the trailer. Mix up the disinfectant of your choice (several gallons.) Pour it down the vent tube. Let it sit for a while. Open the shower back-flow valve and let it drain into your gray tank. I’d then fill the gray tank on up with water and disinfectant a let it sit overnight. Empty gray tank and flush with fresh water.

 

Or, if you can get some of those trained mice...

[Townesw]

I had to go in under the bathroom sink to work on the faucet. I’ll post about that later.

 

Took some pictures while I was in there to show Steve’s explanation of the black water to grey tank to shower drain path.