Gray tank odor

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Z

zukIzzy

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Joined
Oct 30, 2007
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430
Maybe you all can help with this one.

About a year ago I noticed a weird Odor in the back of the coach after driving for a while. Since I am the only one who drives it was hard for me to pinpoint where it came from. After much trial and error we found that the Odor was coming from the Shower and if we filled up the trap with water by running the shower for a bit the smell would stop for a while. Our short term solution was to buy a simple drain plug for the shower and close the shink drains before traveling. I also noticed while dumping that the Gray smelled worse than the Black tank. Not the same just worse, really sharp and bitter. I took it to a local dealer and he recomended a bleach cleaning and a internal preasure wash, this helped for a few weeks then the smell was back. I have just been beaching when the Odor starts and recently found a Gray tank treatment that really seems to work but costs a lot and I have to use it after dumping and before traveling. Where we go the option to dump before we travel is not viable.

Any clues tips hints?

Wayne
 
For reasons that have been discussed at length elsewhere in the forum, you shouldn't be putting bleach in your holding tanks.  The gray water will smell as bad, or worse, than the black water.  The best solution is to keep water in the traps, or plug those that you can't, as you've discovered.  Also, if you travel with any roof vents open, it's possible that odors can be drawn in from the vent pipes, so we always run the exhaust fan when the vents are open.

Many of us use no chemicals at all in our holding tanks and let the natural microbial action take care of the contents.  If you add anything, make it something like Rid-X that's used for septic systems.
 
It is possible that the problem you are experiencing may be self inflicted.  Have you been using any products in your tanks containing formaldehyde?  If so that could very well be one of the problems.  Formaldehyde is an excellent preservative and doesn't belong in the waste tanks unless for some reason one wants to preserve the contents of their waste tanks.  By adding bleach to your tank you have added to the problem since the bleach also kills off the bacteria that helps break things down.  Like Ned mentioned many of us use no chemicals at all in our tanks and don't experience the problems you are.  If you must add something to your tank use Ridex as Ned suggested or Roebic #67.

There is a possibility that your vent pipe to the roof may be plugged.  It has been known for hornets or mud daubers to build their homes in such places.

I recommend you flush your tank throughly then add about 1/2 cup of Dawn dishwashing liquid (not the antibacterial kind) fill the tank about 1/2 to 3/4 full then drive around to slosh thing around.  Drain and flush tank again leaving about one 1/4 tank of water.  then add Roebic -K67 about 3 cap fulls to the tank and let it set until you are ready to drain the tanks again.  Also add Roebic K-67 to the drains using the instructions on the bottle.

 
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