Help! Sewer gases backing up into bathroom, pew.

Good afternoon everyone,

We are on our maiden voyage with our 09 North Trail 21FBS. Today when we were showering we started to smell the sewer gases in the bathroom. When we opened the closet in the bathroom the smell was very strong, the strongest of any area. When we aren't showering the smell goes down in the cabinet but is still there. We dumped yesterday and added the chemical to the toilet, no problem until this mornings showers. We don't know where to start troubleshooting to solve this problem, any help would be greatly appreciated. By the way, we love our new trailer :), just wish we could get the smell thing figured out:confused:.

Thanks,

Brandon & Christine (aka ShreddedPork)
 

Uncle Rog

Well-known member
SP, we have been converted to the GEO method of treating the holding tanks. You might want to start by making sure the sewer vent is not plugged, not sure how to do that. If you follow the link and read the entire piece you might want to start by filling and dumping the tanks a couple of times, or not if you are without hook ups, to get them as clean as you can to start with. If you follow the directions you should be smell free, we are..........

http://rvecafe.com/bwater.html

We substitute Borax for the water softener when we run out, the white king D etc is hard to find locally......
 

deee2

Well-known member
Don't be offended if you already know this, but just in case you don't... make sure you have all your valves closed so no fumes, etc come up into the coach. Open them only to empty.
 
Not offended at all. It has been over twenty years since I was in an RV with my parents. We just traded in our tent to start RVing. So should the gray be closed when we are showering? or is it ok to leave the gray open when we are hooked to the sewer?

I'm getting ready to climb up and check the vent pipe now. Does anyone know, should I have two separate vents for gray and black?

Thanks for all the help,

SP
 

jbeletti

Well-known member
ShreddedPork,

Still love that username :D

You found the right place on the Internet to learn more about your RV and RVing in general. You will find the tone here to be much different (refreshing) than you will find on a few other (larger) forums.

A member of this forum also started his own North Trail Talk forum so do check that out too as they have plenty North Trail specific discussions there.

That said, most things are just RV basics that pertain to most RVs so please fire away. At times if you find your thread has been moved, don't be alarmed. It's just one of the 5 moderators doing house keeping, moving threads to the most relevant forums here. In most cases, they will leave a 3-day expiring redirect in the old spot so people can catch up.

Have fun!

Jim
 

deee2

Well-known member
No, don't leave any valves open! They all lead to the same place, the icky sewer and gases and smells! Empty before your shower if you think you're close, and then take a forever shower and ENJOY!

Donna :)
 

kakampers

Past Heartland Ambassador
We just recently had the same problem with the kitchen sink. Everytime I drained dishwater into the holding tank we had a really bad odor problem. Alot of research and investigation on our own unit...we discovered it was the grey tank pressure being more than the inside of the RV. This causes fumes to back up into the interior of the coach. We changed the vent on the top of the vent stack to one of the rotating type...this spins in the wind and allows the gases to be sucked out, thereby reducing the pressure in the tank! NO MORE SMELL...immediately!

Each tank has it's own vent stack, and I'd be willing to bet you are experiencing the same problem in your bathroom grey tank...can't hurt to change the vent. Grey tanks will almost always smell worse than the black tank....Good Luck.
 
Thanks everyone for the advice. To start we did have both valves closed this morning when this occurred, what's wierd is that when we opened the gray this afternoon, I don't seem to be able to get the smell again. No pressure, no smell?

We did clean both tanks really well this afternoon.

I looked on the roof and we only have one roof vent, now I'm really confused because when I pulled the access panel in the bathroom, there are two vent pipes heading toward the roof.:confused: Anyone have any ideas where the other pipe goes?

We are going to close all the valves and try things again in the morning like today.

Thanks again, I'll let you know how things go.

SP
 
Well, the morning today was about 15 degrees cooler and had no wind, other than that everything else was the same. Today we had no smell. Maybe the pressure thing is where the problem was. I think we are going to put the spinning vent cap on. Kakampers, where could we find that? I'm still confused why we only have one vent?

Thanks everyone for all the help,

SP
 

newbie

Northern Virginia
Thanks everyone for the advice. To start we did have both valves closed this morning when this occurred, what's wierd is that when we opened the gray this afternoon, I don't seem to be able to get the smell again. No pressure, no smell?

We did clean both tanks really well this afternoon.

I looked on the roof and we only have one roof vent, now I'm really confused because when I pulled the access panel in the bathroom, there are two vent pipes heading toward the roof.:confused: Anyone have any ideas where the other pipe goes?

We are going to close all the valves and try things again in the morning like today.

Thanks again, I'll let you know how things go.

SP

You have two vent pipes, one each for the grey and black tanks. They should tee together just before penetrating the roof and share the same roof vent.

The same applies to house sewer vents. Otherwise you would have a roof vent for every sink, shower and drain in the house.

John
 

htneighbors

Unbelievably Blessed!
Don't be offended if you already know this, but just in case you don't... make sure you have all your valves closed so no fumes, etc come up into the coach. Open them only to empty.

Just wondering here...are there not P-traps on these drains to hold liquid - to prevent odors from coming inside the coach? :confused:
 

deee2

Well-known member
Well, I'm not sure of the correct wording on this. You can leave your hoses hooked up to your black and gray tanks all the time. Only open the valves to empty. If you leave the valves open, yes... the odors and gas fumes will come right back up into your tanks. Then, every time you use your drains in the coach, you smell/get them.

If I'm wrong here, someone enlighten me. Thanks!

Donna ;)
 

Jimmyt5

Well-known member
You should not get gray tank smell because of P-Traps in sink and shower,
Sometimes when you first get on the road the water in the traps has evaporated,this goes away as soon as you use them...

Jim
 

leftyf

SSG Stumpy-VA Terrorist
The stink from the kitchen sink will knock you down...and there is water in the p-traps. Only seems to happen when water is draining.

I'm having better vent caps put on next week.:mad:
 

Pulltab

Well-known member
I haven't bothered to read all the responses and I don't think you have said but are you using the exhaust fan when this happens? If so you need to open a window somewhere in the rig as it pulls air from the easiest place and if the p trap is dry it sucks it right out of the grey tank.
 
We did have the exhaust vent going the day it happened. I don't recall if the window was open. We haven't a problem since we cleaned all the tanks real good. This was our maiden voyage, unfortunately we haven't had a lot of time during the last month to go again, but I have checked the trailer as it sits on the side of the house, all hooked up, and no problems. Still going to throw a rotating vent cap on, just to be safe. Thanks everyone for all the help and advice on making sure we are doing this right. We have several trips planned in September and are dying to get back out there.

Take care,

SP
 
I own a Big Horn (3370RL) and had the same problem this weekend. I plan on changing all the holding tank vents. Is there a way to tell which vents are for holding tanks or are all vents just for holding tanks?

thank you

Randy
 
Hi Randy,

Our trailer is pretty small compared to yours and we only have one vent cap to change out, I'm not sure how yours is. Prior to our nine night trip at the beginning of september, I put in some gray tank deodorant just to be safe, not a single problem. Good luck!

Brandon
 

scott b

Active Member
odor

There is a vent system called xtreme vent from coilnwrap that will eliminate all holding tank odors . We put in our trailer and it woked great. The website is www.coilnwrap.com , they have a bunch of cool gadgets for your trailer. Good Luck .Scott
 
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