Bathroom smell

I am having an odor/smell problem in the bathroom. The toilet bowl holds water over an extended time with no leakage. The seal is in tact and doing its job. I cannot identify the source/cause of the odor. Has anyone else had this problem and found a remedy? If so, please help!

Another problem is the bathroom basin drains very slowly unless I open and close the plunger a few times. Any ideas?

MLJ, Ours seems to get a bad odor when the black tank is nearing the full mark. It may have something to do with the vent stack. I'm not sure why but that's what happens with ours.
For the sink drain, go to your local hardware store and pick up a bottle of the good drain cleaner. I use the Drano HD stuff. Follow the directions on the label. Make sure you let it set for a while. You can also get one of them hair grabbers that you shove down the drain and pull back out with a bunch of gook attached to it. Then do the Drano solution.

Since you have an older rig, you might want to check the plumbing in the basement to the black tank and make sure nothing has come loose. And are your gray tank valves closed or open, with the sewer hose connected to the dump? If you leave them open, bad odors can work their way back into the rig.

My plumber once told me to dump some bleach into all the drains when I would get offensive odors in a lake cabin we had. He said sometimes the water in traps dissipates and allows the odor to escape through the drain. Don't know if the same is true for RVs.

See how close the black water vent stack is on the roof in relation to the vent in the ceiling. It's usually real close to the wall next to the toilet. Remember that cool draft coming down at you as you sat and pondered or freshly showered and the chill that made you shiver, down drafting by the vent I think?
Len

sink problem is easy....first the person in your rig with the long hair needs to help. Pull the drain plug out and poke in with your finger (OK use tweezers) and pull out the long hairs caught in the drain screen down 1"-2" from sink. Repeat AS NEEDED when that person plugs it up again.
Len

Could be the vacuum valve under the bathroom sink, located off the drain pipe via a "T" connection. Could account for both of your problems...

I've noticed that the fantastic fan is so powerful that if I have it on for extended period of time I will also get a sewer smell coming from the black tank, its especially noticable if I forget to open the vent in the toilet room.

My bathroom sink used to have a foul smell also, I took off the trap underneith the sink and cleaned it out with bleach, put it back together and ran a little bleach down the overflow hole and I have never had a smell since. Its been about 2 years now.

Just has been my experiance,
Bobby

I agree Bobby, The Fantastic Fan pulling air out of the RV creates a vacuum. Open a window helps but may not be enough. When I have the Bathroom Ceiling vent open and the Fantastic Fan running... I get odors that come from the black tank vent on the roof, near the bathroom ceiling vent opening. when running the Fantastic Fan... close the Bathroom Ceiling vent.

For the Sink drain running slowly... Hair most likely is building up on the drain plunger. The hair gets glued to the plunger because of the typed of products flowing down the drain. Hair Conditioner... Bar Type Soap... Shaving Cream.... Hair Jels..... they tend to stick to the plastic if the plunger. Loosen the thread collar that hold the plunger in place... pull the plunger out and clean it well... and your drain will probably flow much better. Want to do a complete cleaning... also clean the Sink drain Trap. You'll be surprised at the amount of "Stuff" that comes out.

I agree with one other poster. Check your vacuum breaker / vent under the sink (kitchen too). Gray water tanks are prone to smelling WAY worse than any black water tank will. Any negative pressure in the rig or downdraft down the vent stacks will that odor right inside if the sink vents aren't working properly. The ones installed by the manufacturers are really cheap. They can be easily checked by putting a baggie over it and securing tightly with a rubber band for a couple days. Easy to check, cheap and easy to fix.

Is it a sewer odor or just a musty basement odor? If you have a pocket door to your bathroom get a flash light and shine it trough that opening and see if the wall or floor is un-finished back there. Put your nose in the opening and see if you can feel/smell any air coming through. I found with the fans running and if you didnt have enough windows open it would pull air through the pocket door from the basement. Wasnt a real pungent smell but not good either. I sealed of the areas as best I could underneath and put a few air fresheners in the basement behind the bulk head and opened more windows when we use the fans. Much better now.

Be careful with some of the Drano products they generate a lot heat have seen it distort pvc pipe which will cause leaks.

The sewer smell would be through the toilet that is highly unlikely or the vent on top of your RV.Depending on the wind
direction you could be drawing the smell from the vent through a fantastic fan or A/C back into the RV.
Another source of a sewer like smell is a propane leak and don't forget it takes a while to get rid of a propane smell
because it settles at low points in your Rv.Another source of sewer like smell is an overheating battery so check on
that also.I have encountered the same smell from all three sources so check them all.

If your battery is bad and the converter is trying to charge it, the off gases smell a lot like sewer gas. It happened to us this summer and we searched everywhere we could think of but only after we replaced the battery did the smell go away. Good luck. Ken

Birchwood said:

The sewer smell would be through the toilet that is highly unlikely or the vent on top of your RV.Depending on the wind
direction you could be drawing the smell from the vent through a fantastic fan or A/C back into the RV.
Another source of a sewer like smell is a propane leak and don't forget it takes a while to get rid of a propane smell
because it settles at low points in your Rv.Another source of sewer like smell is an overheating battery so check on
that also.I have encountered the same smell from all three sources so check them all.

Click to expand...

Good catch. Now that I remember back our first Bighorn had a sewer smell in the bathroom. Thought it was coming from the clothes washer drain which we do not use. Put a plug on that and it still smelled a day later I went down to the propane compartment with a bottle of soapy water and found a leaking connection at the regulator. Tightened it up and the smell went away.