You know that scene in the movie RV where Robin Williams’ motorhome spews raw sewage into the sky? Well, just so you know, that is quite possible, as I managed to prove this evening.
I emptied the holding tanks, and then turned on the black tank flush. This forces clean water into the holding tank to force out excess waste. I waited a few minutes, then went back and turned off the fresh water spigot and closed the holding tanks. At least I thought that’s what I did. Then I took the dogs on a walk.
By the time I got back to the camper, Lex poked her head out the door and reported that “something is going on.” That’s never what I want to hear, not ever. What was happening was that the fresh water spigot hadn’t been turned off but instead had been turned on full blast right before I closed the holding tank dump valve. That means that fresh water mixed in with all the sludge that manages to build up in the tank into which our toilet flushes, and when the tank filled with liquid, it had nowhere to go but up.
Fortunately, RVs have built-in emergency vents should just this sort of idiocy occur. So raw sewage soup went shooting up out of this vent all over our roof and poured down the sides of the RV. When the pressure built up in the vent pipe wasn’t released fast enough, the sewage soup finally started to back up into the toilet itself. Apparently, the pressure was pretty high because there were feces and bits of toilet paper all over my bathroom walls and floors. It took a whole lot of towels, Clorox, rubber gloves, and trash bags to get the place cleaned up.
So, moral of the story: when turning a strange water faucet off, make sure to stick around for a moment and be certain that the faucet off, especially if it’s connected to a tank full of shit.
And now I’ll be taking a shower, thanks.
I will take this moral to heart and live my life accordingly.
Guess this proves that not all movies are totally fiction.
Second moral of the story – always let the other half do the tanks, that way you have someone to yell at! Love the tale – happy travels!
No fun! We had a similar problem last year. We had been on the road for 8 months or so and my sweety, who is usually very capable, thought he had the dump protocol down flat. Only he had been emptying a gray tank, then the black tank, then the other gray tank, instead of the black, then the 2 gray tanks. (As you can guess, we have 3 tanks.) He thought he had emptied the black tank and proceeded to ‘flush’ it. It was full and backed up all over the bathroom! UGH!!!! Lots of cleaning there too. Not a story I will let him know I posted here.
After a year and a half of RV’ing, there are several other stories I think I’ll keep to myself for now.