Black Tank Smells. Does my 5th wheel have a roof vent?

[AaronLala]

Hey everyone. I just started living in my Jayco 5th wheel. It's an Eagle FLFS 2014. I watched a video where a guy followed his black and grey tank exhaust pipe up into the walls where for some reason it just stopped. They never finished running it all the way through to the ceiling. I'm not able to get onto my ceiling or in my walls to see if this is the case but I have noticed that the cupboards where I keep a lot of my clothes and certain parts of the trailer smell like sewage or like a port-a-potty. I have done everything I've seen online or that I can think of myself to keep my black tank from smelling but I wanted to see if there was a way I could find out if my particular make and model of 5th wheel does for sure have a black tank exhaust pipe on the ceiling? Also does anyone have any ideas or suggestions to get rid of this smell? I also noticed that some people in my trailer park have rigged their exhaust pipes on poles away from their trailer closer to the hook ups. Is that normal? Thans!

[dxrobertson]

All RVs with a black tank are vented from the top of the tank up and out the roof of the RV. If you can get onto the roof, you can see there should be a vent for the black and other(s) for all grey tanks.

Its certainly possible that the complete vent pipe was not installed, Its also possible that at some point the black tank vent pipe became disconnected at the tank, because it wasnt glued at time of install.

I myself have never seen rigging of black tank exhaust closer to the hookups. That doent make any sense; the vent goes inside the trailer and out the roof. Sometimes in permanent park installs, the tanks are removed and more traditional mobile home hookups are installed. Not sure what is done with vents.

There are creative ways to test vent connections, maybe someone else will elaborate.

As for the tank itself and smell, keeping water in it helps. After empty, add a couple inch water to the tank, dont be too conservative with water usage, but also no need to be wasteful. Never leave black tank valve open. You might try some of the tank cleaning methods you find on the net.

[craigav]

Search here in the forums as well as elsewhere (youtube perhaps) for information related to the "air admittance valve"(s) and locate yours and clean\inspect them. Many RV'rs believe they have a black tank odor situation (and certainly sometimes they do), but many more times it is the air admittance valve not sealing which goes to the gray tank. ~CA

[ARoamer]

Also if i remember correctly another rv er recently posted their vent pipe was cut too short and there was a gap between the pipe and roof cap, tank vent was actually venting inside into their a/c duct.

[citgodan]

Also - be sure to check your battery. We had a battery go bad giving off a horrible smell. I thought our blank tank had an issue, but turns out my battery was hot, burning to the touch and giving off a horrible sulfur smell that tricked me into thinking it was black tank smell inside the camper. This issue had me on top of my 5th looking for a clogged air vent. Once I opened up the battery compartment - boom! there was the source.

Just a thought...

[Jagiven]

I would check your air admittance valve (yes it is a real thing). It is under your sink, you will see a Tee that that has an odd cap on it. That is it. Sometimes they get stuck open, and grey water sewer gases come into the bathroom (smells like what you would expect from the black tank). I believe there is one under your kitchen sink too.

RV dealers use the cheapest ones possible, and sometimes they stick open.

Here is a sample of what they generally look like.

https://www.amazon.com/Wal-Rich-2430...%2C149&sr=8-16