Terrible Odor

[edatlanta]

Last fall after being on a full hookup site for months I went to a car race where there were no hookups so my gray tanks were closed in addition to the black tank. After a couple of days the "stuff" in the kitchen gray tank started to get wet and stink. The smell was amazing and after a dump by the honey wagon and a gallon of bleach added to the tank all was well. Now to last week:

I was on my home base site and mid-afternoon a horrible odor was noted. I thought it was the kitchen gray tank again even though I have been putting a little glug of bleach in it after each dump since last fall. That didn't stop the smell. I filled and the tank completely and dumped 3-4 times. I bought some specific gray tank chemical and instead the recommended 4 ounces per treatment I put all 32 ounces (the smell was that bad). The smell started setting off my CO/LP detector which I had to remove since it was hard wired. I slept at night with the windows open and both exhaust fans running. Fortunately the smell was mainly in the rear living area and not in the bedroom.

The odor got a little better this past Friday after a 250 mile tow to my summer host crampground, but was still present. Then this past Sunday it was gone. That was when it finally occurred to me what it had to be. I think a critter of some kind crawled up in my enclosed belly and died and the decomposition time was about a week. My home base site has numerous chipmunks around so I'm thinking it might have been one of them. The methane created by decomposition would set off the CO/LP detector so when the odor stopped I reinstalled the CO/LP detector and no issues with it (it is not even 2 years old at this point).

The trials of full time RV'ing.

[edatlanta]

The Air Valve on my 5'er is in under the bath sink and it is fine and free. The bleach killed the bacteria that remained after the gray tank was dumped and also cleaned the tank level probes. Again, have had zero problems with the gray tanks since last fall. This latest issue was a critter that died, I just thought it was gray tank issues again. I haven't opened things up yet to see what it was and I probably won't. I have crawled underneath and looked for points that something could get in with no success, but we all know little critters can be very creative.

[Beverley_Ken]

x2 on the Air Admittance Valve, probably under the kitchen sink. That would account for the bleach or other chemicals fixing the problem for a short time, then return when new gray water is added.

Ken

[Clay_L]

The waste system is sealed except for the roof vents. If you smell an odor there is a problem that needs to be fixed (unless you are flushing with a ceiling fan running).
One of the most common things that causes odor are the air admittance valves under the sinks that may not be sealing properly. They can usually be unscrewed by hand and replaced with new ones - available at many hardware stores. Other things are traps that the water has evaporated from,

[pconroy328]

I heard a mouse in the wall in my house in Texas once. I have no idea how he got in between the studs on the interior wall in the laundry room. But for days I could hear him scratching at the base.

Then the scratching stopped.
Then the smell started.

How one little mouse could smell that bad for that long...
I've never forgotten that.

Wife's gone around the RV with "Stuff" closing up every opening she could see.

[Wishbone51]

How did the dump and bleach temporarily cure the issue?

[ReneeG]

On our first trip in 2010 with our new fifth wheel, we stayed at Baker's Hole FS CG near Yellowstone. Twice we were awakened by a chipmunk in our kitchen, or at least it sounded like that. We checked the underbelly and found a mushroom shoved up under an area in the slide. We took it out and on to the next CG. When we got home, we crawled under the fifth wheel and using foam, plugged all the areas we could see they could get in and put wire mesh behind the vent under the fridge. No other problems since and we went back to the same CG later. Fast forward five years to this past February when we took our unit in to get a complete solar system installed. Behind the storage wall and up in the wiring harness the shop guys found enough mushrooms to fill a plastic grocery bag! Luckily no wiring had been chewed at all. The shop inspected everything for us. The shop guys were teasing us and wondering what other stuff we were smuggling besides the magic mushrooms!

[edatlanta]

Thanks for the thought, I really needed that....haha.

I'm not worried about my power cord since it is in full time use and is always outside where I can see it, but other stuff? We shall see I guess.

[Deb_and_Ed_M]

Put this in the back of your mind: IF you had a critter in your RV - it might have chewed on wiring??

I pulled my shore power cord out to plug in our 5er last fall - only to discover that some rodent (probably mice) had chewed the outer insulation off about 5' of it - and in a few places, had chewed through the inner insulation, exposing the copper wires....