All my previous campers had Dometic toilets in them and they were very easy to service, especially when it came time to put a new seal in the bottom of the bowl.
My High Country came with a Thetford and it's been nothing but a pain in the arse (literally) since the first day. The seal on the bowl never did work right. So, after 2 attempted repairs (yes, removing it from the floor, turning it over, separating it into two halves, replacing the seal, gooping it up with all kinds of grease, reassembling the thing, and then anchoring it back to the floor, really is a pain in the arse too ... especially when the thing still leaked with the new seals!)
We'll, first thing on my list after returning from the North Carolina gig was to replace that toilet with a Dometic 310. Today I did! And that dang old Thetford was a pain in the arse to the very end (yea ... pun intended).
We have the Bidet attached and I wanted to keep the Bidet on the new toilet. But getting that thing off was awful. The bolts that hold the seat on were so rusted up, even though the nuts were plastic, I ended up having to just bust the ceramic bowl and then took the seat with the attached bidet to my grinder and grind the dang things off. I'm glad I did not attempt swapping out the toilets while camping. I could have never done it without a hax saw and a grinder. But finally! Success.
Here's the old one. I ended up dropping it into our trash dumpster and continued breaking it up with a hand held sledge hammer. It's in a hundred shattered pieces now. Good by and audiose you piece of crap (pun intended).
Here's the new one, installed with the Bidet all cleaned up:
Now, one more thing I did while I had the toilet off the floor. I cleaned my black tank extra good.
Here's something I found out. When I took the toilet off the flange, I noticed a considerable amount of (well, you know) on the bottom just sitting there. No toilet paper, we have the Bidet ... remember!
So, I decided to go ahead and hook up the black tank flusher with the garden hose. We're at home, I can use all the water and take all the time I want.
I turned on the black tank flusher and then went inside the camper and with a flash light watched down the hole. And to my unpleasant surprise, nothing really moved! The tank was emptied before I started this and I thought it was pretty clean. Well, it wasn't.
So I sat there for about 5 minutes watching the water just swirl around this little island in the bottom of the tank, directly below the hole I was looking through. It NEVER moved!
So much for the wonders of the black tank flusher! Pretty much useless!
I then went and got my black tank toilet wand. I attached it to the garden hose and with flashlight strap wrapped around the other arm I observed what was happening down that hole. Now everything was moving and within a few seconds, that little island was completely gone. I could see the bottom of the tank and the water running out the sewer hose (clear section of hose) I the water was coming out pretty clear. The mud slide had left the mountain!
So, here's the bottom line and what I learned. Black tank flushers don't really do much at all. I think.... we ALL THINK ... it does, but in actual practice, nope. I do think it helps clear out some stuff, but no near as much as we'd all like to think.
No remember, my tank has no toilet paper in it at all. Hasn't had toilet paper in 3 years now (because of the Bidet). I can't imagine how much TP clings inside that tank, even with the black tank flusher.
On the plus side, that black tank toilet hose wand seems to work the absolute best and truly knocks the crap (pun intended again) out of that tank.
So, today was a success, admist the frustration of plastic bolts that were welded with rust to those bolts, it was a good day!
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