RV Black Tank Advice from the “RV Proctologist”

One of the most common questions we get deals with the RV black tank and how to keep it clean and odor free. This week in Episode 406 of the RV Podcast, we interview a true expert - Steve Korsvall, aka "the RV Proctologist."

For the past 15 years Steve has run his RV Proctologist business in Quartzsite, AZ, helping RVers with their black and grey tanks. 

Quartzsite is well known in RV circles. With an annual population of 3,700, Quartzsite grows during the winter months to a population of hundreds of thousand - with most of the new arrivals being RVers.

And when these visiting RVers experience problems with their black or grey tanks, Steve is there to help. He helps those in the RV parks and helps those boondocking in the BLM desert.

And boy, has he seen it all.

You can watch the full and unedited interview with Steve on our RV Lifestyle YouTube channel by clicking below:

If you'd like to just listen to the audio version of the RV Podcast, it's available on all your favorite podcast apps or by clicking the player below.

For those who prefer reading, here's an edited transcript of our interview with Steve Korsvall, "the RV Proctologist":

The Most Common RV black tank problem – Not enough water

The black water tank is directly below the bathroom (gravity is your friend) behind the power step on the passenger side. The sheet metal box protects the macerator from road debris. The emergency dump port is the large plug at the center.

Mike Wendland:

Well, if anybody has seen their share of RV black tank issues, it is the RV proctologist, and because so many RV-ers spend so much time in Quartzsite, that's probably ground zero for black and gray tank problems. What's the most common problem that people have when they're trying to manage RV gray and black tanks?

Steve:

Steve Korsvall, "the RV Protologist"

Most of the time... I'm going to tell you a quick little story right off the bat. It was a client that called us out of Salome out here. He had a brand new fifth wheel. He had less than a month, and I get out there and we start hydro jetting the RV black tank. So what happens is, we're out there, and all of a sudden, as we're hydro jetting, a whole container of chemicals comes out of the shoot, and we stopped it before it went into the system.

So we talked to the owner and said, "What in the heck is this chemical bottle doing in your RV black tank?" He says, "Well, when I bought this, the salesman never told me how to use the tank. So he told me, 'Just throw the whole bottle into the tank.'" And so I said, "You got to be kidding me." I said, "All right, let me ask what you did. Did you put any water in the tank?" "No. Nobody told me to put water in the tank.

So when you have a 40 gallon tank and it's a fifth wheel, you always have to start off with a minimum of five gallons of water in that tank. And what we recommend throw a cup of Dawn Dishwasher Soap down there. It's slippery. It makes the tank slippery.

But we took that out, and sure enough, the bottle had the lid on it and everything. And I'm going, "Wow, the rookies we have out there, they need to be taught how to use chemicals properly." And that was just one of many over 15 years. It's happened at least three times to me, this situation.

Mike Wendland: