THE ONAN GENERATOR

 My 2011 Chevy based Roadtrek 190 Popular has the Onan Microlite 2800 KV model generator. Since this model, starting in 2012, Onan introduced a changed generator model  -  the Microlite 2800 KY generator. Since that model there have been two other model Onan Microlite 2800 generators. The most current - that was never used in a Chevy based Roadtrek - is the Onan QG 2800i. It was not used as it did not exist when RT stopped building Chevy based Roadtreks. It can be installed in a Chevy Roadtrek to replace an older model or as a new install.  I am not familiar at all with the Onan that came between the KY and the OG2800i.  All are gasoline powered generators. The only Roadtreks that have a propane generator - installed by Roadtrek - are the diesel engine Roadtreks - none of which are on a Chevy chassis.

In earlier Roadtreks the generator was installed in a cabinet on the outside of the Roadtrek with easy access.  Later, Roadtrek mounted the generator under the chassis of the Roadtrek in the rear driver's side of the van. This location is very difficult to access and requires crawling under the van with very low clearance, reaching up on your arms to open an access panel to the inside of the case, and then craning your neck up to try to see inside the generator to check the oil, change the oil, and reset a circuit breaker and replace a fuse - both of which will be covered later in this article. I have watched Onan service technicians get under the van to work on the Onan much easier by rolling under on a mechanic's creeper. This raises them up enough to better reach in and see inside a little better and not be too high to fit under. They roll in from the side behind the driver's side rear tire.

The position of the generator is rather precarious for the low ground clearance van.  A pot hole and bottoming out can hit the generator. A flooded street can submerge the generator. A steep inclined (or declined) driveway can bottom out the rear of the van and hit the generator. Of course, none of these things are good for the generator. Always be aware of the road and what you are going over when driving a Chevy based Roadtrek with the generator on the bottom. 

The differences between the Onan Microlite 2800 KV and KY models are these. The KV model has an owner accessed altitude adjustment for the motor. The owner can do this easily on their own - following the instructions in the KY manual. The KY model has an owner non-accessible altitude adjustment that -  per Onan - requires a technician to adjust and the addition of a part.  The KY model has a troubleshooting lamp system. The power light on the KY's wall switch flashes a code sequence if there is a problem with the generator. The code sequences are defined in the KY manual. There is NO troubleshooting lamp in the KV model Onan.  The KY also has a priming button to prime the generator before starting. To do this the bottom of the start button is pushed in once or twice to prime the motor with gasoline. The KV model does NOT have ANY priming function. Pushing in of the start button of the KY model only shuts the motor off if it is running.

 The new OG generator model is stated to be much quieter than previous Onan generators. It has a different motor than previous Onan models that is not supposed to require the same exercise schedule of the previous generator which was once a month for two hours of continuous runtime under half a load (the A/C in summer or a plugged in electric space heater in cold weather. The installation of the OG model using the same mounting holes under the chassis that the KY, KV used, requires an adapter plate sold by Onan to make the new case holes match up with the previous drilled  holes under the chassis.

The basics of starting the Onan are covered in our article THE GENERATOR found here. The Onan KV manual may be downloaded here.   For the KY manual, I am not finding a current link any longer for this manual. If you would like a copy of the PDF file of the KY manual that I have, please contact me using the Email Us link in the right column of this page. 

 There are maintenance items that are listed in the manual that are not to be ignored. They include changing the fuel filter, changing the oil (minimum once every year or per hour schedule in manual), changing the air filter, and changing the spark plug. On RV shop that I took my Roadtrek to for the fuel filter change would not do the job without taking the generator down off the bottom of the van. I did not have them do the job. I then took it to an authorized Onan service center that changed the fuel filter with the generator still attached under the van.  If any shop tells you that there is an oil filter - there is NO oil filter.  Some authorized Onan shops will do all of these items when they do an oil change. Can you change the oil yourself - yes. The grade oil to use depends on the area you drive the Roadtrek in the most - and there is a chart in the manual that specifies which oil for which type of environment. Changing the oil means doing this on the ground with you on your back reaching up - or on your elbows if you are on your stomach. Checking the oil means removing the oil cap which has a small dip stick on it. Take out the dipstick and wipe it off. Put it back in BUT leave it on the top - do not screw it back down. The oil is checked with the stick on the top of the oil fill rim.  To drain the oil there is a drain plug under the Onan. There is a specific torque that MUST be used when screwing this plug back in. Only use a torque wrench when doing this set to the correct torque which is in the manual.  I had a shop that did not do this and they stripped threads on the pan. The pan had to be replaced. 

When any work is done inside the Onan inevitably hands working in this tight space are going to hit the circuit breaker handle that is inside the Onan. This circuit breaker is connected to the control board and if tripped or off -  when you start the Onan it will start and run just fine bur NO POWER will come out of it into the Roadtrek. The AC outlets will not work, The air conditioner will not start. The TV will not start. The microwave will not start - in fact the microwave is a good place to see if the breaker is tripped or not. If the breaker is tripped and the generator is running the display screen that is always on when there is power to the microwave will be dark  and off!.  This can happen if you checked the oil or if you changed the oil - or any work was done inside the generator by you or a service tech. The service techs rarely check to see if the breaker is on when they finish working on the Onan.  Below is a diagram from the Onan manual of where the breaker is.  

 

I have made this big because this diagram should be better and it is not. There is an open space in the area the arrow is pointing at. If the breaker is on you will see a small black handle pointing to the passenger side in that  space.  If the breaker is off or tripped, you will not see anything looking up from the ground to inside this area. The handle will be hidden when pointing down. Reach in with a finger and feel for it!  Avoid the fuse which is also in this open space.  When you feel the handle. push it down and then pull it up with your fingertip.  Close up the Onan. Go in and start the Onan and check that there is power - look at the microwave display!  This is the first thing to do if your Onan is running and there is no AC power inside  the Roadtrek!

The fuse is even harder to see. It is a regular auto blade fuse - not hard to replace. You just have to find it and pull it out. There is a sticker (sometimes) on the side of this open area with an arrow pointing to the passenger side that says FUSE. If the fuse lined up with that it would be great - it doesn't. Feel for the fuse - be certain before you pull it out.   WHAT DOES THE FUSE DO?  If the fuse is BLOWN the generator DOES NOT START. It does not crank. It does nothing when you push the switch inside which does not light. IT IS DEAD!  First thing to do if this happens is check the fuse inside the Onan. If it is the fuse it saves a lot of money and trouble to get the Onan fixed or trying to fix it yourself. 

 The Onan uses one half to a third gallon of gasoline in one hour of runtime. The generator will automatically shut down if the gas tank in the van goes below 1/4 tank. This is to prevent you getting stuck with no gasoline running the generator all night.  The generator will also shut itself down if the oil level in the generator falls below full.  This prevents the generator motor burning itself out. 

If you own a Roadtrek with an Onan you already know that it is loud and it vibrates when it is running. You can feel the vibration in the floor. There is an Onan resonator that you can buy that will quiet the motor noise some.  It still vibrates.  Some have added rubber cushioning to above the Onan and where it is bolted into the bottom of the chassis and that can lower the vibration.  I have not done either.

Some may have Roadtrek's later generator system - the "underhood engine generator". This is a SECOND high power alternator installed by Roadtrek under the hood and run by a longer and different belt. The belt is not standard to the Chevy and if you have an engine generator it is advised to buy a spare belt and always have it with you in the Roadtrek.  What this does is provide generated AC power to the Roadtrek by starting and running the engine. The engine is running at idle which Chevy will tell you is not good over a span of hours but Roadtrek insisted it was not a problem. Is this quieter - only if your engine is running is quiet. There are no vibrations - that is a plus. This does use a good amount of gasoline.  Much more than the 1/2 to 2/3 gallon the Onan uses - plus there is a great deal more exhaust that will come from running the engine with more CO to come inside or drift to a neighboring RV. Roadtrek started offering the engine generator to Chevy based Roadtreks around 2015 along with some other advanced electrical system components that previously were tested and sold only on Sprinter based Roadtreks. 

Please get the manual for your Onan, print it out and keep it in the Roadtrek - or put the USB file on your phone or a USB stick to access on your computer when traveling. It goes into much more detail than I have here and it has a troubleshooting chart written out inside.

 

EMERGENCY WINTERIZING

 First - THIS IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR WINTER-LONG  WINTERIZING. Emergency winterizing is when you find out the weather is going to change dramatically and get cold to the point of freezing that night or the next day and you do not have time to completely winterize before the temperatures drop! If you have time to winterize properly then follow the directions in our article: "Winterizing: The Definitive Step by Step Guide."  

Something that is important to understand is the weather has changed considerably in the past five or more years. Areas that never got cold or saw snow  or ice or had severe storms that bring tornadoes to areas that never had any of this in the past - has been experiencing it all in recent years - and especially in this past year. Thinking that you have never had to winterize before so why start now - well there is good reason to start now.  And those who think - it can't happen to me or here -  you are betting on the cost of repairs of your Roadtrek if you take a chance.

Winterizing is necessary when the temperatures will go to 28 degrees or colder for two nights in a row with the days NOT going up to at least 40 degrees or higher.  This came to us from a Roadtrek trained RV service technician. It is a good guideline to remember and be prepared to deal with - especially when you find this out when there is little time to winterize fully. IF THE TEMPERATURES DO THIS FOR MORE THAN TWO DAYS IN A ROW OR THE TEMPERATURES DROP EVEN LOWER - AND YOU KNOW IT IS COMING - WINTERIZE FULLY!

 1) WATER PUMP OFF - Inside open the sink - hot and cold and let it drain out. Open the shower hot and cold side and with the shower nozzle in the sink, let the shower hose drain out into the sink.  Flush the toilet.  Go outside and open the hot and cold side of the outside shower - let that pour to the ground.

2) Empty your exterior fresh tank. (It is a good idea to also empty your interior fresh tank, if you have a two fresh tank system (190, 210). The reason for this is you do not want any water inside as you will not be able to use the water anyway as it must NOT go down any drain including the toilet. You could leave the interior tank full if you want.) If you leave water in the interior fresh tank (two fresh tank system) PUT THE SUMMER MODE/WINTER MODE VALVES IN WINTER MODE! OTHER WISE KEEP THEM IN SUMMER MODE or the inside tank will not drain!!!

3) Dump your black tank and your grey tank.  When done, lift the macerator hose - or the gravity dump hose up off the ground and let any water remaining in the hose to drain out.

3) Remove the anode rod from your hot water heater tank and empty the water out of the hot water heater tank. (Inside the tank is insulated in foam, but outside behind the hot water tank vent the tank is exposed to the cold so it is best to dump this tank to prevent it from freezing.) 

4) Go inside the Roadtrek. Open EVERY inside cabinet door where there is anything related to water inside - pipes, toilet, hot water tank, water pump, under the sink, and especially the interior water tank IF you have one. 

5) Turn on the propane for your Roadtrek. If it was not on before follow this article if you do not know how.

6) Turn on the furnace. This is how to turn on the furnace if you do not know how. Put the furnace on HI and AUTO on the thermostat - turn the heat up to a little more than you would find comfortable. If you are not going to be inside the Roadtrek then put the thermostat up to 85. This is going to be the source of heat from keeping the inside of your Roadtrek's pipes from freezing. 

 7) Do not open any windows or and only open the van doors briefly if you must.  The heat MUST stay inside. 

DONE!

BE AWARE that this will marginally protect the water pipes and the macerator outside under the van.  Emptying the tanks will allow enough room inside the tanks that any little amount of water that remains in the tanks will have room to expand if that water freezes.  What is in the pipes  should have flowed out in the process - but there are no guarantees and Meryl and Me cannot be responsible for any damage that occurs. 

NOW WHAT? We are in our Roadtrek with no water or toilet - what are we supposed to do? This involves some prior preparation with a few things that you will need to have with you.

FIRST - TOILET -  Putting RV antifreeze to flush the toilet is not a solution as some believe. We did some experimental research to see what happens when water (even urine) and RV antifreeze mix. The result is frozen solid RV antifreeze that expands just like water.  So what to do. This is something that is  great thing to keep in every Roadtrek, especially those that have a macerator. They are called by RVer's "wag bags". They are available to buy under various brand names on line or at stores that sell camping supplies -  Rei, Cabella's, Bass Pro Shops, Camping World, Dick's Sporting Goods, (at one time Walmart but I have not seen them there in several years) - and Amazon.   Get these before you need them because when you need them, without one of these stores nearby, you will not find them.  This is the one we have bought and there are always two boxes in our Roadtrek - Reliance Double Doodie Toilet Waste Bags. These are made for camping toilets that basically are just a bucket with a seat. They fit perfectly into the open toilet bowl in a Roadtrek Open the bag, put it in the empty toilet bowl, put the excess on top over the edge of the bowl and close the seat down on top. The bag stays in place. Do whatever you have to do into the bag. The bag is two layers of Mylar each with a zip closure. Inside the bag there is a chemical that turns liquid into gel and a deodorizer.  When done close the toilet lid - for liquids there is no odor and one bag can be used several times -  it will get you through the night. . For the other you may want to put in a new bag. All you do it take the open end of the bag - close the inner bag and then close the outer bag sealing it tight with the zip lock closures. These bags are legal to dispose of in any garbage container. Throw away the old bag and put a new bag into the toilet. With those with macerators - if your macerator breaks - this is going to make your life easier in your Roadtrek until you can get it fixed. On the last day of a trip on your way home and you dumped your tanks before you started home -  these come in really handy when you need to go and don't want to have to dump your tank again when you get home!

That takes care of the toilet. Now you need water.  A gallon of bottle water in Walmart store is one dollar US. Buy a few bottles before you leave on a trip when it can possibly get cold - and if you don't there is a Walmart a few miles from just about anywhere.  BUT the water cannot go down ANY DRAIN! So what you also want to get is a small sink basin - a few dollars also in Walmart.  PUT THE BASIN IN THE SINK!  There are usually two size basins - get the smaller one.    We found a Sterilite box with a handled lid that fit perfectly in the sink -  move the faucet out of the way and it goes right in. This makes it even easier to empty as I cut a hole at one corner of the lid, take it out with the handle and the latches closing the lid on the box and carry it out of the Roadtrek and where you have to take it to empty it - a restroom sink  or on the ground outside. All water is poured over the basin or the box and never into the sink to the drain. Wash in the basin or over the box.  For thousands of years before inside running water, this was what people did! 😉

 

That is it! Not a big deal if you are prepared! WHEN YOU GET HOME OR AS SOON AS YOU CAN WINTERIZE FULLY.

If you have a question - email with the link in the right column. 

HOW I GOT MY BLACK TANK SENSORS TO READ ACCURATELY

The infamous black tank sensors on the Roadtrek are well known for never reading accurately. I found this out soon after I bought my 2011 190 Popular new. I even brought it back to the Roadtrek dealer's service department to have them "fixed" and the RT service tech replaced two of them - which involved leaving the old bottom two sensors in place as he said they cannot come out and installing two others next to the originals and moving the wires from the old ones to the new ones. This worked for about a day and then the same things as before started to happen.  When the black tank was empty the monitor panel would read that it was 2/3 full. Then with just a little water added to the black tank the monitor panel would read full.  During a single day the monitor panel would change - from 2/3 to full and back to 2/.3 without anything being added to the tank or taken out of the tank. They just did not work!  I should add all of the other water sensors did work accurately on my Roadtrek - the two fresh water tanks and the grey tank have always been accurate. 

I tried all the things recommended to make them work. I flushed the tank repeatedly with clean water - still the same. I used various tank additives including borax and detergent and commercial tank cleaners that say they also clean sensors -  no difference. I bought a tank wand that attaches to a garden hose that is connected to an outdoor spigot - all brought into the RT through an open door, The wand goes down into the tank - this was a flexible wand (they are not all flexible) because the black tank is not straight down the toilet drain into the black tank pipe. There is an on/off valve on the wand to shut off and turn on the water flow - which is coming out at some pressure.  You open the toilet flap and keep your foot on the pedal as if the flap shuts on the wand the flap breaks. You put the wand down into the drain and move it around and up and down to "pressure" wash the inside of the black tank.  And if you happen to move it up too high from the hole in the toilet the water from the nozzle splashed on your face.  This, too, did not work. 

I eventually gave up as many Roadtrek owners do and on a trip we counted how many days it took us to fill the black tank with average use. It came down to between four and five days which was enough for us to know that once you get to four days dump the tanks. If the days are hot summer days just before it needed to be dumped it was possible to get a small whiff of odor when flushing the toilet when the flap opened.  I also found that if you look down the open flap in the toilet with a flashlight when the tank is really full you can see the water coming up from the tank just below the toilet flap. The problem with this is it is too easy to drop the flashlight down into the black tank which is a lot more trouble than just having a full black tank. (I never did this - I put a flashlight on a cord that fit around my wrist.) I have never put a bag of crushed ice into the black tank and drove around. Big RVs say this works BUT if your Roadtrek has a macerator and do this and you are not sure if all of the ice has melted completely - and you try to dump with ice still coming out into the macerator - you will break the macerator.

Sometimes things happen accidentally - and this article is about one of those happenings. I have not written about this until now because I wanted to be sure it worked. This goes back to May 2019 and started in November of 2018. 

In November 2018 we started winterizing the Roadtrek - using the instructions of my own article - which has become well known.  It is always important to keep the black tank's interior wet and I have always put one gallon of water into the black tank during travel season to prevent anything left in the tank from drying out and building up which will clog the output of the black tank. When we started winterizing I knew that since our last trip at the end of October there was one gallon of water in the black tank. We started by getting all of the water out of the fresh tanks and then started to dump the black tank of that one gallon of water.  We got a bucket and pointed the macerator hose in - and pushed the macerator button and we could hear the macerator running and there was a spurt from the hose and then nothing. The motor ran - the macerator was not pumping. We tried various things - change the angle the RT was sitting on - nope. Tried turning the macerator unclog handle - it turned with no resistance - nope. And then we smelled burning coming from the macerator and just gave up.  It was November. There was no way we were going to get to any RV shop that could fix this and we just would have to wait until the Spring.  But what to do about the black tank until then.  When I winterize I replace the one gallon of water in the black tank to keep it wet with one gallon of RV antifreeze poured down into the tank through the toilet. I decided that in addition to the winterizing RV antifreeze that went through the pipes to the toilet I would add TWO gallons of RV antifreeze into the black tank for the winter - keeping my fingers crossed that in the Spring there would be no problems from the cold winter other than needing to get the macerator replaced. 

The Roadtrek sat on our driveway like that the entire winter and in late April 2019 we had an appointment at the RV dealer we bought the RT in that is located in Pennsylvania - two states away - for the macerator to be replaced. (There is an article about that in April and May 2019 on this site.)

An amazing thing happened when the service shop installed the new macerator and dumped the black tank of the two gallons of RV antifreeze. THE BLACK TANK READ EMPTY!  

I figured that this was only temporary and with use the black tank sensors would go back to their  old tricks and do what they were so well known to do.  We took a trip that July - the black tanks were empty at the start of the trip. The black tank holds ten gallons.  With a  day plus  of  use the monitor panel showed 1/3 full -  right on what it should be. A day or so more and it went to 2/3. As I said earlier in this article - we calculated that we fill the black tank in four to five days.  At the end of the fourth day the black tank went to full. One way to find out if the black tank is really full is to put some water down the toilet as look in the pipe -  a little water should in the pipe that the black tank was really full!  The sensors worked. We dumped the tanks and they showed empty. Even with the gallon of clean water put down into the tank the sensors still showed empty - as they should! 

I have been putting one gallon of RV antifreeze down into the black tank over the winter and until we dewinterize in the Spring  and this never fixed the sensors.  Could it be that the two gallons made the difference?  This stayed from November into late April. I did not jump to conclusions. The variables from it working and prior - the RV antifreeze and the new macerator. Others have replaced their macerator and still have black tank sensors that do not read accurately.  The two plus gallons of RV Antifreeze into the black tank over about six months, I believe, is what has done it!

After the summer of 2019 Covid arrived, so travel was limited to not at all.  We live in an area that was very hard hit by the virus.  We were on lock down. There were a lot of deaths. Businesses were closed and supermarkets that were open had empty shelves.  But I still had to winterize the RT and in 2019 I put two gallons of RV antifreeze again into the black tank in addition to the antifreeze that went down into the tank winterizing. The empty black tank showed empty when before the antifreeze went in and just the two gallons of RV A/F, it still showed empty. As Covid lessened we took some day trips using the black tank. The sensors read correctly.  After dumping it showed empty - every time!

Recently we used the black tank a lot. It went to 1/3 and correctly after that to 2/3.  Before I dumped the tank I added water to the tank and took it to full - and it read full.  We dumped the tank - and it now reads empty. I tested this over three years plus - each time winterizing two gallons of RV antifreeze went into the tank between winterizing in the late Fall and dewinterizing in the Spring. The sensors are still reading accurately. 

 So what do you do if you want the same results? I do not know that if you vary the time period shorter that the RV antifreeze is in the tank, it will work for you. If you put it in and let is sit for a couple of weeks or even a month or two, I doubt it will work!  Put it in over six months and you should have the same results. No guarantees - but if it worked for me - it should work for you. Do I use any "special" antifreeze? No - unless you consider $3.99 a gallon antifreeze from Walmart special.  This same antifreeze has kept my plumbing safe over the winter for years. Will it work with other RV antifreeze? It should.  

 For eight bucks for a fix?! It is well worth the investment in two bottles of RV antifreeze and no more guessing if the tank is full! I feel I should put steps to this of what to do. OK - 

1) When winterizing - dump your black and grey tanks before you start along with draining your fresh tanks - all part of my winterizing step by step article. This article is found at

The infamous black tank sensors on the Roadtrek are well known for never reading accurately. I found this out soon after I bought my 2011 190 Popular new. I even brought it back to the Roadtrek dealer's service department to have them "fixed" and the RT service tech replaced two of them - which involved leaving the old bottom two sensors in place as he said they cannot come out and installing two others next to the originals and moving the wires from the old ones to the new ones. This worked for about a day and then the same things as before started to happen.  When the black tank was empty the monitor panel would read that it was 2/3 full. Then with just a little water added to the black tank the monitor panel would read full.  During a single day the monitor panel would change - from 2/3 to full and back to 2/.3 without anything being added to the tank or taken out of the tank. They just did not work!  I should add all of the other water sensors did work accurately on my Roadtrek - the two fresh water tanks and the grey tank have always been accurate. 

I tried all the things recommended to make them work. I flushed the tank repeatedly with clean water - still the same. I used various tank additives including borax and detergent and commercial tank cleaners that say they also clean sensors -  no difference. I bought a tank wand that attaches to a garden hose that is connected to an outdoor spigot - all brought into the RT through an open door, The wand goes down into the tank - this was a flexible wand (they are not all flexible) because the black tank is not straight down the toilet drain into the black tank pipe. There is an on/off valve on the wand to shut off and turn on the water flow - which is coming out at some pressure.  You open the toilet flap and keep your foot on the pedal as if the flap shuts on the wand the flap breaks. You put the wand down into the drain and move it around and up and down to "pressure" wash the inside of the black tank.  And if you happen to move it up too high from the hole in the toilet the water from the nozzle splashed on your face.  This, too, did not work. 

I eventually gave up as many Roadtrek owners do and on a trip we counted how many days it took us to fill the black tank with average use. It came down to between four and five days which was enough for us to know that once you get to four days dump the tanks. If the days are hot summer days just before it needed to be dumped it was possible to get a small whiff of odor when flushing the toilet when the flap opened.  I also found that if you look down the open flap in the toilet with a flashlight when the tank is really full you can see the water coming up from the tank just below the toilet flap. The problem with this is it is too easy to drop the flashlight down into the black tank which is a lot more trouble than just having a full black tank. (I never did this - I put a flashlight on a cord that fit around my wrist.) I have never put a bag of crushed ice into the black tank and drove around. Big RVs say this works BUT if your Roadtrek has a macerator and do this and you are not sure if all of the ice has melted completely - and you try to dump with ice still coming out into the macerator - you will break the macerator.

Sometimes things happen accidentally - and this article is about one of those happenings. I have not written about this until now because I wanted to be sure it worked. This goes back to May 2019 and started in November of 2018. 

In November 2018 we started winterizing the Roadtrek - using the instructions of my own article - which has become well known.  It is always important to keep the black tank's interior wet and I have always put one gallon of water into the black tank during travel season to prevent anything left in the tank from drying out and building up which will clog the output of the black tank. When we started winterizing I knew that since our last trip at the end of October there was one gallon of water in the black tank. We started by getting all of the water out of the fresh tanks and then started to dump the black tank of that one gallon of water.  We got a bucket and pointed the macerator hose in - and pushed the macerator button and we could hear the macerator running and there was a spurt from the hose and then nothing. The motor ran - the macerator was not pumping. We tried various things - change the angle the RT was sitting on - nope. Tried turning the macerator unclog handle - it turned with no resistance - nope. And then we smelled burning coming from the macerator and just gave up.  It was November. There was no way we were going to get to any RV shop that could fix this and we just would have to wait until the Spring.  But what to do about the black tank until then.  When I winterize I replace the one gallon of water in the black tank to keep it wet with one gallon of RV antifreeze poured down into the tank through the toilet. I decided that in addition to the winterizing RV antifreeze that went through the pipes to the toilet I would add TWO gallons of RV antifreeze into the black tank for the winter - keeping my fingers crossed that in the Spring there would be no problems from the cold winter other than needing to get the macerator replaced. 

The Roadtrek sat on our driveway like that the entire winter and in late April 2019 we had an appointment at the RV dealer we bought the RT in that is located in Pennsylvania - two states away - for the macerator to be replaced. (There is an article about that in April and May 2019 on this site.)

An amazing thing happened when the service shop installed the new macerator and dumped the black tank of the two gallons of RV antifreeze. THE BLACK TANK READ EMPTY!  

I figured that this was only temporary and with use the black tank sensors would go back to their  old tricks and do what they were so well known to do.  We took a trip that July - the black tanks were empty at the start of the trip. The black tank holds ten gallons.  With a  day plus  of  use the monitor panel showed 1/3 full -  right on what it should be. A day or so more and it went to 2/3. As I said earlier in this article - we calculated that we fill the black tank in four to five days.  At the end of the fourth day the black tank went to full. One way to find out if the black tank is really full is to put some water down the toilet as look in the pipe -  a little water should in the pipe that the black tank was really full!  The sensors worked. We dumped the tanks and they showed empty. Even with the gallon of clean water put down into the tank the sensors still showed empty - as they should! 

I have been putting one gallon of RV antifreeze down into the black tank over the winter and until we dewinterize in the Spring  and this never fixed the sensors.  Could it be that the two gallons made the difference?  This stayed from November into late April. I did not jump to conclusions. The variables from it working and prior - the RV antifreeze and the new macerator. Others have replaced their macerator and still have black tank sensors that do not read accurately.  The two plus gallons of RV Antifreeze into the black tank over about six months, I believe, is what has done it!

After the summer of 2019 Covid arrived, so travel was limited to not at all.  We live in an area that was very hard hit by the virus.  We were on lock down. There were a lot of deaths. Businesses were closed and supermarkets that were open had empty shelves.  But I still had to winterize the RT and in 2019 I put two gallons of RV antifreeze again into the black tank in addition to the antifreeze that went down into the tank winterizing. The empty black tank showed empty when before the antifreeze went in and just the two gallons of RV A/F, it still showed empty. As Covid lessened we took some day trips using the black tank. The sensors read correctly.  After dumping it showed empty - every time!

Recently we used the black tank a lot. It went to 1/3 and correctly after that to 2/3.  Before I dumped the tank I added water to the tank and took it to full - and it read full.  We dumped the tank - and it now reads empty. I tested this over three years plus - each time winterizing two gallons of RV antifreeze went into the tank between winterizing in the late Fall and dewinterizing in the Spring. The sensors are still reading accurately. 

 So what do you do if you want the same results? I do not know that if you vary the time period shorter that the RV antifreeze is in the tank, it will work for you. If you put it in and let is sit for a couple of weeks or even a month or two, I doubt it will work!  Put it in over six months and you should have the same results. No guarantees - but if it worked for me - it should work for you. Do I use any "special" antifreeze? No - unless you consider $3.99 a gallon antifreeze from Walmart special.  This same antifreeze has kept my plumbing safe over the winter for years. Will it work with other RV antifreeze? It should.  

 For eight bucks for a fix?! It is well worth the investment in two bottles of RV antifreeze and no more guessing if the tank is full! I feel I should put steps to this of what to do. OK - 

1) When winterizing - dump your black and grey tanks before you start along with draining your fresh tanks - all part of my winterizing step by step article.  This article is found here - https://roadtrek190popular.blogspot.com/2013/11/winterizing-your-roadtrek-step-by-step.html

2) Go through all the steps in the winterizing article through NUMBER 48. Instead of putting one gallon in as specified there put TWO GALLONS IN! Do this with or without a macerator. The macerator has nothing to do with fixing the sensors!

3) If you have no problem with your grey tank - as I  don't - then do not put any into the grey tank. If you want to, you certainly can but unless your sensors don't read accurately in your grey tank there is no need to do this. 

4) That is it! Leave it in until you de-winterize. While it is in the first time you do this you will still see sensors that are not working correctly. Once you dump your black tank in the Spring it should read EMPTY!

Even Whe You Know What You Are Doing , Things Go Wrong

 Weather here has been jumping from warm to hot and back to cold this Spring. We usually de-winterize in early May but waited until just now - the end of May to de-winterize.  As I have said in my de-winterizing and sanitizing articles, what you have to do takes very little time but de-winterizing and especially sanitizing the tanks involves a lot of waiting.  We de-winterize on one day and other than pouring the bleach water mix into the two fresh tanks on our 2011 Roadtrek 190 Popular, the sanitizing happens over night, the plumbing and tanks are flushed of bleach on the next day. 

De-winterizing went well.  Like many of our readers, I print out my own article on de-winterizing and sanitizing and follow along to make sure I have not left out any steps.  And I do go back and refer to it throughout the process. Nothing out of the ordinary happened -  other than my deciding to wait until the last minute to buy the bleach. Bleach goes bad over a year in the bottle. It turns to salt water and loses all of its disinfectant properties. We don't use bleach much in the house and we buy the bottle just for sanitizing the Roadtrek - so I knew that the bleach we had was from a year ago when we last de-winterized and sanitized the tanks - and kept putting off buying the bleach.  I decided that we would start de-winterizing and when we got to the point that we would pour the bleach into the Roadtrek, we would stop and go out and buy a small bottle of  bleach.  What I had not thought about was stopping meant putting everything away - the fresh water hose, unplugging because I did not want to use the battery to run the water pump, and just get ready to go.  So we went. Still all was OK. 

 We got home and got out the gallon water jug that we keep that says "BLEACH WATER" on the side and a measuring cup and the new bottle of bleach.  Out on the driveway next to the Roadtrek I took the hose and filled the water jug half way with water. I measured out a half cup of bleach and there was no odor from the bleach.  We checked the date on the bottle - it was good to some time in 2024.  I smelled the open bottle - no smell. Meryl smelled the open bottle - no smell. We stop and wonder what now.  Was the bleach bad because we remember the bleach smelling like bleach all the other times we measured it out. It was the correct bleach - it was disinfecting bleach - full strength. I poured the bleach into the water and filled the bottle the rest of the way with water. I put the cap on the bottle and gave it a shake to mix the bleach in the water.  Still no smell.  What's wrong? If you can't smell the bleach how will you know the bleach is out of the plumbing?

I was not going to stop - I took the funnel with the plastic tubing attached to it - that we made just for this purpose and started pouring the water/bleach into the front exterior fresh tank through the door fill in the driver's door frame.  I then could smell the bleach. It needed the water and to hit the air as it went into the fill hole through the funnel.  The bottle go to about 3.4 empty when the water and bleach came pouring up and out of the fill hole - all over the driver's door steps. What was wrong? Then I realized that just running the RV antifreeze out of the plumbing until only clear water came out of the sink, showers, and toilet was really not enough to take that much out of the front fresh tank - and combine that with the rear tank refilling the front tank as the water is pumped out into the fixtures, the front tank was fairly full. Was there a step I missed - no, but there should have been. Before pouring the bleach and water into the fresh tanks, let some water out of the tanks through the low point drain in the front exterior tank to make room for the gallon of water with the bleach in it that has to go into each of the two tanks.  I had a quarter of a gallon of bleach water that was not going to fit into the front tank. 

 I said something that I can't write here, and got the bleach bottle and the quarter filled water jug and poured in the one quarter cup of bleach for the rear interior tank, topped of the gallon jug with water, capped it, shook it to mix it, and took the funnel over to the rear cargo door with the water fill in the door frame. The funnel went in and the entire gallon of water and bleach poured into the rear tank - which had been refilling the front tank, as it is supposed to do. I got the hose and topped the back tank up with water.

I got into the Roadtrek, started the engine, and backed it down the driveway stopping short every few feet and then going back forward doing the same to mix the bleach and water inside the two tanks. That was it for the day. We just had to put everything away again. 

This brings us to the next day. The bleach and water sat in the tanks for just under 24 hours. According to the Clorox company when we called them years back, bleach and water after a number of hours turns to water but the bleach smell remains.  We could have drained the bleach after about four hours but we were not coming out in the middle of the night to start a process that has the most waiting.  This day was warmer than the day before which was supposed to be warmer but was fairly chilly. It was also maybe supposed to rain (which did not happen until the night). 

First thing to do was drain the bleach/water out of the two fresh tanks.  Our low point drain on the front tank - the only fresh water low point drain on our Roadtrek - has a screw off and screw on cap. Taking it off means lying on the ground next to the back corner of the driver's door, reaching under the chassis to the cap and unscrewing it which means bleach water pours out all over your hands.  We got the cap off - put it where we would not lose it and let the water drain while we had lunch. 

After lunch, the first thing to do is put the  cap back on the drain - and do that in the puddle that resulted from the water and bleach pouring out. So far no surprises.  They would start soon enough. 

The fresh water hose was hooked up and I filled the front tank with fresh water. We then went to the back of the Roadtrek to fill the rear tank. I pulled on the orange push in plug that caps off the water fill holes- it was off yesterday - no problem.  It was not coming out. I pulled on it. Meryl pulled on it. We tried lifting the edge around the cap.  No it was not budging.  I went to the garage to get a pair of pliers. The cap came right out.  On ward!  Ha! Ha!

 What happened next is something that has happened in the past at this same point in the sanitizing process - not regularly but has happened.  The hose with its RV water fill nozzle went into the fill hole for the back tank with the water running slowly. A few minutes later the water was pouring back out of the fill hole - the tank was empty - but something was preventing the water from going in . 

We have figured that since this mostly happens after the fresh tanks have been filled with bleach and water, a chlorine gas bubble forms inside the smaller rear tank and prevents the water from going down into the tank - pushing it back out the fill hole. There have been times when the water comes out in a gush. This time it was steady stream pouring out. It was time to get out the "gizmo". I made the gizmo years back when this first happened. The gizmo is a hose nozzle with a small diameter. long  tube that  is fed down the water fill hole to the bottom of the tank so that it will fill the tank with water from the bottom up - under the bubble - pushing the gas bubble up and out and not the water. Up until this time it has always worked. (Here is an article about first "The Gizmo" and this article shows what happened to that gizmo one winter with a photo of the new gizmo I made to replace it which is what I use now.)

The Gizmo was screwed onto the hose, the water pressure at the outside faucet at the hose was set  low and the tube went down into the tank. I opened the valve on the gizmo and the water started pouring out of the fill hole again. I shut off the gizmo's valve, pulled the tube out of the tank - fed it back in again - tried again - still water was coming out. This was one of those "OH BOY!" moments. If the water did not go into the rear tank we were not going to be able to get the bleach smell out of the tank. 

I stood back and starting thinking, perhaps I was going about this the wrong way by putting a slow flow of water down into the tank through the gizmo. Maybe it was not enough pressure to burst the bubble. I went to the faucet on the house and turned it all the way up.  The gizmo's tube went back into the tank, the valve was turned on and the water did not come back up into the tank. The tank filled and we were ready to flush the water tanks and pipes of bleach.

There was still a smell of bleach in the water as it came out of the sink and the showers. We drained the tanks and went for the third flush. Just an aside - it takes 25 minutes to drain the two tanks through the low point drain on the front exterior tank. It usually takes three flushes.   Meryl suggested that we fill the back tank first this time. It sounded like a good idea. 

I was not taking any chances and left the gizmo on the hose to fill the rear tank again.  This time no water came back up the fill hole but it seemed like it was taking much too long to get the tank full. Meryl was inside the Roadtrek at the monitor panel.  She would check the level of the tank every few minutes. The rear tank was at 2/3 but the front tank was also filling and was at 1/3 full - before we put any water into that tank from the front fill hole.  The water system in Summer mode was doing what it is supposed to do - the water was running from the rear tank into the front tank. This was going to take forever. I could have just changed the water valves to Winter mode and that would have cut off the front tank but I was not going to start playing with valves in the cabinet. I pulled the tube out of the back tank, took it to the front tank and started filling the front tank with the gizmo. Water in the Roadtrek in Summer mode does not flow from the front tank to the back tank. The front tank filled quickly. I then went back to the back tank and filled that to the top. 

The third flush resulted in no bleach smell in the water from the tanks. Hooray! The tanks were sanitized!  We put everything related to sanitizing and fresh water away. Now, I wanted to dump the RV antifreeze that I put in the black tank when we winterized out of the tank.  It could have been left in, but for the first trip I wanted to start with an almost empty tank (almost empty because I always keep a gallon of fresh water in the black tank so that the tank and its seals do not dry out). I also wanted to see the macerator work before we took a trip so that there would be no unwanted surprises on the road! 

We got out the pail that we use to dump the tanks at home. We have no outside sewer connection - they are not permitted in this area. I pulled the macerator hose out (the SaniCon retractable hose we had put on three years ago) and went to take the cap off the nozzle. This is a nozzle that I made for the SaniCon hose as the nozzle the RV shop put on it was a pain to use and the nozzle made by Thetford for this hose would not fit into the opening of the storage compartment where the hose is stored in the Roadtrek. (Here is the nozzle.) The nozzle has a PVC cap that screws on and off. Meryl took the hose as she holds it into the pail while I push the macerator button. I said to hold the nozzle pointing up as she removed the cap so that anything in the hose would not pour out on her as she removed the cap. The cap would not budge.  So I came over and took the nozzle and grabbed hold of the cap and took my turn to unscrew it. The cap would not budge! I tried a few times. It was not coming off. I don't know why. I was last off this past November when we winterized.  I went into the garage and came back with a pair of pliers and the cap came right off.  We dumped the black tank and finally we were done!

It was a really good thing that I wanted to dump the black tank because if we were at a campground - and we generally dump on the last day before we leave, there would have been a lot more panic if the cap would not come off. I said this to Meryl later and she agreed! 

So - what you think should go easily and quickly (well, never think or say "quickly" because nothing ever goes quickly when it should), things don't always cooperate and they go wrong! 

It happens! And it is better for it to "HAPPEN" when you are home rather than when you are out having a nice trip in the Roadtrek!