The TP Pyramid: A Cautionary Tale from the Black Tank
The Setup
If you read the “In the Static, A Spark” blog post and didn’t know what I meant by “the dreaded RV TP pyramid” (if you know, you know)… now you’ll find out.
Mr. Owl and I had been living in our RV for a week or two. We thought we were prepared for anything, but RV life has a way of throwing you curveballs. There are always things you don’t know you don’t know — lessons you only learn by trial and error. This was one of those moments.
The Mystery Clog
Whenever we went to dump — with no hookups except electric — it would be clogged. Like, there was a mountain in the pipe. We’d have to deal with that mound before anything would flow, and we had no idea why it kept happening.
After two dumps and some less-than-ideal (read: unsanitary) solutions, we were stumped. Third time’s the charm, right?
The Plan
We’d learned about backflushing during our research phase. The previous owner never backflushed, so we decided to go all in to clear the clog — trying to avoid poking the mound with a metal pole.
Mr. Owl stayed outside while I went inside to check if it was full. I blame him for what happened next, because he’s the one who asked me to do it.
The Splash
I went in, opened the toilet waste pipe cover, and… there she blows! It was very full.
A pressurized fountain of poop water sprayed my face, my clothes — and yes, it landed on my lips. I’ll let you imagine my reaction.
God help me, I’m a little… OCD about germs. This was a complete freak-out moment. Mr. Owl, who I’ve been with for 20 years, said he’s never seen me lose it so hard — and we’ve been through some stuff, ya know?
I don’t know, I think he’s cute.
The Investigation
After a couple minutes of pure meltdown, I cleaned up the toilet and floor, changed my clothes, and went straight to the internet. That’s when I stumbled onto Reddit and discovered people calling it the RV TP (or poop) pyramid.
Turns out it wasn’t the tank or the RV’s fault. It was human error. We were trying to conserve water since we didn’t have a hookup — but water is your best friend in an RV black tank. Without enough water, waste doesn’t move along… it just piles up.
The Fix
Once we learned that, we never had another clog. We switched to Scott’s toilet paper — very thin, like public restroom TP — but after a month went back to Angel Soft and still had no issues.
Moral of the story:
If there are solids in the toilet bowl, add a decent amount of water before you flush — at least a gallon. RV toilets are not like home toilets.
And don’t fall for the “special RV toilet paper” scam. It’s overpriced and not necessary.
The Facepalm
After writing this, I realized we could have just added some black tank digester and water. It probably would have been unclogged in an hour. That’s a big ol’ facepalm right there. No metal rod poking required.
