Description
Not only is Happy Camper the most effective odor neutralizer, it is also one of the most cost effective products on the market. Happy Camper’s highly concentrated water-activated mineral blend eliminates odor without covering it up with perfume like many of the chemical deodorant treatments. Happy Camper works most like an enzyme or bioactive treatment but is not affected by residuals (previous tank treatment chemicals) and unlike enzyme treatments you do not need to regularly add more treatment.
Happy Camper’s performance is not affected by extreme hot or cold temperatures.
Happy Camper RV Holding Tank Treatment – 18 Treatments
When presented with a particularly stubborn holding tank issue our service department relies on Happy Campers ability to break down waste within a few hours of treatment. We have had customers report they have used the Happy Camper holding tank treatment to eliminate clogs in kitchen sinks and showers without worrying about damaging their RV’s plumbing.
FAQS & TIPS FOR TANKS
First Time RVers
Get prepared with needed items: Disposable gloves, and a quality 3” drain hose. A white hose for your fresh water connection and a colour hose for your rinser & other needs. It’s worth the expense to have a clear see through drain hose adapter to see when your drain and rinse water is clean.
BLACK TANKS
- You are now ready to hook up your hoses and treat your black tank. First, it’s a good idea to pre-charge the tank with a few gallons of water with your rinser if you have one. Otherwise, you can do it when adding the treatment. This extra water will wet the bottom of the tank so the waste can spread out and start to break down instead of being exposed to the air.
- Directions for Treatment: Fill your toilet with approximately 1 gallon (full bowl) of water, then sprinkle & stir one scoop of Happy Campers and IMMEDIATELY flush. For hot climates and tanks over 40 gallons, repeat the above and then add two more gallons of water.
IMPORTANT: Never add more than one scoop to approximately 1 gallon of water. Simply adding more water will improve your tank functions. - Caution: NEVER leave the black valve open The liquid will drain away leaving you with a solid buildup in your tank that can be a costly repair job.
- Keep the black tank valve closed until the tank is at least 2/3 full. (Dumping the tank when it is less than 2/3 full will not allow the tank to empty properly). Always drain your black tank first. After dumping is a good time to rinse the tank with the sprayer if your RV has one. If not, you can use a tank wand designed for cleaning and flushing the tank.
- For Those That Sit: If you end up with an odor after sitting a long time. The bacterial brigade likes oxygen and after sitting still in the same spot for some time there isn’t enough shaking going on to keep the oxygen distributed though the holding tanks. Result: the bacterial fellows are unhappy, leaving the job half done. It helps to flush more often.
Solution if this happens: Fill up the tank, then dump it. Now nearly fill the tank, add at least a half cup of baking soda, and let the whole thing percolate for a couple of days, dump the tank and add Happy Campers per instructions. - You don’t need to use RV tissue with Happy Campers. The internet has some tests that will give you some brands that are much nicer to use and work very well in holding tanks. Some that are rated high and reasonably priced are Scott, Quilted Northern and Angel Soft. Not convinced? Take a square of what you want to try or compare, put it in a glass with water and see how long it takes to break up. Tissue should dissolve in 5 minutes.
- Porti Potti’s & Cassettes: A simple way that works. Take a salt shaker or spice bottle, punch or drill about ten 1/8” holes in the cap. Fill with Happy Campers. When using toilet sprinkle waste and flush. This will work very well. Odor free and liquefies waste.
GRAY TANKS
- You do not need to treat this tank every time you dump, but if your gray tank gets an odor the bad stuff usually grows from the top of the tank down. If this happens, you need to treat it with happy Campers (two or three scoops should do it) . Easiest way to treat the odor is to sprinkle and stir 2 or 3 scoops into a large bucket until well dissolved and pour down kitchen sink. Then finish filling tank and let sit over night. If you are moving right away you can do the same, even better by filling the tank to approximately 2/3 full for agitation while traveling and rinsing it when arriving at your next destination.
- We recommend you treat the gray tank every third time you dump. For normal treatment, fill sink with approximately one gallon of water. Sprinkle & stir ONE scoop of Happy Campers and immediately drain sink.
- Grease: If you have a build up of grease in the tank, put 2 to 3oz. of Dawn or Fairy Liquid (washing-up liquid dish soap) in the tank to solve this problem.NOTE: Never use antibacterial soap or disinfectant cleaners in your tanks because they will stop the action needed to keep your tanks clean and fresh smelling. Also some large dosages of medications can kill the bacteria after they pass though your body.
- You can leave your gray tank valve open if you wish. Just realize that most RV parks are now designed to vent up and though your roof vent. It is best to close the gray valve in enough time before you plan to dump so you can use the gray water to flush out your drain hose.
Holding Tank Do’s and Don’ts
- Never put Happy Campers in a toilet or sink without lots of water. With very little water it is powerful enough to become as hard as cement. If you goof and do it, just be patient, add lots of water (hot water works faster) and it will dissolve so you can flush or drain sink. At that point it will always stay fully dissolved in water.
- Never put anything in the black tank except water, body waste, toilet tissue and treatment. Nothing else.
- Always add additional water with #2 business. Use moderation when using toilet tissue.
- Traveling with a few gallons of water in both tanks will help keep them clean.
- Never use bleach or home remedies. They can severely damage valves, seals and gaskets.
- Do not mix different brands or types of treatments. This will most likely make both non-effective.
- Some toilet tissues have chemicals that can imbalance the tanks.
- Are your vents clear? It’s amazing what can build homes in vents.
- Anyone on board a vegetarian? If so, expect to have some solids seen when dumping. It’s called insoluble fiber.
- If storing your RV long term in a warm enough climate, it is best to leave some water in your tanks. The moisture will prevent hardening of any materials left on the tank walls. If you are in a colder area, we have the solution for you next.
- Once or twice a year, we get a call from a customer that they now have some odor in their RV. Here is how we fix it. First we have them put 1 oz. of Happy Campers in a small plastic sandwich bag and add 1oz. of water. Hold it in the palm of their hand for 30 seconds, It will get quite warm. We now know the product is fine and there is a bug in the tank that has to be killed.
- Sturvites: You may have heard the word. It’s a crystal like rock. In 14 years of selling Happy Campers, we have not heard even one customer complain of sturvites in their tanks. Our motor home is 21 years old, we have had it 11 years. We hired a plumber with a line camera to look inside our black tank and it was clean. No sturvite or crystal.
SENSORS
No we didn’t forget sensors. They get tissue hung on them, they get corroded or have other problems. There are a few things that can help you keep them working:
- Rinsing your tanks after draining is a big help.
- Once in a while, drive to your next destination with around a 1/2 tank of liquid for agitation.
- There are businesses that have a high pressure system that will clean your tanks for around $200.00. This takes about 45 minutes per tank. It’s expensive but they do a very good job of cleaning your tanks. It’s the best chance of your sensors working. We had it done 7 years ago and our sensors are still working.
Important information
Legal Disclaimer
Does Not Ship to California.
Patty –
Amazing product!Have used this product for my camper toilet for years. No smell and dissolves everything including regular toilet paper. Just follow the directions and you won’t regret it.
Amazon Customer –
Great productI will definitely continue to use and buy this product. There has been no smell in our bathroom and our waste was easy to dispose of. Not an easy topic to discuss but Happy Campers makes this part of camping a lot easier and pleasant to deal with.
LynnieP –
Small but mighty!I was shocked at how small the container was as I have creams that come in the same sized container BUT I am impressed that it does what it advertises! I could hardly stand to flush the toilet in my RV due to smell but it really did get rid of (and not mask the smell like some products have done in past) Very happy with this product and would highly recommend and continue to use
Oaklee –
Black Tank TreatmentConsiderably more economical than other products. Easy to use scoop included. Seems to be working well and I’ve tried a number of products.ProsSmall package, easy to store, powder form, less expensive, works well to eliminate odors.ConsGets on your hands using the scoop. Powder needs to be sprinkled into full bowl of water or it clumps.
Kindle Customer –
Brilliant… Just brilliant.No smells, easy use, easy store, cheap per shot in our MoHo grey water tank.
Amazon Customer –
Awesome product!This is an awesome product! My black water holding tank was completely clogged. I was at the point I thought I would have to get the garden hose to go down through the toilet. And if you’ve ever done that, you know how nasty that is. But I decided to buy this before I tried the hose. It arrived in two days, I followed the directions, used one scoop and put it in in the afternoon. The next day I went out and pulled the lever and it emptied completely! I would recommend this to anyone. In addition, the smell was gone almost immediately!
Nikki Porter –
Exceeds expectations; in a class all it’s own!Do NOT RV or Boat without this product onboard! Works even better than thought possible. I have been a full time RV travel nurse for over 2 years. There are few instances where I can say I have tried everything. This is one of those times.Most importantly:Happy Campers works as advertised and better! It performs so much better than ANY other method or product, it is truly in a league of its own.The blue stuff. The orange stuff. The powders. The DIY “Method”. None of these work or even come close to the performance of Happy Campers. Not even close.A nurse’s nose does not lie. ;)Works great in black or gray tanks.I cannot emphasize enought that IT TRULY WORKS. Every. Time.Works in extremely high temperature areas. For example, I worked in the Los Angeles high desert in the summer = 115 degrees and never smelled a thing. Try that with any other products or “methods” and you will be ready to quit RVing all together. ;)Environmentally friendly and biodegradable.Wonderful people at Happy Campers. What started as a small family business has grown. They have love and experience in the RV and boating world.Amazing value. Irreplaceable.THANK YOU, Happy Campers, for creating such an amazing product and sharing it with the rest of us. For shipping nationwide and beyond so we can focus on time with friends and family, enjoy the great outdoors, explore and travel…and spend much less time focused on our tanks. =)
BlueWolf –
Happy Campers Made our Lives Sweet AgainThis is the best stuff ever! I am so very grateful for the reviews customers leave, because I don’t feel like I’m risking so much to try new things. We were really having a problem with odors in our new rv. Gross. Absolutely the worst smell one could imagine. I literally gagged. Especially after 3 days of family camping. Being new owners, we rely on recommendations for products or protocols. Most have been helpful, but others not so much, so hit or miss. And then I saw this review on a camper’s website. I wasn’t sure whether to trust a product with such a simple name, but so many people raved about it here and almost reluctantly, I thought, “oh, why not…try one more?” It was exhausting trying so many products and so much money flushed down the loo.However, to my surprise, the very first time I used this and carefully following the simple directions on the label, after waiting for a couple of hours, I went back into the bathroom, flushed and what do you know? No smell whatsoever! None. Not even a chemical smell. All I could smell was the soap on the sink counter. Oh, what a relief! I’m back on the RV site now, buying another bottle! Actually, 2. Since we are full time rv’rs now, I have to order product whenever we’ll be at a campsite long enough to get my mail. So, I’ll be stocking up this time. Don’t want to run out!Don’t waste money on those little green, purple, yellow packets. I tried all of them. None worked. And also, none broke up the waste. Now, when we flush out our tank, there’s a pleasant sound of running liquids. No clogs. Oh, and no smells outside either. That was a nice bonus.
Jim –
Doesn’t have the gross perfumy smell of chemical products and does a better jobFor two years of camping, I used the thetford brand chemical treatments. “elemonate” for the gray tank and the little chemical pods from thetford or walex to treat the black tank.I accepted that the bathroom area would have a “perfumy” smell as those products seem to have a lot of scent-masking agent.I am really sensitive to perfumed stuff. like “fresh scent” trash bags make me nauseous and I just do not like masking agents.I had come to accept that the bathroom area would smell like the perfumy masking agents. The bed in the trailer is back by the bathroom and I found myself sleeping often on the couch at the front of the trailer.I got this stuff and have used it now on two trips. I’ve done one dump with it and everything came out liquid and dissolved by this stuff at least as well as the other products. I like also that I can use it in the gray tank.The best part is now I have removed all of the chemical agents from the trailer and I had no idea how badly just storing that stuff in the camper was stinking up the camper with masking agent / perfume smell, especially near the bathroom where it was stored and used.After removing all of that stuff, the camper no longer has those chemical smells (or chemicals in it) and I find it much more pleasant to be around the bathroom and bathroom area and I find myself no longer avoiding that area.
Michael Merila –
This stuff works!!!I have been RVing for over 50 years and have always had an odor problem in the black tank, especially when the weather gets warmer. This summer seemed especially bad for some reason. We are full timers and just had to do something about the smell. My wife found this product online and we checked the reviews. Pretty much everyone seemed happy with it but I am always skeptical. I ordered the smallest container to give it a test. The day we got it I put the recommended amount in the black tank. We still had an odor that day but the next day it was gone! I was actually amazed. I had never had anything that actually worked! I was still a little skeptical though and wanted to see if there was any odor when I had to empty the tank. Again – no odor!! And it is cheaper than the liquids or packets that you throw in. Definitely recommend this for anyone who has an RV,