Surprisingly, a lot of people ask what they should use to clean their motorhome toilet. It is important to keep the area around the toilet clean and free from potential dangers like bacteria or germs that could cause illness. Some people prefer to spray their toilets with water before wiping down with soap and water or even just plain old vinegar.
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There are also chemical cleaners that can be used but make sure to read the instructions before you use them, so you know how much is required for your specific campervan tank size.
To clean our motorhome toilet, we use biological toilet fluid, Zoflora, empty regularly and wipe down with bathroom cleaner.
When living in a small space in a motorhome or campervan, smells can seem much worse than when living in a house, so it’s important to keep things clean to avoid unwanted smells in your tiny home. Here’s how we keep our toilet clean and smelling fresh, and we use a Thetford cassette toilet.
How we clean our motorhome toilet
First, we use a toilet brush to scrub the bowl and sides of the toilet. Then, we flush the toilet and add a small amount of Zoflora to the toilet bowl. We let the Zoflora sit for a few minutes, then flush again. Next, we add a cup of white vinegar to the bowl and let it sit for about 30 minutes. After the vinegar has had a chance to work, we flush the toilet again and scrub the bowl with a toilet brush. Finally, we rinse the bowl with clean water and dry it off.
This routine may seem like a lot of work, but it only takes a few minutes, and it really helps to keep our toilet clean and smelling fresh. Plus, it’s a good way to avoid any build-up of soap scum, bacteria or germs.
Zoflora doesn’t just work great on the toilet but the rest of your bathroom surfaces and also multiple surfaces around the rest of your motorhome too.
If you are looking for a more natural way to clean your motorhome toilet, white vinegar is an excellent option. Vinegar is a natural disinfectant and can help remove stubborn stains and odors. To use vinegar, simply mix equal parts vinegar and water in a spray bottle and mist the inside of your toilet bowl. Let the vinegar solution sit for a few minutes before scrubbing with a toilet brush.
How to stop your campervan toilet from smelling
Empty your toilet regularly when it needs emptying. Use the toilet fluid cleaning products and also keep the blade closed and the seat down when the toilet is not in use, as this will avoid odours coming from the toilet and into the motorhome or campervan. Also keep some air freshener available in the bathroom.
How often to empty your toilet
For us, we need to empty our toilet every couple of days. That’s with 2 people using it and not all day as we are usually out and about for a lot of the day. Obviously, if you have more people in your van and are going to be using it more frequently, then you may need to empty it more often.
Our toilet alerts us to when it needs emptying with a red light that comes on the top of the toilet, but you can also tell that the toilet needs emptying when the blade is open, and you can see the water level is getting high.
What Products to Use
Once our toilet is empty and ready to go back into the motorhome, we add some green biological fluid which helps break down the waste and keep the toilet clean and helps with odours.
We also use general bathroom cleaners such as flash bathroom cleaner to wipe down the toilet seat and the external toilet etc, and also occasionally add some Zoflora to the toilet bowl to help freshen it up.
Can you use bleach in a Campervan / motorhome toilet
When we picked up our motorhome from our dealer, we were advised not to use bleach in the toilet because it can stain the plastic, it isn’t the same as adding bleach to a ceramic toilet bowl. Stick to the specific motorhome toilet products and products that do not contain bleach.
What are the best chemicals to use in a motorhome / caravan cassette toilet?
We have tried many different brands and chemicals in our motorhome cassette and found the Thetford brand to be the stand-out best, while they are the market leader, and their product is also the best that we have tested.
The blue chemical is used to ensure that all the waste matter has been completely broken down and makes it easier to dispose of.
Last Tip
A great tip we have used in our motorhome / campervan toilet is to place a car air freshener in the bathroom. We have tried this method a few times now and we think it helps the bathroom to smell better for longer.
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I love everything about travel, from seeing new places, learning about new cultures and trying new foods! I believe that travel is one of the best forms of education you can get, I have learnt so much about myself and about the world from travelling all over. Travel is something I feel so passionately about, and I love the fact that we are now lucky enough to have this opportunity to do what we love as much as we can, it’s a dream come true.
Before we started travelling, I worked in local government in administration. I had been in this job for several years and had reached a complete brick wall where I was so fed up, but didn’t know what else to do. The only thing I knew that I wanted to do was to travel, and had wanted to do that for many years.
There were hundreds and hundreds of places on my wishlist that I wanted to go to, and I knew that going on a weeks holiday maybe twice a year if we were lucky wasn’t going to cut it.
After being in lockdown due to the Covid pandemic, and working from home staring at the same 4 walls every day, 2021 seemed like the perfect time for us to take the risk to finally do what we had dreamed of for so long.
It was a hard decision to completely change our lives, but so far it has been the best decision we have ever made!
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