Episode 201 – RV Black Tank Treatment: Why I’m Talking About Solbio

In staying on the road, I'm going to talk about RV black tank treatment and why. I'm talking about Soul Bio. And then the quick tips. We're going to discuss the Waltech RV digital thermostats.

And then in RV Envy, I'm going to discuss the tow and glow. This is an awesome product. If you have a towed vehicle, this is a must have for you. I'm Eric Stark. Welcome to the Smart rver podcast.

If you'd rather be camping than sit in a repair shop, you're in the right place. In any every episode, I'll walk you through practical DIY maintenance and repairs that keep you on the road. Welcome back, Smart RVers.

Today is episode 201, so let's just dig right into it.

Now, I do want to remind you to subscribe to our podcast, subscribe to our YouTube video, share them with your friends, family, anybody you know that has an RV that find these art or these podcasts and videos valuable. Now, as a reminder, we do record these podcasts and put them on YouTube as well.

So you can watch it on YouTube, you can listen to it on YouTube and of course on itunes, Spotify, your favorite podcast channel. We are everywhere. All right, now that brings us to staying on the road. And today we're going to talk about an RV black tank treatment.

And I'm going to be talking specifically about Soul Bio. Now, if you're watching this, I'm holding it up right now, and you can see what it looks like. So it's a holding tank treatment.

And seeing what it looks like, I know that doesn't help you decide whether you want to use it or not. And now if you think this is just going to be more garbage about a holding tank product because you got your favorite and how many are there?

Come on, this gets ridiculous. Well, SoulBio is new to the United States. It's been on the world scene for about 10 years now. It does great in other countries.

And so I want to introduce it to you. I'm the exclusive distributor in the United States right now, and this product is awesome. Now, you know a lot about RV holding tank products.

You know, they all promise the same thing. There's going to be less odor, fewer problems, easier dumping. Life just gets better, right?

It's a holding tank, and you're thinking, come on, man, if it does one of those things, I'll be happy. But Soul Bio actually does it all.

Now, I'm not going to make this a total sales pitch because you guys can make up your mind what product you want to use. But I think this product is great. And, you know, many RVers, they still fight smells, they still fight buildup in the holding tanks.

There's that harsh chemical odor that, you know, you open up the bottle of it and just poof. Right in your face. It just blows your mind sometimes how bad it can be, right? All you're smelling is chemical.

So that's why I want to talk about Soul Bio. I feel this product is really great. It caught my attention about a month ago, month and a half ago, it was in an RV trade publication magazine.

And I called them right away, got in contact with them. They are in the United Kingdom, and that's where they're based, and that's where the product started, and it's done phenomenal there.

But I thought, you know, this looks different, it sounded different, and so here we are. I think the product is awesome. And, you know, I don't sell it if I don't believe in it. I think you understand that.

You know, if you listen to the podcast, you know where I'm coming from, I'm not into selling garbage. And, you know, I happen to have this in my store, and I am going to, and it is on our website, so I definitely want to sell it, right?

But this is a product without that heavy chemical smell. So it's not just another blue liquid. This is a product that RVers really want in their holding tank.

It's a treatment that's going to actually work, and that's what we're going to discuss. But before we get into that, I want to tell you about pur.

Now, if you've been listening to the podcast for a long time, you know that Purpower is my child. Me and my brothers, or my brothers and I, we created this product. We brought it to market.

It's in every RV store in the United States for the most part. Eventually, Volterra products bought it from us. And I have a history with holding tank products is what I'm getting at.

And I don't own this product anymore, so I really don't have any skin in the game on it. But I've talked about it. I've done videos on it, I've talked about it in podcasts. So I've really backed Pure Power for many years.

And not just that it was my baby, but it works. Now, that's interesting, right? I'm here now. I'm pushing Soul Bio because Soul Bio, I think, is a better product and it works.

Or it's much safer than Pure Power and Pure Power is pretty darn safe. It got my attention, and it changed my thinking on holding tank products.

So I just want to give you that background because, you know, Pure Power has been around for, oh, 26 years or so. You know, we it, heck, I remember 9, 11, when going to pitch this product to some of the largest distributors in the United States. A lot going on.

I remember our insurance premiums, like, quadrupled, you know, our policies for, oh, what you might call liability policy. So, you know, I've been around it for a long time, been in the industry for a long time, and I've seen the products that have come and gone.

Some of them stick around longer than others. Heck, holding Tank chemicals that smell like bubble gum, lemon fresh, you know, every flavor, cherry, everything's been done.

And soulbio really just takes it to a whole new level, and that's what we're talking about today. So just so you understand my experience with PurePower, and, yeah, I'm changing my mind, and that's what happens. But Pure Power is still in my store.

In fact, I got a lot of it in my store because we have customers that love it. They're going to try soulbio, but they might go back to Pure Power. You know, it's. It's a personal decision. Everybody's holding tank.

It's your business, man. Right. So what's the real problem that RVers are facing with the holding tank? That's you, the RVer, and your holding tank.

So most RVers really don't want tank chemicals. They want results. What are you really trying to solve? You want to control the odor. You want the waste to break down.

You want toilet paper to break down, you want easier dumping, you want a cleaner tank with less mess. Right. Without that chemical smell. Now, a lot of products that have been made that have come and gone over the years, they cover the odors.

Like Thetford's been notoriously known for just covering over the odors. It's the same type of stuff you'd use in an outhouse. Now, Thetford's changed their products a little bit.

They're still not safe, but they've changed them. They seem to be doing something. And we'll get into that in a moment. Some of these labels and how they're marketed, but they don't.

These products don't really. They cover the odor. They're not really improving what's happening in the tank. They're just masking the odor.

Now, some products have a very strong chemical smell that makes the whole bathroom smell like it's treated rather than a clean bathroom. And sometimes that even smells, spreads out into the whole RV. Now, for many RVers, the treatment itself becomes part of the problem.

So RVers are not looking for perfume in a bottle. Right. You want a tank that's going to work better. Now let me explain what Soul Bio is in plain English, and that's S O L B I O.

And again, you can see this. I'm holding it up if you're watching this in the video portion. So SolBio is a natural plant based holding tank treatment.

It's designed for holding tanks, cassette toilets which you'd find in other countries, not necessarily here, and porta potties or portable toilets, the small ones, which are similar to cassette toilets.

So SoulBio is going to break down the waste, it's going to break down the toilet paper, it's going to get rid of the odor and it's going to have a more natural scent rather than a harsh chemical scent in the bathroom.

Now all these holding tank products have scents and they have to have an odor, their perfume smell or scent, whatever you want to call it, that's kind of a necessity. But it's that scent. Is it bearable? You know, does it drive you crazy? You know, at the.

When we were making pure power, working it in the factory all day, if you will, getting smelling pure power all the time really got tiring.

It kind of gets on you, you know, if you're handling it like the ones that would bottling it in the bottling line and get on their hands and stuff and their hands would just smell like pure power all the time. So you want to get away from that.

Those smells that just kind of drive you crazy or those toxic chemicals that are found in some of the brands that are out there today. And you want it to be safe for a septic system. And you might think that, well, heck, I don't have a septic system where I live.

Yeah, but a lot of campgrounds do.

And even sewage facilities, they like safe products going into their facilities because it doesn't ruin them like some of the toxic ones do, like formaldehyde. Thetford had formaldehydes in their products for years, for decades. That stuff was just nasty.

It was poison, even on the bottle skulls and crossbones. So why does all of this matter to you? Is it important to you? Well, let's look at some points here.

So many RVers today, when you go to campgrounds, you're finding yourself in some smaller spots depending on where you go. And not saying every campground is Tighter.

And why that matters is some RVs, if the holding tank has problems, man, you smell it up on the roof and it spreads out around the RV, it gets nasty. And from years of working in RV parks in Arizona, there's some RVs out there that just stink because they're having problems in the holding tank.

So in a small RV park, it becomes your problem too, or it can. Warmer weather is going to make problems, longer stays.

These are all conditions that expose the holding tank and issues that it might have, and it exposes them very quickly. So odors in a holding tank matters more than sometimes we might think, because it's not just affecting you, it can be affecting others.

Maybe some family members don't really saying that's just part of RVing. It's not part of RVing. Your. Your RV shouldn't smell. And you know, some RVs do smell. You get so used to it, you don't even notice it.

And then there's different RVers. Like maybe you're one of the RVers who has a sensitive smell. You know, the smell becomes very sensitive to you.

You know, it's something you can't really deal with. The inside of the RV just kind of gets touc tiring. You don't want to be in there because it smells so bad, because of the chemical smell.

And not to mention if the waste isn't being treated properly, that has an odor of its own. Now, many RVers, like, you want a product that's going to. That you can live with, right? Not something that's just. You got to endure it.

You want it to be able to work in the holding tank and not affect every RV trip you go on.

Now, if a product can help with the odor and help with the waste and break down the toilet paper, do everything it's supposed to do, there's value in that, right? And that's what we're looking for, is the value, especially today. Soul Bio is that product.

And you can even take this and put it in a spray bottle and spray your toilet and wipe it down and so forth. It's totally safe. You can get it on your hands. Heck, you could drink it if you want to. Not that I'm promoting drinking it.

There's a lot better things to drink in life, like adult beverages, right? So. So Bio is not really high on the list. And I only say that because it's safe.

So if you are spraying your toilet to wipe it down, let's say, or even your sink, you know, it's not a poison. You're spraying everywhere. But Soul Bio, they do have cleaners for that. But we're just focusing on the holding tank product today.

And it will also work in the gray water tank. So it's going to get rid of that grease buildup.

If you got any algae growing in there, ugly stuff, it's going to help with that and get rid of the odors in there. And gray water tanks can get just as nasty smelling as black water tanks. They can be ruthlessly bad.

So this is the kind of product that may appeal to you, the RVer who wants to have a better experience with your holding tank, not making your RV smell like a chemistry set. Right. So what makes this different from all the traditional products out there?

And I'm just calling them all traditional because many of them have been around long enough now. You know, they have years of experience on the shelf and in RVs. So that's making them traditional. That's the go to.

Well, you have blue chemicals and you have green chemicals, right? You have powders, you have pods, you have liquids, you have enzyme, you have bacteria based treatments, you have bacterial enzymes.

And you know, enzymes and bacteria by themselves aren't really the greatest thing, but bacterial enzyme together like pure power and even digest it, which is made by Unique, that's a bacterial enzyme formula. So they do perform better, but they're not the best, that's for sure.

So one of the things about Sobio that really makes it kind of unique is the plant based ingredients. So it's safe, it's a biodegradable formula. In fact, even the packaging is biodegradable.

Everything about this product is completely safe for the environment. And that may or may not matter to you. That's, that's your call. But what's inside the pouch and it is in this pouch. I'm going to get sidetracked here.

This pouch, you look at it, you might think, oh, that's not very safe. You can drop these things, you can kick them, they're not going anywhere.

It's going to endure in your RV and you can also pour it out or you know, do little doses in plastic bottles. I should have brought a plastic bottle with me here to show you.

But so you can just put in several doses in there rather than bring the whole pouch if you don't want to. I mean it's up to you. But it's biodegradable, there's no harsh chemical smells to it and it's completely, totally safe for septic systems.

There's not one thing in there that's going to hurt a septic system. So that's important.

Like I said earlier, you might not be dumping into one, but eventually it ends up in a sewage treatment plant or someplace where it does matter. And so bio's got this unique scent. It's a pine and eucalyptus smell. And eucalyptus to me is not kind of the odor I like to be around.

But, you know, I've had this stuff in our store for a couple weeks now and the store doesn't have this heavy chemical smell from it. I have some sitting on my desk, been sitting there. You know, I'm. And it doesn't get to me where other products will. So that's totally different.

And it's unique to the RV industry because most of the products just have chemicals in them that mask the odor. And so solbio is just one of these products that works. It's going to work in the holding tank. And so you don't need several different products.

You don't need this product to do that. That product to do this. This is going to clean the sensors while it's in there. It's going to break down the waste, control the odor.

It's going to do all that fun stuff. Now, it's not just a product that smells better, it actually works.

And that's important because a working product that's easier to live with makes RVing much more pleasant. Right, now let's get to the million dollar question here. How much is it? All right, that's a great question, right? Because we do need to know that.

Now Soul Bio has a dosing guide on their website and we will. And it's also on our website. I say we or, you know, will, but it is on our website and it talks about how to do this.

So you're going to get about 40 doses per bag. So this is a. It's in liters, but that doesn't matter. It's the way it doses. It works out really well.

You just squeeze the button on the bag for two seconds and there's your dose. It's very simple. In the bag you're going to get approximately 40 doses.

So that's going to do your RV, not necessarily 40 times, depending on how you're using it, the size of your tank, that's going to vary. So you're going to put it in a little bit, an ounce and a half in the tank. It's going to sit in there for, you know, up to three days.

And you're going to put another ounce and a half in and that's going to do what it's supposed to do in the tank. And the deal is, you want a lot of water in there. So to tell you how much it is, this bag goes for $49.95. Now, you might think that's a lot.

You know, a gallon of pure power is $35, $38, depending on where you're buying it. 40 Bucks. It just depends on where you're buying it, what's going on, and other products are in the same price level.

So don't look at it, the overall price.

Look at it, the fact that it's working in the tank, and you can pencil it out per dose after you use it for a while and say, yeah, hey, this isn't bad. But keep this in mind. How many products are out there where it's 2 or 4 ounces, you pour it in, and then a day later, you're pouring in more.

And then the weather changes a little bit, you're pouring in more. So you might actually be using more of that product than you realize. And you're thinking, eh, you know, it's $35 for a gallon.

That's not so bad, you know, and it'll last me. You don't really think about it. You just put it away, you know? So Soul Bio works, though, and that's what's important. We want a product that works.

Otherwise, we're just literally pouring our money down the drain. Right? Here's the deal. You measure it, you add it, and let it do its job. And that's it.

You just put it in the holding tank, and you don't have to think about it. And it does work. I mean, we've been trying it. I've tested my rv. The product works. And that's. I mean, what can I say? So here's the deal, though.

When you're using a holding tank product, you know, you want to have plenty of water in there. You want to dump it, you know, when you're supposed to. Don't try to squeeze it out. I can get two weeks out of this holding tank.

You know, most of the time, you just need to dump it every, you know, three to five days, whatever it might be, and rinse the tank out. That's important, too. You know, you want to always rinse the tank and don't let solids pile up.

Don't let that turn into a thing, or you got all these solids in the holding tank right now. Who is Soul Bio best for?

So, RVers who hate chemical smells, RVers who are camping with septic hookups which you know, most RV parks are because it's safe, it's not going to harm the park.

RVers with portable toilets, you know, if you happen to have a cassette toilet, maybe you're another country and you have a cassette toilet and you're listening to this. So RVers are looking for a natural product and RVers that want products that can support more than one tank related job.

You know, basically you can put in black water, gray water, like I said, you could use it to clean the sinks if you wanted to. The toilet, spray it down. So if you're perfectly happy with what you're using, that's just fine, go ahead, keep using it. That is not a problem.

But if you've been disappointed with the odors, the smell or the overall experience, what you're using, try it. You can't go wrong. It's on our website. We'll get to that in a second. Right. It sounds like one of those as seen on TV commercials.

I'm sorry, but it's, you know, holding tanks are a major issue and that's what we want to really. It's really what I'm talking about. Soulbio just happens to be the product and I really like it. I'm excited about it.

And I think, you know that when I get behind a product, I get behind a product. So Soul Bio is just another tool to put in your toolbox. It's a product that's going to work once you try it.

And you know you're going to have to try it. If you buy a pouch of it, great. Then go through the whole pouch, let your tank get used to it.

You're going to get rid of all the junk on there, which by the way, before you start using it, you want to flush your tank out, get any chemicals out of there that you're using. And most of the products have chemicals in. I'm not going to say all of them do.

And we're still in that age where chemicals are there and you have to be cognizant of that because they do cause problems and they don't actually work very well and they do cause problems on your holding tank. But in other places and being the US dealer, you can call me, I can walk you through the steps of using it if you're having problems.

In fact, I want to hear about if you start using soulbio, I'd like you to call me, text me, email me and let me know your experience because it's important for me to know because it works for me. And I think the product's great experiences are great too.

Like with Pure Power, there's a customer that to this day, because he keeps in contract with my brother, talks to my brother like annually about how it works in his holding tank, you know, and yeah, sounds bad right here.

I'm pushing Pure Power as well, but it's just some people, you know, they have problems and now they want it to go away and then they're kind of, hey, this is cool. This stuff is really working. I bought a new RV and I started using it, cleared up those problems. So take advantage of this product, man. It is great.

And so like I said, you know, I'm always looking for products at work and this is just one that happened to catch my attention. And it's practical, it's an easy product to use, and you don't have to think about it. You put it in and you're done.

And that's what caught my attention. This product, just put it in, you're done. It's not taking up your whole life as an rvers, not the new hobby you have.

All right, so that's going to do it for staying on the road.

So if you've been frustrated with holding tank, odors, harsh chemicals, the smells of it, or you're just looking for a different approach, Sobial is definitely one to know about. And as always, good tank habits still matter just as much as the product you choose. We'll talk about things in the future.

We'll probably hit back on Soul Bio again. We'll do videos and other things in the meantime.

You can go to our website, sunpro mfg.com there'll be a link in the description and you'll be able to look at Soul Bio firsthand and read about it. Then if you have questions, you can call me as well. Phone number or contact us. Information. We'll be in the description of this podcast.

Now that's going to bring us to the Walltech RV thermostat. Now this is a pretty cool thermostat. So this guy here, it's gonna. It's a RV thermostat, right? Sounds crazy. Now the million dollar question.

Let's get right up front. They're $359, they're expensive, but it's a great point product.

And what's so cool is it almost doesn't matter what thermostat your RV has in it, it's going to work. It doesn't work with a Dometic four button thermostat or replace one. Some of the Atwood Thermostats.

And I think some of the GE thermostats that their ACs use, the R32 free on them, that'll be on our website as well. And so bio, I mean, walltech has it on their website too. There'll be links to everything in the description.

But what's so cool about this thermostat is not only does it work with your or replace your thermostat, so it works with your air conditioner and your furnace. It's also going to work with a Mopepa Mopeka LP tank detector or gauge, I should say. If you're using one of those, it'll tap into it.

You can get smart connectors for it or smart plugs. And so you can have things in your RV that will turn on when you tap it.

And you're familiar with that, you probably have maybe an Alexis in your home or Alexa, whatever it's called, Alexis and Alexa. And you know, hey, Alexa, turn on my lamp, turn on my whatever. Well, this is the same thing, except you just tap it and you can put it on your phone.

Now it is WI Fi, but it's not built in WI fi like some thermostats, like Easy Touch from Microair. And you know, I've talked about Easy Touch. Great product. I haven't changed my mind on that. This is just a different form of that product.

Takes it to a whole different level, I guess you should say, because it makes your entire RV smarter and they're constantly coming out with changes. Like one thing in the future is Bauer door locks will work with it. So the door locks in your RV will, will tie into this.

So that would be using the app on your phone and opening or unlocking, locking your door locks. And that's pretty cool. So they're constantly working. And when they make changes, you don't have to replace the thermostat.

You just do a firmware update and you do that via the Internet, which it'll connect to the Internet. Like I said, it's WI Fi and it'll automatically do those updates. So it's pretty cool.

And if you don't have Internet access where you're at, like let's say you're at a campground and they don't have Internet there. You can't get into it, don't want to, whatever it is, and maybe your phone's not working, you don't want to tie it into your phone.

Maybe your phone won't work as a hotspot and you can't connect your. Thermostat to it because it is Internet and I say wi fi. It's really Internet based.

It has a smart chip built into it that you can activate and pay on a monthly level for it and you can just pay for the months you want to. And it's like $7 or $10. There's two different plans. So it's pretty inexpensive. And you can just shut it off.

If you're going to use it for three months during the summer, you can do three months, you can do one month, whatever you want to do. And that makes it a little easier to use.

You can use it remotely because it's the Internet and it'll obviously do the updates because you do want to connect to the Internet somewhere. Your home on your. Attach it to your phone. Ever how you want to do that or can do that. That's important for those firmware updates.

So like I said, there's gonna be more information on this on our website and I'll have links in the description so you can take a look at it. It's a great product. And now I've had one for several months. I've put it in my rv, I've been testing it and I like it. It works very well.

So just so you know, another great product we found and we're, we're working on more products. We're trying to find more things that kind of fit our world that I think will fit your world.

So we can, you know, we can talk about this stuff and like I said, questions. You can just call me. That's not a problem. And that's the other thing too.

These products I'm talking to you about, sharing with you for the most part, they have great customer service. Some of them are better than others. But the product so good that I kind of overlook it.

You know, like you can call a number on a website, which is awesome. No phone number, not so good. Like this next product, Tone Glo, made by Four Mavericks.

Now I don't recall there being a web or a phone number on their website, but they did respond to my email or my Contact Us when I use their Contact Us page. They responded right away. And talking to them, we did have a phone conversation. These guys are really friendly at Four Mavericks.

Now what's cool, they've all been in the industry. There's four of them. Four Mavericks. Get it? But they have this product called Tow and Glo. And this thing is pretty darn cool.

If you have a motorhome and you're towing a car behind it, you know A towed vehicle.

So this tow and glow, it's a light that plugs into your towed vehicle and then your connector that connects the motorhome and the towed vehicle for the interior or for the tail lights, turn signals, and all that plugs right into the center of this. So what. It looks like a headlight, and that's what makes it legal. It's a white light on the front of your towed vehicle. Why is that cool?

Now think about that. A white light on the front of your tow vehicle so people can see your vehicle.

You know, when it's dark at night, you know, people make lane changes, they do things. They may not see it.

You're passing a car and they decide to get over and they don't realize there's a towed vehicle there and they're going to jump over real quick. That's one aspect of it. This light makes you more visible.

And if you're driving down the road at night and you have to get out, you're concerned about maybe your tow vehicle, make sure it's still connected properly or the back of the RV or something going on. You get out and you got this light back there. You turn on your lights and this comes on with it just like they would in your towed vehicle.

Except it's like a headlight, so it's really. And it's led, so it doesn't draw any power to speak of. So it's a great safety feature and just a great accessory.

You know, if you need a light back there, it's like towing a trailer. You know, you can't put a white light on the front of a trailer because that would be illegal. But on a toad car you can. So it makes really handy.

That flashlight is built in all the time when your lights are on. So just go to their website. I'll have a link to it in our description. And you can buy it from the. I think they're like 35 bucks.

They're not too expensive. You know, it's pretty. Actually it's pretty reasonable because it'll last for years. And you got that light all the time.

Don't have to buy batteries for it or anything. So it's a great little option there. We've come to the.

To the end of the podcast today, so I want to give you a reminder to sign up for our newsletter. And speaking of the newsletter, we are getting signups and we haven't sent something out.

I've been kind of falling short on that because we've been exploring different avenues of our newsletter and tying in with our websites in different ways. So we've kind of held back, but we're going to start firing them off pretty quick here, just so you know.

So if you've signed up and you haven't gotten anything like, hey, what's this knucklehead talking about? You know, keep saying this, but nothing's happening. It will, I promise.

Just one of those things, you know, we just have a lot going on all the time, unfortunately. Well, or fortunately, every you want to look at that, newsletters will start coming out.

And now in Our next episode, 202, we have an awesome water gauge we're going to be discussing. And this thing is absolutely cool. So come back in two weeks and you will be able to hear about that. And again, that'll be on our website.

So, yeah, we're just keep adding things that we think work for you. We want to make you guys the smart RVers. Right? Well, you're already smart. We're just making you smarter.

All right, that's going to do it for today's episode of the Smart rver podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Eric Stark, and if you'd rather be camping and sitting repair shop, you're in the right place.

Until next time, take care of the little things and enjoy the trip.