Aftermarket Dometic Water Valve?

[bobsh]

I need to get a new water valve for a dometic 311 toilet. Has anybody used aftermarket parts instead of OEM parts? How do they compare?


BTW, I left a wonderful Thetford toilet that worked just fine for 8 years to find that a 4 year old dometic has a problem with a screen that you can't clean without taking it out. Great engineering if you want to make money on parts.
I just got the valve out. Still can't clean it -- the obstruction is past the screen. I'll try soaking it in vinegar.

[Eagle5]

Hi bobsh,
If vinegar doesn't do the trick, perhaps try Borax.
Eagle5

[Morich]

We have really hard water here in my part of Texas and that makes water spots and deposits a real problem when keeping tropical fish.
One of the things I found to speed up the process if vinegar is not enough is an item for cleaning pools, etc.
It comes in gallon jugs and that would likely be too much to be worth the idea but if you can find some pool folks, you might be able to get a cup full?

It is a safer replacement for muriatic acid called "Acid Magic". It still takes a bit of care as it hurts like the devil is you don't use gloves and have a hangnail!

But the good side is that it IS much stronger than vinegar and does many hard water cleaning jobs much quicker. It doesn't seem to be a problem for any type rubber seal, etc. and I've used it on lots of fish stuff as long as I rinse really, really, good to avoid huge PH drops.

But in a toilet, that's not the big problem!

[bobsh]

Thanks for the ideas. Part of the problem was that my old eyes couldn't distinguish what the blockage was in the narrow, deep spot where the screen was. I soaked and finally managed to pick out some black pieces of something. It seemed as though it was small shreds of black plastic. Some of the plumbing involved was black plastic - maybe it was shreds of threads. At any rate I put the part back and the water flow was much better. I still have to replace it since parts of it show wear. Dometic wants $79 for it on its site, the Dometic store on Amazon wants $35 for it, and many aftermarket versions are $10. (Gives you an idea of where Dometic makes some $$ .) One aftermarket supplier claims to have upgraded the material to last longer ($20).



Just wanted to mention that there seems to be a consensus that this part is not robust. Many posts online mentioned they carried a spare with them on their travels. This part is poorly designed for easy cleaning. Also, the swirling action of the Dometic 310 seems poor compared to Thetford versions.