Another Head Odor Problem.....HELP!

[gah964]

venting seems to be the trouble here.

[Sid at SailAway]

Originally Posted by Tony B

Dumb question: Are you using fresh water or sea water to flush the tank? Warm sea water in your bowl will smell very similar to human waste and many times, the odor will be very strong. seawater only takes an hour or 2 to start to smell.
If you are using sea water, shut off the sea cock sea water inlet and try pouring fresh water in there from a hose and flush using fresh water.
If at the end of the day there is no odor, you have found the problem. There are lots of ways to permanently or semi-permanently set up for fresh water flush. For years, we used the flexible shower hose in the head for flushing.

If you use this method of flushing with fresh water then all you're doing is sending fresh water through the bowl and then the pump. This is doing nothing to rinse salt water and deposits from the inlet hose and the outlet holes under the rim of the bowl. The fresh water has to go through the inlet hose to get the rim of the bowl.
Peggy Hall accomplishes this by adding a "T" into the sink drain. For a complete explanation and a primer on boat odors get her book. You can find it on Amazon and have it in three days. Trust me, it will pay for itself.

There is also some good (and not so good) info over at the thread I started a couple of weeks ago.

[Stu Jackson]

Head Odors 101 Head Odors 101 & Fresh Water to Head from the Sink in the Head FLIX

Head Odors 101.1 - "T" into sink drain: http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,5....html#msg38216

Head Odors 101.2 The Difference between KO & Odorlos (scroll up to Reply #2) http://forums.catalina.sailboatowner...hlight=odorlos

[Sea Lyon]

I would like to thank everyone for the great input! We have now cleaned the bilge area with bleach water and tried to air it out as much as possible. We can see 95 percent of the hose runs and bilge area it all looks nice clean and white now.

We have also filled the holding tank with fresh water and pumped out several times. After several fresh water flushes we filled the holding tank to the point water came out the vent line, it appeared to be completely open. Also with the holding tank completely full of fresh water I checked carefully for any leaks around connections. The tank was then left with several gallons of fresh water in it.

I realize that the holding tank was probably lying for a very long time in a anaerobic state and also am sure the old hoses were permeated. We have had to leave the boat for a few weeks . Upon return we will try one of those tank additives to try and get aerobic action going. (Or better yet get someone from the marina to add it sooner)

We are now fresh water flush with our new head so that should also start to help. By the time we left the boat Sunday we were starting to think the odor was lessoning. As bad as the old hoses smelled it seems logical that they would have left odor behind.

In a new set of hoses with good connections it would seem to me that even if your tank is anaerobic that the odor would be confined to the inside of the tank and to the end of the vent line. Is that correct? I realize we want to get the tank aerobic at any rate.

[Patti21]

Does anyone know how I can buy Peggy halls book about getting rid of odors in a PDF version?