Mahe 36: Heads

[Cotemar]

Jef,

What on the faucet actually leaked ?
Was it leaking on the counter or below the counter?
Can I just purchase a faucet seal repair kit?
Any pictures?

Mark

[Jef & Marin, Netherlands]

Mark, sorry part of the text was lost.
A repair kit will not help.
The leak can be seen from below, the access hatch in the heads, below the counter. For this you need a torch.
The faucet is connected to the hot and cold water supply by 2 stainless steel-armoured rubber hoses. These hoses are screwed into the copper inner body of the faucet. Between the hoses and the copper body are these 2 O-rings.
To get at this, the whole faucet has to be taken out and disassembled, which is straightforward.

[1rkghost]

Im having two problems with our head the first is backflow into bowl which probably means i need to change valves but the second is more challenging. I dont thing the sewage tank is draining when we open the evacuation valve. We took the boat out and i tried to get the tank to evacuate but nothing came out. Recently i tried putting in the bowl and pumping to see if this would help no luck. I did notice some sewage coming out the overflow. Any ideas?

[1rkghost]

Can anyone tell me what the valve behind closet near head is this valve is attached to a drain line of some sort. Behind refrigerator

[Scott730]

First
the valve behind the closet by the breaker panel is for opening/closing the starboard water tank.
I need to ask if you are having a problem with the holding tank because you are using the tank for urine only. If this is the case then the urine when flushed with sea water will calcify and harden blocking the flow thru the discharge valve. You will need to remove the tank and break out the blockage. I have seen another boat that had this exact same problem. Even if you are mixing the effluent but more urine with sea water is present and sits for long periods in the tank, you will have this problem. This is one reason we will only use fresh water to flush.

Scott

[1rkghost]

Can the blockage be unstopped using a drain snake through the through hull outlet and run up the outflow pipe to the tank? Does anyone know of any product that dissolves the salts?

[MKB53]

It may be something else.

I had a similar problem. It was caused buy the cutout from the the ports which was dropped in the tank when they fitted it.

This falls over the outlet port in the bottom and blocks it. The blockage can be erratic as the disc gets dislodged but will eventually block consistently as the waste layer builds up and the disc gets stuck in the hole.

The good news is that the disc floats so if you can dislodge it and then fill the tank with water you can hook it out via the inspection port in the top of the tank.

I know that this has happened to other boats in Aus so mine was not an isolated incident.

Cheers
Martin

[1rkghost]

Can the tank be accessed via drain snake from discharge opening on outside of hull. I could run the snake by leaning out window in head run it through the outflow hole and up to tank break through what ever is blocking the works. Does anyone think this would work?

[MKB53]

It can be done but takes a bit of perseverence. I used a length of firm plastic hose and managed to get it up. You need to round the tip so that it does not catch on the lip of the port pipe. Getting it round the right angle at the seacock is not too hard but it does stick when it hits the port itself.

Round the tip as best you can and then some vigorous shoving the last couple of inches should do it. I found the hose better than the flat fibreglass "snake"

[1rkghost]

Thanks ill give it a try.

[Jef & Marin, Netherlands]

We had the outflow of the holding tank blocked this summer as well. First I tried to push an antenna cable through, this had no effect. Then I put freshwater pressure on the through-hull on the outside. The freshwater hose had to be thickened to get the same size as the through-hull internal diameter.
This worked. The marina got quite dirty.

You can try to dissolve the salts with cleaning vinegar, which is much stronger than kitchen vinegar.

Backflow from the holding tank: This is basically backflow from the contents of the hose going from heads to holding tank. I tried for some time to prevent this by lots of maintenance to the valves of the heads. Finally I converted to the newer type of Jabsco heads. In this model you can use "twist and lock" the pump handle, which prevents backflow. Probably you buy the parts separately from Jabsco.

[Cotemar]

Mahe’s

My girls where having a tough time getting a good show and hair rinse, because of having to turn the water on and off and also trying to maintain the water temperature. As you can see from a previous post that I added an inline on/off valve which seemed to help, but also seemed to lower the water pressure.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...tml#post687107

All the girls were complaining that they were having a hard time rinsing all the soap out of their hair.

1)Everyone seems to love the “Kitchen Sink Spray Head” on the stern shower

2)Stern shower has plenty of pressure

3)Easy on/off control in your hand. Temp is controlled at the valve

If everyone loves the stern shower then I have to replicate that system on the inside showers.
Purchased “Kitchen Sink Spray Head” at Home Depot similar to the stern shower.
Tried to find a 1/2”-14 NPSM Male to 15/16”-27 male thread adapter to remove the original shower head and replace it with the “Kitchen Sink Spray Head”.
No luck finding one of those. I ended up threading the end of “Kitchen Sink Spray Head” myself.

Have been using this setup on the inside showers now for a few weeks and all the girls really like it and say it works just like the stern shower which they love.
Very easy to change the heads back and forth for shower mode or sink mode
It also works well for cleaning the toilet, because of the extra pressure.

Sometimes you just keep trying until you get it right.

[LarryW]

Does any one the manufacturer of the secocks on the Mahe? When I was in for my last bottom job they remove the thruhulls,and when they put them back they took at least one appart and ruined the seal. any help would be appreciated


Larry

[DotDun]

Originally Posted by LarryW

Does any one the manufacturer of the secocks on the Mahe? When I was in for my last bottom job they remove the thruhulls,and when they put them back they took at least one appart and ruined the seal. any help would be appreciated


Larry

FWIW, I've purchased matching plumbing parts for my Belize from:

SOFOMARIN - Plomberie marine, Industrie pour les Professionnels du Nautisme

I don't know if FP uses the same equipment on the Mahe.

[Cotemar]

DotDun,

Yes, that is the same ones on page 5 and 7 of Sofomarin catalog. They are used in a lot of French boats.

LX - DN 40 - 1-1/2" inch for Waste tank drain

LX - DN 25 - 1" inch for Toilet

LX - DN 20 - 3/4" inch for Sink & Shower