Fresh Water or Salt Water to flush the toilet?

[tarian]

Remember everyones Urine is Diffrent , what you put into your Body must come out , some Urine from the posters on here would need Some special Equipment and a health Warning Im sure

[Woodland Hills]

Originally Posted by Scubaseas

Fresh water is fine for zero head smell but I would not want to hook your fresh drinking water tank to the head. Even with double check valves. Better to use the shower head to fill the toilet bowl. If you use the head every day or all the time it makes little difference other than salt builds scale faster in the hoses. Odor is about the same as long as the salt doesn't sit in the bowl/hoses for a long time.

What do you do at home on land? The toilets are hoked directly to the water system with no check valves or anti-backflow devices......

[leftbrainstuff]

Sea water is fine. Providing you use good sanitation hose and that your black water tank can breathe.

Don't use bleach or chemicals as they will kill the good microbes that need oxygen to do their thing. It's the first set of microbes that produce the hydrogen sulphide. They work well when their space is not well ventilated.

Freshwater water will make little (no) difference if your sanitation hose leaches odors and if your tank doesn't vent well.

Your diet will also impact microbe activity so don't think fresh water is going to solve your problem. We also use good marine biocide regularly to keep the microbe population healthy.

Think of your head as aquarium that needs care and maintenance. It is not a toxic waste site that you attack with chemicals, solvent or the bs voodoo peddled by charlatans.

Calcium buildup is a different issue. It has no odor but can trap contaminants. Again regular use of vinegar will control this issue.

[stewie]

There is calcium in a lot of fresh water.

[Pete17C]

Originally Posted by leftbrainstuff

Sea water is fine. Providing you use good sanitation hose and that your black water tank can breathe.

Don't use bleach or chemicals as they will kill the good microbes that need oxygen to do their thing. It's the first set of microbes that produce the hydrogen sulphide. They work well when their space is not well ventilated.

Freshwater water will make little (no) difference if your sanitation hose leaches odors and if your tank doesn't vent well.

Your diet will also impact microbe activity so don't think fresh water is going to solve your problem. We also use good marine biocide regularly to keep the microbe population healthy.

Think of your head as aquarium that needs care and maintenance. It is not a toxic waste site that you attack with chemicals, solvent or the bs voodoo peddled by charlatans.

Calcium buildup is a different issue. It has no odor but can trap contaminants. Again regular use of vinegar will control this issue.

Don't biocides kill the microbes? Are you thinking something like Rid-X for septic systems?

[FULLCIRCLE331]

The tank at home is not in contact with the bowl, just drops in the water.

[sailorboy1]

amazing how complicated people are making this

[SwellGuy]

Originally Posted by Woodland Hills

What do you do at home on land? The toilets are hoked directly to the water system with no check valves or anti-backflow devices......

Your toilet at home by design functions as an ‘air gap’. The water supply fills the tank, the tank flushes the bowl. The bowl is therefore not ‘directly’ hooked to the water system, and there is no way for the bowl to backflow into the feed system.

Its a good thing people think about this stuff, huh? You should let them.

[Stu Jackson]

My experience is that the reality is that if you use your head on a daily basis, you won't get a stink from the incoming salt water. It's only when the salt water sits in the intake line for over a few days. Once you keep using the head the salt water doesn't sit in the intake line and "fester."



That's why many of us have T-eed into the sink drain and if we're going to leave the boat for a few days, use fresh water thru the sink for JUST THE LAST flush before we leave. When we return and pump it's not smelly.


Head Odors 101.1 - "T" into sink drain: Head Odors 101 & Fresh Water to Head from the Sink in the Head FLIX


and


Head Pumps 101 Why just pouring water into the bowl is NOT a good idea Head Sea Water Shutoff Valve & Antisiphon question


If you have a manual toilet, plugging your intake into your fresh water system is not a good idea.


Peggie Hall's superb book covers this in detail.

[TrentePieds]

Quote "The water isn’t usually in the hose Long enough to smell, nor is the holding tank filled long enough to stink."

In a small boat like a Hunter 34, don't get too carried away with it all. You say you are on the "west coast". I assume of NA :-) Keep stuff simple. Flush with salt water. In a small boat like Hunter 34 don't waste your precious potable water on flushing the loo. You only have 60 or 65 gallons of it! Think logically and clearly about the delights of sanitation and personal hygiene, and design your system around those thoughts.

For example: I'm in the Salish Sea. There are many, many "restricted areas" here, and, of course, you would dream of discharging overboard in a marina. But you ARE allowed to discharge when you are more than 3 NM from shore. On a falling tide. At hull speed. What's so difficult about that? How often, when cruising, are you NOT 3NM from shore? Or how often can you not adjust your track to be so for the few minutes it takes to discharge?

Just like you need to have a "budget" for your electricity use, so you need to have a "budget" for your toilet use. If you apply a little basic experimental practice to this problem you will find that a manual Jabsco el cheapo pottie will require about 1/2 gallon of water to clear the content of the bowl past the joker valve. Assume a rather generous two bowel movements per person per 24 hours (2BPDs). Then if the total crew is man and wife, you need to clear 2 gallons of water (plus "load") past the joker valve in 24 hours. My holding tank is 20 gallons, so that theoretically gives me 10 days of use before a pump-out or discharge is ABSOLUTELY required. On a cruise, when would there be span of ten days when you would NOT be 3NM from shore? Or ten days away from a commercial pump-out station?

So back to the smell. Where does it come from? Certainly not from the bowl since you pump it out each time you use it. From a gentleman "missing the mark" because he failed to sit down for a "No.1"? From a leak in the hosing letting "black water" into the bilge? From a leak in the Holding tank itself? From the vent for the HT? All these "problems" are easily rectified.

What other possibilities are there? Only one: Permeated hoses that "sweat" black water. Well, that is just the nature of the beast, unless you re-plumb with impermeable plastic pipe. Doing that brings its own problems, so back to the hoses. It takes two or three years for new hoses the permeate. So build into your maintenance budget forty or fifty bux for new hoses and half an hour of labour time every two years for the re'n're and Bob's yer uncle! Ordinary cleanliness will do the rest.

Peggy Hall, a member here, is very good about answering quations about malfunctioning marine toilet installations.

Bear in mind that American classic folksong sung to the tune of Dvorak's "Humoresque" ;-)!

TrentePIeds

[Stu Jackson]

I'm guessing Peggie hasn't seen this 'cuz it's on General rather than plumbing.


Good points, tp, thanks.

[Mithril Bham]

No doubt fresh greatly diminishes odor but creates other obvious problems unless you have a very large yacht.
I have often thought of dedicating one of my 50 gallon water tanks to the head, since water is no problem in the PNW, but will probably just change out my hoses every couple of years instead.

[captlloyd]

Coconut coil.

[Mike Banks]

If you use fresh water and preservative, you have pretty much solved the stink problem, but that requires a separate tank for the flush water (often ex-shower water with preservative) and only large vessels use them.

Most of us just use sea water, but if you are not flushing the heads for a day or so the smell will be really obnoxious--dead plankton stink. If you have a large water-maker aboard and more fresh water than you can use, by all means add it to your flush tank.

[Maka]

I have a Raritan system that requires me to add salt in the toilet when flushing while the boat is in a fresh water environment.
So Always Salt.


Looking forward to having Peggy Hall, the Goddess of Heads and Odors, comment here.