I Cured the Smell from My Head

[peghall]

I'll look into possibly converting my Raritan heads to take pressurized fresh water from the potable system.

NOT do-able if they're manual toilets...and from your description of "20 pumps or so," it sounds like they are.

Unless your budget just can't stand it, you may just have the perfect excuse to "upgrade to the convenience of push button flush"...i.e. replace that toilet with the pressurized flush water version Raritan SeaEra "conversion." Raritan Sea Era Conversion Only draws 10 amps and if you spend a little more to get the optional 3 way flush button (Raritan only shows it with the Elegance, but it also works with the SeaEra), you'll have just a much control over the flush water volume as you do with a manual toilet.

[jr_spyder]

That's pretty compelling. Just to double check since I can't find it written precisely in their literature - it's ok to use the potable pressurized fresh water system for this? It's not required to have a dedicated flush source tank and pressure pump?

[peghall]

Toilets that are designed by the mfr to use pressurized flush water CAN safely be connected to the potable water system. Complete installation, operation and maintenance instructions are here: http://www.raritaneng.com/pdf_files/...eaerav0103.pdf

[hellosailor]

"I want to convert to using fresh and thought I'd just tap into a fw hose before the "

My local barber was actually bitching pretty loudly about "those damn inspectors" who citred him and made him install new shampoo sinksinsteead of the ones he'd kludged up.

And this is the same problem. City sanitation codes are designed so that water flows downhill, and there are "santitary breaks" between pieces of equipment. for instance in a sink, potable water comes out of the tap, and the tap MUST be installed so far above the basin, so that even it he basin totally overflows, the water from the basin cannot jump back UP into the water break and into the tap.

Een when a toilet tank fills, the incoming water is always fixed at a height above the maximum level of the tank water, and the central overflow drain dumps any water to prevent it from flowing up too high and bcking into the potable water line.

So the same easy principle applies on a boat. If you want to use the potable water to flush or rinse the sanitary plumbing? Put in a break. Put the fresh water supply a couple of inches above the toilet, so it drops down in, and can't flow back up. Put the "drop" space in some PVC pipe with vetns in it on the bulkhead, so it looks neat and sealed except if it overflows. Shouldn't take much imagination to make it so the fresh water can flow DOWN into the foul, and the foul has not condition in which it can reach up across the break and back into the fresh fresh.

Or, the fresh flush water for your head could come from a small day tank, bolted to the wall above the sink/head. We used a tea kettle for job, after breakfast whatever was left in the kettle got refilled, poured into the day tank in the forward head, and that was used to chase the odors out of it. Works.

[peghall]

So the same easy principle applies on a boat. If you want to use the potable water to flush or rinse the sanitary plumbing? Put in a break. Put the fresh water supply a couple of inches above the toilet, so it drops down in, and can't flow back up.

You're missing two important differences between domestic systems and marine systems: 1. the domestic toilet's flush water supply isn't connected directly to the bacteria laden bowl...and 2: domestic water plumbing is always pressurized...on a boat it's only pressurized while the water pump is on, making it much easier for bacteria to tiptoe through the boat's fresh water plumbing than through domstic water plumbing, requiring different safeguards.

Put the fresh water supply a couple of inches above the toilet, so it drops down in, and can't flow back up.

How can you do that if the plumbing runs through the bilge? And what if anything does above or below waterline have to do with anything?

Converting a raw water toilet to use pressurized fresh water may indeed BE as easy as just installing a check valve and a siphon break...so how come NObody has ever put a kit on the market to do it? Fear of liability exposure may be one reason why no toilet mfr has ever done it--and maybe resistance to converting instead of selling another toilet--but that doesn't explain why no intrepid entrepeneur has ever put one on the market...just about every other idea has been tried, including devices that flush the toilet every 30 minutes to prevent intake odor problems and using the engine exhaust to dump a holding tank. Compared to those, a flush water conversion kit would be easy. So there has to be a good reason why nobody's done it.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

... City sanitation codes are designed so that water flows downhill, and there are "santitary breaks" between pieces of equipment. for instance in a sink, potable water comes out of the tap, and the tap MUST be installed so far above the basin, so that even it he basin totally overflows, the water from the basin cannot jump back UP into the water break and into the tap...

This is called an indirect connection. An indirect connection may be one of two types:

* An air gap means the unobstructed vertical distance through the free atmosphere between the lowest opening from any pipe or outlet supplying fixture, or other device, and the flood level rim of the receptacle. The vertical physical separation shall be at least two times the inside diameter of the water inlet pipe above the flood rim level, but shall not be less than one inch. The air gap is the preferred (& required in most cases) connection.

* An air break is a piping arrangement in which a drain from a fixture, appliance, or device discharges indirectly into another fixture, receptacle or interception at a point below the flood level rim. The connection does not provide an unobstructed vertical distance through the free atmosphere and is not solidly connected, but precludes the possibility of backflow to a potable water source into a sink or dishwasher/or fixture being drained.

[READY2GO]

I have a question. We have a Jabsco manual head. After about a week the pump starts to get harder to pump. A friend told me to put a couple of table spoons of vegetable oil in the bowl and that would help. I now do that about once a week and it works like magic. Is there a down side to doing this?

[peghall]

Not a downside exactly, unless you consider a never ending job to b a downside. There is a better way: replace the thick synthetic grease that's in every toilet pump when it leaves the factory and lasts at least a year.

Buy a tube of thick teflon grease (SuperLube makes the best one)...remove the top from your pump--which, depending upon the age of your Jabsco, requires removing 6 screws or removing a hex nut. Stick the nozzle on the tube into the pump...give it a HEALTHY squirt...put the top back on. Pump a few times to spread the grease all over the inside of the pump cylinder...you're good to go for up to a year.

Raritan PH pumps: you have take the pump off the base, which requires removing 4 screws, and stick the tube nozzle into the bottom of the pump.

Takes all of about 10 minutes...I recommend making it a part of spring recommissioning as PREVENTIVE maintenance.

I finally found out where the practice of putting veggie oil into toilets originated. The first marine toilets didn't have rubber parts...their innards were LEATHER, which--unlike rubber--absorbs oil. So neatsfoot or cottonseed oil was flushed through the pump when the toilet could sit for at least a few hours to let the leathers soak it up to keep 'em soft and supple. When rubber replaced leather (there are still a few very expensive manual toilet still do have leathers, btw), people just kept pouring oil down the toilet even though it's pretty worthless in today's toilets 'cuz all the oil just washes out in a few flushes.

[hellosailor]

Peg-
As they used to say, the rest is left as a simple exercise to the reader. It really doesn't matter if you have pressure water, pumped water, gravity water, low water lines, high water lines...you can always take a water line up aboe the level of the bowl, then run it under the seat lid, or into a fitting on the water lines, or even put a "pot filler" faucet on the bulkhead of you wanted to, so the fresh water can drop into the line or bowl and flush it, without ever being able to be 'flushed back' by it.

How convenient or impractical that might be? Well, like brick outhouses, it might not work for you but someone out there can use one. I'm just saying, if you want a fresh water flush that can't contaminate the fresh water system, that's not a new idea, there are solutions to be found.

I like pressure water for showers, but I'm just fine with a foot pump otherwise.

Now, how about a nice Excel chart comparing the costs of clumping kitty litter and cedar buckets versus pump-out stations, holding tanks, and head overhaul kits? Or perhaps, quick lime? <VBG>

[Geoduck]

After reading all 8 pages of this thread, I've decided to unbolt my head and throw the damn thing overboard!

[READY2GO]

Thanks Peggie, I will give that a try.

[peghall]

Now, how about a nice Excel chart comparing the costs of clumping kitty litter and cedar buckets versus pump-out stations, holding tanks, and head overhaul kits? Or perhaps, quick lime? <VBG>

Should you choose to create such a spreadsheet, I'd love to see it. I wouldn't include kitty litter, though...at least not the clumping kind. 'Cuz at least two brands of clumping kitty litter will plug up a sewer line completely. Don't ask me how I know this.

Anybody else think that 120 replies to a single thread are enough? We settled bazzer's original issue about 50 posts back!

[colemj]

Originally Posted by peghall

Buy a tube of thick teflon grease (SuperLube makes the best one)...remove the top from your pump--which, depending upon the age of your Jabsco, requires removing 6 screws or removing a hex nut. Stick the nozzle on the tube into the pump...give it a HEALTHY squirt...put the top back on. Pump a few times to spread the grease all over the inside of the pump cylinder...you're good to go for up to a year.

One additional year only. We have a lot of experience with these cheap Jabsco heads and find that after 2 years of live-aboard use, the pump gets hard and squeaky and no amount of lube will help for more than a short period of time.

Then we just replace the whole pump assembly and go for another 2 years. On-line, the whole pump assembly is less expensive than rebuild kits and definitely much faster and easier to replace than rebuild.

Mark

[peghall]

For the price of two, maybe 3, "disposable" Jabsco pumps, you could have a Raritan PH II (TOP rated for more than 30 years) that'll provide at least 20 years of trouble free service if you just keep it lubricated and rebuild it every 5-6 years (about $50). Even available as a "conversion:" sbo.com PHII PHC LBA

Or...maybe you know my friend Rick who--so far--has put almost $1000 in replacement pumps into keeping a $100 Jabsco working...........??????

[Cherp]

I acknowledge Peggie's vast knowledge in this area and also Gord's encyclopaedic knowledge of how to send individual bugs to heaven. However, I have perfected a system to prevent smells in the boat's head (I call it a toilet).
1 Disconnect the water inlet pipe from the thu-hull and place it in a bucket of distilled water.
2 Add two teaspoons of domestic bleach to the bucket of distilled water.
3 Using the toilet's manual or electric pump, pump the bucket of instilled water through teh whole system.
4 Using the same procedure, flush with fresh distilled water until the outflow of the system is clean.
5 Seal the end of the intake pipe and attach it to a point higher than the toilet.
6 Never use the toilet again.

It really works.