General question about heads on a sailboat

[jleonar]

My wife and I are in the process of narrowing down our target search for a boat we want to purchase in the next 12 months.



This will be our first sailboat and we will be liveaboards(mostly at anchor). One area of concern for her is the number of heads. I am mechanically inclined, I can do plumbing, electrical, etc.



I think a boat with a single head is acceptable as long as we carry essentially all the spares to rebuild it if something breaks. She is worried that a repair will take too long and not having a backup isn't a good idea.



I am trying to compromise by saying, look, when we buy the boat, I will buy two sets of spares. I will immediately rebuild the entire thing just so I have direct experience on how to do it. That way the next time it will take less time to do a repair.



She is open minded on this but since we don't have any direct experience, she wants to go the safe route even if it limits some of the boats that could fit our needs better than some boat that has two heads but isn't as ideal overall.


So in the worst case, how long does it take most people to do repairs on their marine toilets?

[leecea]

Worst case can be quite bad. A clog in the hose between head and holding tank would be a big deal on our boat because the tank is a long way from the head and on the other side of the boat (really annoying design). You could also develop a leak at the tank and that might be a worst case situation.

A standard Jabsco manual head seems relatively easy to work on - we carry a spare pump assembly plus a few other spares. But if you have an electric head, or some less common brand, maybe it's harder.

[SVTatia]

Prevention is your best bet. If it does not go thru the body it should not be put in the head.
Periodic maintenance such as lubrication, replacing duck bill, etc. will ensure smooth operation.

[JBP]

Virtually everyone carries an emergency backup head, aka bucket. You can upgrade to a 5 gallon bucket with a seat if you think that would be better, or even a portable.

[wrwakefield]

We have two heads on our present boat, and I replaced one of the perfectly functional flush toilets with a Natures Head 'composting' (dessicating really) toilet for the reasons you cite.

The intent was to have a bulletproof toilet that is compliant no matter what waters we are in, and to prevent any future disasters eminating from having a 2nd holding tank full of human effluvia...

As it ends up, it is the one guests always prefer '...because we don't have to pump it...'

Have fun finding your next boat.

Cheers, Bill

PS: More details with links to 3rd party info and photos of our systems are in this blog post if you are interested.

[Mike OReilly]

Depends on the head, and the problem. With a standard marine head involving a holding tank, most problems can be solved in minutes to hours. But it is possible to have a major issue which could take the system down for much longer and require significant yucky work.

Avoiding these problems is one major advantage of a composting head. There's little that can go severely wrong, and almost nothing that can't be "fixed" within 1/2 hr. But these heads require a different mind-set -- something that not everyone is capable of, or even wants to.

[ejs]

We lived full time on a boat with only one head for 8 years. It was a skipper II which are fairly bulletproof. I had to repair it twice underway, took about an hour each time but was exciting. We did have a complete set of spares. It is doable.

[Jammer]

It's not the marine toilet itself so much as everything else. If you have parts the toilet is accessible and not complicated. But if you get a crack or other failure in the holding tank so that it leaks then it will be a lengthy repair. Broken fittings can be a lenghy repair if access is poor (which it often is).

If you are a liveaboard in the sense of staying in your home slip most of the time then your dockage fee would ordinarily cover access to shoreside restrooms and showers. A reliable marine sanitation system becomes more important if you are under way or at anchor.

A second head uses up a good deal of space aboard. We don't have one. There are compromises like a marine toilet tucked under a cushion somewhere so you at least have something to use in the event of a mechanical problem or when you have seven people aboard and they all ate the same bad burritos.

[Bowdrie]

Originally Posted by JBP

Virtually everyone carries an emergency backup head, aka bucket. You can upgrade to a 5 gallon bucket with a seat if you think that would be better, or even a portable.

Yep, add a bag of kitty litter and you're "good to go", so to speak.
I might add that the list of threads/posts about the problems with the plastic Jabsco toilets are almost endless.
If you want plastic go Raritan.
Or get a bronze Groco K.

[desodave]

The worst can always happen but, if you maintain a manual head and carry spares, the vast majority of issues can be dealt with fairly quickly even at anchor. In a pinch, JBP's backup always works.

Part of your decision will likely factor in how big a boat you're looking at purchasing. A second head on a 40' boat takes up a lot of living space, not so much on a 50'. You can use the 2nd head as a wet locker or do a his and hers, if you want. Second head is useful if you have guests on board and want to designate one as the guest head ... but then you need to assess realistically how often that's going to happen. We just bought a new to us 42' boat with one electric head. My wife was originally thinking of 2 heads but changed when she saw how much living space would be taken up by it. Her demand was for the electric ... she hated the manual pumping. Our only cruising guests are close family.

I carry a spare macerator ($$$) and gaskets for it and have already had the experience of changing it out ... fortunately it stopped working (seized up) at the dock after we had finished our cruising season. Our regular cruising area ( we anchor out most of the time) is never more than a couple of days from a marina so relief from the bucket would never be too far away. I admit that if we'd have been able to buy a substantially bigger boat, we would probably have purchased one with 2 heads, one of them electric.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by jleonar

My wife and I are in the process of narrowing down our target search for a boat we want to purchase in the next 12 months.


snip


So in the worst case, how long does it take most people to do repairs on their marine toilets?

About an hour.

I carry a complete set of spares and also a spare pump ( jabsco).

I also have a 39 foot boat with two heads - second ( frd ) head is used as a hanging locker unless we have extra peopla aboard. It isn't wasted space.

[cr180]

Agree with all previous posts. Good variety of points of view. Would emphasize that hose replacement presents the challenge; they will completely plug up at the worst possible time if ignored. And unless you opt for a composting head (we tried one, wife rejected), plan on periodic preventative maintenance hose replacement to prevent plugging and odor. And to prevent odor, use the good hose Peggy Hall recommends. When you are boat shopping, look at the hose routing and mentally walk through replacing each section of hose. Many production boats placed machinery, wired and plumbed bare hull and then built from sole on up rendering hoses inaccessible. Not uncommon to have to abandon sections of hose in place and find new routes for replacement including drilling holes in bulkheads, etc.

Again while boat shopping, look critically at the machinery, systems etc as if you had to right then do a repair. You be amazed how it changes how the boat looks. You’ll actually see the rusty, corroded stuff as well as the glitz in the main cabin.

[malbert73]

I think the complete opposite. The less heads the better (assuming you’re not sailing with a crowd).
All maintenance takes time, and only having 1 head means I can take meticulous care of it. Replace hoses on a schedule, spend the money on a bulletproof head (like mine the Raritan Elegance). I even bought a spare electric pump unit as a spare and swapping it out when joker starts to leak allows more relaxed pace to fix.
We are a family of four and have cruised part time on our boat for 8 years and never have had a head failure. Not even a clog actually

[Bobby Lex]

Originally Posted by JBP

Virtually everyone carries an emergency backup head, aka bucket. You can upgrade to a 5 gallon bucket with a seat if you think that would be better, or even a portable.

This While not the only solution to this problem, certainly one of the simplest.

https://www.emergencykits.com/emerge...ilet-seat-lid/

Happy wife, happy life!

Bob

[jleonar]

I appreciate everyone's input.


I will admit there is a boat I really like that just checks all the boxes for us. My wife hates two things about it. It is a single wet head. She isn't thrilled about wet heads but that can be overcome. I hope with some of the feedback in here, I can show that one head isn't a disaster. If a significant issue happens like cracked black holding tank happens, we are going to have to go to a marina anyways. If it happens during a passage, yes, we are stuck with a bucket and kitty litter.



But I think I have enough ammo. And we will definitely have kitty litter on board because our two cats are moving on with us.