Wanted - Jobbing Boat Fitting Type Person. Retford Area

[cheshire~rose]

We have an electrical fault with our macerator loo (Tecma) and I am trying to find someone who will strip it down and investigate whether the fault is with the motor or the control box (or both) before we work out whether the cost of replacement parts would mean it makes economic sense to replace or repair. We would then need the new parts (or replacement loo) fitting.

 

I have drawn a blank on finding anyone who can do this locally for us. The boat is based at Clayworth, Nottinghamshire (DN22 9AJ)

 

We could get it looked at at Shireoaks if we take the boat to them but we do not have the time to get it there (and there is no working loo on board )

 

We could get it looked at by one boat yard who will come out but they cannot even slot in the initial visit to strip it down (taking the parts away to diagnose) until towards the end of next week.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions please?

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

 

We could get it looked at by one boat yard who will come out but they cannot even slot in the initial visit to strip it down (taking the parts away to diagnose) until towards the end of next week.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions please?

 

 

 

Get the Porta-Potty out until the 'man' has been, sucked his teeth, shaken his head and said 'needs a new one', then don't bother replacing it and keep the Porta-Potty in use.

[cheshire~rose]

 

Get the Porta-Potty out until the 'man' has been, sucked his teeth, shaken his head and said 'needs a new one', then don't bother replacing it and keep the Porta-Potty in use.

 

Such helpful advice!

 

I will edit my post to ask if anyone has any helpful suggestions.

 

No - we will NOT be replacing with a different type of toilet system thank you very much. It has served us well to date without ANY smells. We have never had to trundle our crap along the towpath for the pleasure of trying to avoid getting splashed with half decomposed excrement at the sanitary station or had the excitement of finding the elsan point is broken.

 

If anyone was thinking of posting some sort of crappy pun or joke then please do not waste your time because I have heard them all before

[Nightwatch]

This may, or may not help.

There's a guy and his wife moored at the top of Tryley Locks. He's has one he that offered it to me, he may need a couple of Bob for it, he said he'd only just fitted it and his tank fell apart. All taken out now and he has a cassette.

 

We are not there now, otherwise I could have asked him. I may see him once the locks gave reopened.

[cheshire~rose]

Thanks Nightwatch, if you do meet up with him please get his number for me, or indeed if anyone else knows who this person is can they try and put us in touch

[mick55]

The fault will be electrical, probably the braided wiring connectors between the control panel and the motor, if it is the motor it will be due to something wrapped around the chopping blades such as a wet wipe, the only way to rectify this is to strip it down and inspect, it is not a hard job but it is a job for someone with a strong stomach, at our yard we usually charge the hourly rate and a surcharge of £50 for toilet work, hope this assists and you get a result without the usual knobs coming out of the woodwork on this forum and adding sod all apart, from the usual predictable lavatorial comments.

[Joe Bourke]

When our Jabsco macerator stopped working, I bypassed the control box and put the 12v supply straight to the pump, and voila, it kicked in, so I put a switch in the supply and operated it manually, until the new control box came. Fitted that and everything back to normal. If the pump hadn't worked, I would have had a look at the impellor, a simple job. Usually though you can tell if it's the impellor by the pump making funny noises, or your lights dimming. By the way if you block the toilet it is quite easy to overheat the relay, causing it to stick and then the control box can't do it's stuff.

[Nightwatch]

As I have said in another, unrelated thread, I'd have ago myself, before spending money on someone who does what I could have.

 

I'm good at taking things apart.

 

Martyn

[WotEver]

I'm good at taking things apart.

And it's so exciting having those odd screws, washers and springs to put in your Man Drawer when you've put it all back together.

[Loafer]

And it's so exciting having those odd screws, washers and springs to put in your Man Drawer when you've put it all back together.

 

My man drawer is shared with a women. Well it seems like women, the amount of stuff that gets put in there.

 

Ban them to their own drawers, I say.

[WotEver]

My man drawer is shared with a women.

[Loafer]

It's not that easy, WotEver. It's one drawer, split down the middle by a bar, made of the same sort of wood as the cabinet housing the drawer.

 

We'd both need keys to the same padlock, thereby leading to laziness and not locking up.

[Nightwatch]

And it's so exciting having those odd screws, washers and springs to put in your Man Drawer when you've put it all back together.

Yep. And especially exciting when it still works and you have more stock in the drawer.

 

I'm getting better though.

[mick55]

Here we go again!!! You ask a question and get some good advice that you might be able to use, then along comes some inane nonsensical comments from others who think they own these forums and can reduce them to stupid ramblings, I sometimes wonder why we bother, best luck with the bog.

[Loafer]

Here we go again!!! You ask a question and get some good advice that you might be able to use, then along comes some inane nonsensical comments from others who think they own these forums and can reduce them to stupid ramblings, I sometimes wonder why we bother, best luck with the bog.

 

 

Did someone come up with a suitable

'Jobbing Boat Fitting Type Person. Retford Area'

 

then?

 

If not, then what is wrong with a bit of humorous thread drift? Might even get more people interested.

[cheshire~rose]

The fault will be electrical, probably the braided wiring connectors between the control panel and the motor, if it is the motor it will be due to something wrapped around the chopping blades such as a wet wipe, the only way to rectify this is to strip it down and inspect, it is not a hard job but it is a job for someone with a strong stomach, at our yard we usually charge the hourly rate and a surcharge of £50 for toilet work, hope this assists and you get a result without the usual knobs coming out of the woodwork on this forum and adding sod all apart, from the usual predictable lavatorial comments.

 

Thanks Mick. I would like to think it might just be a connector but I suspect not. It is certainly not a baby wipe (or anything else that may have been flushed down there) It is just me 'n him that have been using it for several months and we both know better than to put anything down there that should not be.

 

The motor sis not even try to work so I really do not believe it is a blockage.

[WotEver]

 

Thanks Mick. I would like to think it might just be a connector but I suspect not. It is certainly not a baby wipe (or anything else that may have been flushed down there) It is just me 'n him that have been using it for several months and we both know better than to put anything down there that should not be.

 

The motor sis not even try to work so I really do not believe it is a blockage.

Well that's good . Might mean you avoid the messy stuff.

 

Can you try running a feed direct to the motor? If it works then you know it's either a connection or the panel.

 

I assume you've checked the dead obvious... a fuse?

 

Tony

[MtB]

Here we go again!!! You ask a question and get some good advice that you might be able to use, then along comes some inane nonsensical comments from others who think they own these forums and can reduce them to stupid ramblings, I sometimes wonder why we bother, best luck with the bog.

 

 

Well I thought the advice in post 2 to get a Porta Potti to buy some time was perfectly reasonable, but was met with surprising dismissal.

[cheshire~rose]

When our Jabsco macerator stopped working, I bypassed the control box and put the 12v supply straight to the pump, and voila, it kicked in, so I put a switch in the supply and operated it manually, until the new control box came. Fitted that and everything back to normal. If the pump hadn't worked, I would have had a look at the impellor, a simple job. Usually though you can tell if it's the impellor by the pump making funny noises, or your lights dimming. By the way if you block the toilet it is quite easy to overheat the relay, causing it to stick and then the control box can't do it's stuff.

 

That is really useful info thanks.

 

I have been told to check the motor first it is just that it would appear the entire caboodle needs to be taken apart to get to it. I don't have any of the original fitting instructions and have not been able to find anything online either. I could very possibly be half tempted to have a go myself - if I had the time!

 

 

Did someone come up with a suitable

'Jobbing Boat Fitting Type Person. Retford Area'

 

then?

 

If not, then what is wrong with a bit of humorous thread drift? Might even get more people interested.

 

Possibly because people get tired of trawling through all the unrelated unhelpful comments.

 

There are many times when I have searched this forum when troubleshooting a problem only to find a thread that I have to trawl through several pages of rubbish to get to the end.

 

 

Well I thought the advice in post 2 to get a Porta Potti to buy some time was perfectly reasonable, but was met with surprising dismissal.

 

Why on earth where you surprised Mike? I am certain we have had the toilet conversation before. Horses for courses - each to their own

[Nightwatch]

Here we go again!!! You ask a question and get some good advice that you might be able to use, then along comes some inane nonsensical comments from others who think they own these forums and can reduce them to stupid ramblings, I sometimes wonder why we bother, best luck with the bog.

I think I came up with a couple of potential good ideas. I also stated that I may have a go myself if it were mine.

 

I,for one, don't own this site. I do contribute and enjoy the forum. It's a pity that some on here do not have a sense of humour to accompany useful advice and information.

 

If that is a useless rambling then so be it. Carry on criticising. I doubt I will change.

 

Martyn

Edited March 1, 2016 by Nightwatch

[cheshire~rose]

Well that's good . Might mean you avoid the messy stuff.

 

Can you try running a feed direct to the motor? If it works then you know it's either a connection or the panel.

 

I assume you've checked the dead obvious... a fuse?

 

Tony

 

Fuse has been checked and is OK.

 

The "direct to the motor" is the problem bit - motor is housed in the base of the pedestal meaning the entire caboodle needs to be stripped out before you can start troubleshooting

[MtB]

 

Why on earth where you surprised Mike? I am certain we have had the toilet conversation before. Horses for courses - each to their own

 

 

I was surprised at your blind, knee-jerk refusal to consider the perfectly reasonable short term solution suggested, given the probably difficulty you're probably gonna have finding someone to fix this. 'Cutting off your nose to spite your face', my long dead mother would have described this as.

[Nightwatch]

We have a porta potti. We use it when we have to. We prefer the dump through, as it's more like a toilet than the porta potti.

 

I can fully understand the reluctance to use a porta potti.

 

Martyn

[cheshire~rose]

 

 

I was surprised at your blind, knee-jerk refusal to consider the perfectly reasonable short term solution suggested, given the probably difficulty you're probably gonna have finding someone to fix this. 'Cutting off your nose to spite your face', my long dead mother would have described this as.

 

Going out to buy an item we do not want so we can use for a very short term is in my book a total waste of money. If I needed to use a loo on the boat it might be cutting off my nose to spite my face but I have a perfectly good loo that works at home so why buy something I don't want or need?

 

When this problem first arose there was a 5 week period when we were not going to be using the boat. At that time it also had a leaking calorifier which was a far more pressing problem (mostly because it occurred first before the loo packed up) We thought it was just a micro - switch on the loo and so the person who was sorting the repairs for us concentrated on the problems with the replacement calorifier not fitting in the cupboard where the old one had previously been, dismantling the cupboard, replacing the floor, fitting an inspection hatch in the new floor and ensuring it all worked without any leaks. It was only then it was realised that it is not a micro-switch that is at fault and parts for this loo are not available at your average chandlery so he waited for us to return to the boat to investigate a bit further. We had another "window" of two weeks not needing to be at the boat

 

The real problem is that we moor our boat in such a fantastic place that is full of wildlife but devoid of any real boat yard services - we will put up with that.

[Joe Bourke]

Take the opportunity to check the hoses for limescale as well Cheshire Rose, I was surprised how much there was after 5 years. We now use anti lime scale stuff more often. Anyway good luck sorting it out.