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Further to my post..."Toilets..for Gods sake help"


Bobbybass

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OK. Things have moved on.  I studied all of your advice on adding various things to my dump through tank ...like Bio liquid and was planning to do that. We have only gone on board the boat over the past week and have not used the toilet for anything solid as we were in the marina.  We had pumped out the tank a few months back as the previous owners had left us a nice quantity..of….."stuff"

 

We went on board a week ago....with the empty tank..(which we had filled with Odourloss when we left it ) .and bloody hell...it stank.  We left the marina for one overnight and put lots of water down...but whenever we rolled the "eyeball vent" open...it spluttered and stank.

 

So.. back to the marina I asked the marina owner to pump out … but asked to fill the tank with water first.  We tried this through the roof pump out fitting with my wife watching the loo gauge, and she said it instantly registered maximum and the loo eyeball was gurgling.  I eased the fresh water hose back out of the rinse fitting and it blasted water back at me. 

 

So...me and the marina owner surmised that the breather must be blocked, we took a look around the hull for the breather .. we looked and looked...there was no breather !!.   eventually I put the boat back on the mooring and dismantled the bed to discover a fairly new galvanised tank with the big hole for the dump through....  a small hole for the rinse through....a hose for the pump out... but NO BREATHER.   That means that the gas builds up and when you open the loo eyeball it pressures back out of there. 

The last owners had the boat from new ...for 17 years....  I have dismantled the loo area now and can say that it has never had a breather fitted, no skin holes or fittings. They must have had cast iron noses.

 

My plan is that I will remove the loo...drill a hole in the tank and fit a hose and breather. The rinse and pump pipes come out of the roof so they are enclosed in a box which I have opened up. There is 70mm clearance inside the box and looking at the Leesan  charcoal filter ( which I have used before) it will be too big to fit in there. As such, I was planning to make up a tubular filter to fit the gap and fill with activated charcoal.

 

So..my canal friends....

 

1: please don't tell me to fit a cassette...( I know you are all longing to )

2: Do you think a home made tubular filter behind an access panel ..and filled with activated charcoal...would do the trick?

3: Any advice about fitting the extra tank fitting other than having disinfectant handy ?

4 :Any advice about extra tank ventilation, or do you think the new vent would suffice ?

5: Am I right in thinking that only Leesan do that vent/hull fitting...at large cost ?

 

Thank you all !!

 

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Hi,

I solved my smell problems some years ago by fitting two vents at opposite ends of the tank, so there is a small flow of air through the tank. This encourages aerobic bacteria, rather than anaerobic ones which apparently cause the smell. I have never used 'blue', and now use a couple of cheap bio washing sachets each pump out. It can sometimes be months between pumpouts, and no problems in between.

One vent was on the tank already, the other one I fitted using an 'Essex flange' which doesn't need access inside the tank.

Richard

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2 hours ago, Ryeland said:

Hi,

I solved my smell problems some years ago by fitting two vents at opposite ends of the tank, so there is a small flow of air through the tank. This encourages aerobic bacteria, rather than anaerobic ones which apparently cause the smell. I have never used 'blue', and now use a couple of cheap bio washing sachets each pump out. It can sometimes be months between pumpouts, and no problems in between.

One vent was on the tank already, the other one I fitted using an 'Essex flange' which doesn't need access inside the tank.

Richard

Thank you for this Ryeland.

 

Your advice about the Essex flange will be invaluable. I pictured myself having to get my hand in the tank to attach the fitting. Not that I'm squeamish....I did once get up to the elbow to pick out accumulated "stuff" from the end of the pumpout tube (sorry...were you eating your tea ?)

I've never heard of an Essex flange and having looked it up, can see the advantages.

 

Thanks again.....

 

Bob

 

 

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2 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

What is the “rinse fitting”? Can this not double as a breather?

The rinse fitting is a standard small bore hose...the same as found on most narrowboats.

 

I tried travelling with the plug of this out....but it's only a 3/4 inch hose and not enough. Also..when you empty a bog bowl full of...XXXX...you need a vent tube that can displace the same amount of gas and air. ...and when I flushed with it open, I still got the blowback from the toilet eyeball .

 

It could be..that on my steel tank the rinse out goes down to the bottom of the steel tank...not common...but possible. Obviously the pumpout pipe does this...so no way out there.

 

The common tank breather..like those supplied by Leesan...are 38.1 mm    1 1/2 inch...….so it needs to be a lot bigger. The fact that my tank is effectively sealed..means there is no air getting in to help the 'good' bacteria.

 

I'll go the route of a 38mm breather pipe and charcoal filter.

 

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2 hours ago, Ryeland said:

Hi,

I solved my smell problems some years ago by fitting two vents at opposite ends of the tank, so there is a small flow of air through the tank. This encourages aerobic bacteria, rather than anaerobic ones which apparently cause the smell. I have never used 'blue', and now use a couple of cheap bio washing sachets each pump out. It can sometimes be months between pumpouts, and no problems in between.

One vent was on the tank already, the other one I fitted using an 'Essex flange' which doesn't need access inside the tank.

Richard

As Columbo says..."Just one more thing"....     with your 2 vent setup, are you using a charcoal filter..?

 

Thanks.

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Rinse is on the gunwale ?

So its a roof pump out?  The big problem with that is you have 7ft of hose that may be permeable and stink if its not the correct hose. And many pump outs are not strong enough to lift all the heavy solids out, they slop back into the tank.

Essex flange on the tank, 22mm copper or Hep2O pipe to the roof, Reducer to fit on a standard pump out flange with a short bit of 1 1/2" hose and jubilee clips, forget the filter, they don't work for long and with a clean tank unnecessary, then a 1 1/2" iron M & F iron elbow screwed in outside facing forward as a rain deflection vent.  Bonus. You have a spare plug!

Edited by Boater Sam
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9 minutes ago, Boater Sam said:

Rinse is on the gunwale ?

So its a roof pump out?  The big problem with that is you have 7ft of hose that may be permeable and stink if its not the correct hose. And many pump outs are not strong enough to lift all the heavy solids out, they slop back into the tank.

Essex flange on the tank, 22mm copper or Hep2O pipe to the roof, Reducer to fit on a standard pump out flange with a short bit of 1 1/2" hose and jubilee clips, forget the filter, they don't work for long and with a clean tank unnecessary, then a 1 1/2" iron M & F iron elbow screwed in outside facing forward as a rain deflection vent.  Bonus. You have a spare plug!

No..the pumpout and the rinse are both on the roof. The pumpout hose is not smelling.. I've had experience of that before so recognise the smell.

 

The problem is that the tank is effectively sealed.

There is no breather.

If we put water down the rinse (3/4 inch) fitting and hose...AND open the toilet eyeball, the water will flow in, but close that eyeball and the tank pressures up. The pumpout obviously goes to the bottom of the tank and so the only way out for gases is via the rinse hose ( if I left the plug out). That isn't practical as it's only 3/4 inch and not capable of handling the sudden expulsion of gas when you flush. It also means that there is hardly any airflow to help the good bacteria and so it stinks. Several on here (plus other posts in the past) have told of how it essential to have an airflow over the tank , and in my case I have zero airflow.

 

Thank you for your ideas, I'll adopt various suggestions to suit my situation.

 

Bob.

3 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

Fit a cassette ?

 

I'll squash you in a cassette !..     ?

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3 minutes ago, Bobbybass said:

No..the pumpout and the rinse are both on the roof. The pumpout hose is not smelling.. I've had experience of that before so recognise the smell.

 

The problem is that the tank is effectively sealed.

There is no breather.

If we put water down the rinse (3/4 inch) fitting and hose...AND open the toilet eyeball, the water will flow in, but close that eyeball and the tank pressures up. The pumpout obviously goes to the bottom of the tank and so the only way out for gases is via the rinse hose ( if I left the plug out). That isn't practical as it's only 3/4 inch and not capable of handling the sudden expulsion of gas when you flush. It also means that there is hardly any airflow to help the good bacteria and so it stinks. Several on here (plus other posts in the past) have told of how it essential to have an airflow over the tank , and in my case I have zero airflow.

 

Thank you for your ideas, I'll adopt various suggestions to suit my situation.

 

Bob.

 

I'll squash you in a cassette !..     ?

Its the same with my tank except the p-o is on the gunwale. The combined vent and wash out is only 15mm. With the Baby Bakes loo there is NO smell. The crux of your problem is the disgusting dump through.

As long as you have it you will never get odour free. We fitted them on hire boats because they are cheap, they were a constant source of aggravation, used gallons of blue with little beneficial effect.

Bite the bullet, plate over the hole and fit a decent loo, you can buy a similar loo to the Blakes with plastic bits rather than solid bronze for not much over £100, cheaper than messing ineffectively with extra vents.  Problem solved.

Our flushes with the grey water from the washbasin, a small sealed tank in the drain line fills from the basin and is pumped with the hand pump to flush the bowl.

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45 minutes ago, Bobbybass said:

As Columbo says..."Just one more thing"....     with your 2 vent setup, are you using a charcoal filter..?

 

Thanks.

No, no filters, and the original vent was the normal 1 1/2", and the new one is 1", both on the same side of the boat, though opposite sides would be better.

Richard

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I don't know if this is any help at all but on our shared boat we had a dump through loo and when it was being pumped out, I was inside pouring pails of water (from the canal, usually) down the loo and Iain was outside rocking the boat from side to side. This had the advantage of getting a good fall of water on top of where "stuff" landed and the water sloshing around helped to stir up the contents and get them pumped out. We only stopped the pails of water  when the glass in the pump out hose showed that what was coming out looked like cleanish water. 

 

haggis

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I have a 1 1/2 inch vent but only one and longish vent pipe, to aid ventilation I put an Aquarium air pump to a 4mm nipple at the other end to the vent pipe. the pump is 3 watts and I have it on a timer to run 2 x 4 hour periods per day no smell (bio washing) the pump is said to shift 50 litres of air an hour so basically I give the tank 8 air changes per day.

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Without bombarding you with more advice I'll just saythat if you're fitting a vent into the tank Lee Sanatation do a  simple to fit 'Gromet ' that's available in a number of sizes. They are very reasonably priced. My waste into thhe holding tank and the rinse pipes both ùse them .

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When I bought my second NB it came with a pump out which I had never had before, so I was mildly interested to find out if they were any better than the cassettes I'd previously had. 

 

Anyway like you the seller left us with a tank 3/4 full and fark me, the stench was phenomenal so I went to pump it out. JEEZ what a DISGUSTING experience. And SMELL. And EXPENSIVE. Two £15 tokens and still not empty. 

 

So I sealed it up and bought a cassette bog.

 

Bliss!

 

 

 

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After years of smelly pump out tanks I finally found the cause. It is a build up of semi solid effluent on the bottom of the tank, this is left after each pump out as the outlet hose does not reach the bottom. This sludge is anaerobic & causes the smellIt can build up if the boat has been left for some time with 'content' in the tank.

  I solved the problem by making up a length of 15mm copper pipe with a 90 degree bend & jet on the bottom & a hose fitting on the top, connected to an outside tap.

After pump out, pause the machine & insert the pipe via the 'eyeball' flap. Turn on the tap & 'pressure wash' the inside of the tank, this will loosen all the solid sludge & will be pumped out upon restarting the pump out machine.

   In bad cases it may need a further squirting with a second pump out.

If you repeat this procedure maybe a couple of times a year it will remove all of the 'sludge' & cure the 'bad smells'.

Tony

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17 hours ago, Bobbybass said:

The rinse fitting is a standard small bore hose...the same as found on most narrowboats.

 

I tried travelling with the plug of this out....but it's only a 3/4 inch hose and not enough. Also..when you empty a bog bowl full of...XXXX...you need a vent tube that can displace the same amount of gas and air. ...and when I flushed with it open, I still got the blowback from the toilet eyeball .

 

It could be..that on my steel tank the rinse out goes down to the bottom of the steel tank...not common...but possible. Obviously the pumpout pipe does this...so no way out there.

 

The common tank breather..like those supplied by Leesan...are 38.1 mm    1 1/2 inch...….so it needs to be a lot bigger. The fact that my tank is effectively sealed..means there is no air getting in to help the 'good' bacteria.

 

I'll go the route of a 38mm breather pipe and charcoal filter.

 

It does seem extraordinary that there is no vent. We have a roof top pump out and next to it is the rooftop vent which doubles as a rinsing point (although we mostly rinse from the toilet because the tank is relatively long and flat, and both the vent/rinse and the pumpout are connected near the back of the tank). Both are the same diameter.

 

I wouldn’t go with a charcoal filter, I don’t think that will work well or for long enough. I think you need to bite the bullet and fit an external vent going up to the roof, using either an Essex flange or just having a flange welded onto the tank (is it mild steel, or stainless?).

 

Our tank also has a screw on cap (provision for a level gauge) and I drilled that and fitted a small spigot, connected to an aquarium air pump (difficult to get one that runs on 12v dc, most require AC) which I turn on from time to time (when it’s windy!). Helps to get air moving in the tank, push nasty smells overboard and encourage aerobic, as opposed to anaerobic, bacterial action.

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First re cassette.

I fail to understand why anyone would think these are better than a dump through. After all that is how they work.

It's just a portable dump through.

 

Back to the OPs issue.

It seems that the the breather is the crucial aspect. My dump through was fine with odourlos until having over filled it. A piece of paper partially blocked the vent. Mega stink until we flushed it away! Them bugs need oxygen. ?

In case you are not aware. If the previous owner used bloo then it will take a few fill cycles to clear this.

Perseverance will be paid off in full. ?

 

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6 minutes ago, Floating Male said:

First re cassette.

I fail to understand why anyone would think these are better than a dump through. After all that is how they work.

It's just a portable dump through.

 

Back to the OPs issue.

It seems that the the breather is the crucial aspect. My dump through was fine with odourlos until having over filled it. A piece of paper partially blocked the vent. Mega stink until we flushed it away! Them bugs need oxygen. ?

In case you are not aware. If the previous owner used bloo then it will take a few fill cycles to clear this.

Perseverance will be paid off in full. ?

 

Probably been said already, but no bleach or similar to clean the bog as it kills all the good stuff in the holding tank, and then it stinks.

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5 hours ago, Floating Male said:

First re cassette.

I fail to understand why anyone would think these are better than a dump through. After all that is how they work.

It's just a portable dump through.

 

Wait until you get iced in and cant move the boat and the tank is full, then you will understand.

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2 minutes ago, Loddon said:

Wait until you get iced in and cant move the boat and the tank is full, then you will understand.

Whereas a potty user can empty their potty under a hedge?  I think that's the point at which it becomes a composting toilet if I read the threads correctly.  ;)

 

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5 hours ago, Floating Male said:

First re cassette.

I fail to understand why anyone would think these are better than a dump through. After all that is how they work.

It's just a portable dump through.

 

Back to the OPs issue.

It seems that the the breather is the crucial aspect. My dump through was fine with odourlos until having over filled it. A piece of paper partially blocked the vent. Mega stink until we flushed it away! Them bugs need oxygen. ?

In case you are not aware. If the previous owner used bloo then it will take a few fill cycles to clear this.

Perseverance will be paid off in full. ?

 

As a liveaboard of thirty years then I will explain. With a dump through tank the seals are crucial and invariably perished. The tank then whatever you do blue/green/bio whatever will stink, it really is that simple. A cassette is normaly in use for only a couple of days or so and therfore doesnt ferment as much!! and the seal is much better, this is why cassetes are a much more sensible idea for toilets. Boats are NOT houses and trying to make bogs amongst other things like a house fitment is where the problem lies. If you dont understand this take your dog or if you dont have one borrow a dog and when it goes for a dump, put its poo in a dog poo bag and give it a sniff, then multiply by a couple of weeks of boat useage.

7 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

Whereas a potty user can empty their potty under a hedge?  I think that's the point at which it becomes a composting toilet if I read the threads correctly.  ;)

 

Nope. you simply take it on a trolley to an elsan, or boot of car to an elsan and dispose of properly. It really is that simple. Of my 8 liveaboard boats I have found that a simple fact. But another simple fact is ya cant carry 25 tons of boat to the frozen pumpout machine. ?

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