Engine/toilet

[Nancy]

2 questions

Is a 35 Barrus Shire diesel under powered for a 50 ft canal boat

 

Is a macerator flush pumpout wcto remote 34 gallon tank a problem. Seems small.

[Alan de Enfield]

6 minutes ago, Nancy said:

Is a 35 Barrus Shire diesel under powered for a 50 ft canal boat

No

 

6 minutes ago, Nancy said:

Is a macerator flush pumpout wcto remote 34 gallon tank a problem. Seems small.

Yes

[Nancy]

Thank you. 

And ciuld you expand your answer on the toilet. 34 gallons too small? Macerator a problem/ not desirable?

Thank you

Edited March 14, 2020 by Nancy
Additional comment

[mrsmelly]

8 minutes ago, Nancy said:

2 questions

Is a 35 Barrus Shire diesel under powered for a 50 ft canal boat

 

Is a macerator flush pumpout wcto remote 34 gallon tank a problem. Seems small.

Engine is fine 

No macerator toilet make sense.

[Nancy]

I am confused by your toilet answer. Are you saying that is a problem?

Can you expand on your answer, pls.

[haggis]

3 minutes ago, Nancy said:

I am confused by your toilet answer. Are you saying that is a problem?

Can you expand on your answer, pls.

Mrsmelly is a cassette man and never misses an opportunity to tell the  rest of us who prefer a different type of loo how wrong we are. For the purpose of your question, best to ignore him ? . The loo tank does seem very small though at 34 gallons

 

haggis 

[Nancy]

You are funny, haggis, we prefer pumpout over cassette.

[LadyG]

If it is too small, it will necessitate more pumpouts, these may cost £20 a visit, perhaps.

I see some people here pump out in to containers then visit the Elsan ...... Eeks.....

I would buy a small porta potti for "emergencies".

I have a tank, but use an Excellence" P-P., I don't know if I have a macerator!

[mrsmelly]

12 minutes ago, Nancy said:

I am confused by your toilet answer. Are you saying that is a problem?

Can you expand on your answer, pls.

The tank is a bit small. Having lived aboard for over 30 years I have an inkling about toilets. On my 8 liveaboard boats I have had every type of toilet other than composting. My present boat has a faultless so far macerator bog because that was fitted and I am fed up of removing the stupid things, it also has a large bathroom so I have a porta potti which I use. The pumpout is used very very little and is basicaly kept for use of house dwellers who understand the ceramic finish more. Cassettes are the best over all but porta pottis are very good and actualy my personal preference. If you must have a pumpout then drop throughs make vastly more sense than a macerator.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

A typical cassette in a cassette bog holds 18l, or 4 gallons. One cassette will last one person a week. Two people will fill two cassettes in a week. Going by this, a 34 gallon pump out tank will get filled in 8.5 weeks by one person, two people will need to get a pump out once a month etc. Note that these are maximum times while living on board. You won't want to take it right to the maximum before going looking for a pump out. Marinas charge generally charge per pump out, so a small tank will cost the same each visit as a large one, but will need doing a lot more often. Cassette and portapotti emptying is almost always free.

 

Jen

Edited March 14, 2020 by Jen-in-Wellies

[system 4-50]

My mascerator is excellent, I wouldn't have anything else.  70 gallon tank. Lasts for ages.

I would find 34 too small as I don't want to go below 10 gallons' space left in case of pumpout facilities failure leading to a delay in pumpout being obtained.

Edited March 14, 2020 by system 4-50

[alan_fincher]

27 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

A typical cassette in a cassette bog holds 18l, or 4 gallons. One cassette will last one person a week. Two people will fill two cassettes in a week. Going by this, a 34 gallon pump out tank will get filled in 8.5 weeks by one person, two people will need to get a pump out once a month etc. Note that these are maximum times while living on board. You won't want to take it right to the maximum before going looking for a pump out. Marinas charge generally charge per pump out, so a small tank will cost the same each visit as a large one, but will need doing a lot more often. Cassette and portapotti emptying is almost always free.

 

Jen

I don't think you can compare a cassette to a pump out loo, as the latter tend to use far more flush water than the very minimal amounts you tend to use with the former.

1 hour ago, LadyG said:

 I don't know if I have a macerator!

Trust me, you will eventually, if you do.

Do you have a good supply of strong rubber gloves?

[frahkn]

1 hour ago, Nancy said:

I am confused by your toilet answer. Are you saying that is a problem?

Can you expand on your answer, pls.

The problem is that a typical macerator uses far too much water on the flush cycle, it is this which will fill your tank and make pump out visits far to common.

[The Dreamer]

1 hour ago, Nancy said:

Is a macerator flush pumpout wcto remote 34 gallon tank a problem. Seems small.

34 gallon is about 155 litres.  That’s a bit small, but it depends how you are using the boat.  We have two macerator toilets, each with a 300 litre tank, so 600 litres in total.  We live aboard, and get about 5 weeks out of the pair.  Under the same circumstances you would only get about 8 days.  As others have said, the pump out cost will be the same (although obviously we pay twice for two tanks) so yours will be twice what we are paying...

[Slim]

Nancy,

1) I have a 55' nb with a BMC 1.8 which is about 35 -38 hp. No lack of power or punch. I've done the tidal Thames to and from Limehouse several times without drama.

2) As you will have seen the cassette/pumpout debate brings out entrentched views in some people. I have a pumpout with a Jabsco 'sea type' manual  pump toilet. My choice as little to go wrong and easy to fix . The tank (actually it's L shaped) measures 48" x 24" x 10" approx. . I always think of this as being about 65 gallons. Again an approx figure. The  longest I've gone between pumpouts is about 34 days ,say 5 weeks. (one person.) I'll admit to being 'twitchy' towards the end. The level gauge isn't very reliable. Pumpout costs on the move are £16 - £20 . 

Life's too short to be trundling suitcases full of #### around.

Trust this helps

[Alan de Enfield]

2 hours ago, Nancy said:

Thank you. 

And ciuld you expand your answer on the toilet. 34 gallons too small? Macerator a problem/ not desirable?

Thank you

As has already been said, it is a combination of (small) tank size, and the fact that a macerator toilet uses many times more water per flush than a non-macerator toilet.

 

We have (I think) a 120 litre pump-out tank, which is simply a 'harbour / marina tank' that you use overnight and then dump it out into the water when you leave the harbour / marina.

We find that in fact  it will last about 6 days for two of us if we use the shore-toilets for the 'morning ablutions'.

The toilet flush uses water from outside the boat (not from the water tank) and does use a fair bit for a full flush.

 

We have 2 toilets connected to the pump out tank so it does fill quite quickly if we have guests in the forward cabin.

 

We also have a similar sized 'Grey-Water' tank (shower, washing, etc etc) which has its own pump-out tank and again the water is 'held' whilst in harbour / marina and 'dumped' when out on the open water.

 

We also have a cassette toilet in the 3nd toilet and find this is far more useful and environmentally friendly and if we are staying any length of time just empty in the Marina facilities every two or three of days.

[Nancy]

Thank you all for the "knowledgeable" responses. We were concerned about the tank size. Good to check with people more knowledgeable.

And, it seems, engine size is fine.

Thank you.

 

[system 4-50]

11 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

I don't think you can compare a cassette to a pump out loo, as the latter tend to use far more flush water than the very minimal amounts you tend to use with the former.

Trust me, you will eventually, if you do.

Do you have a good supply of strong rubber gloves?

My Jabsco mascerator bog offers 4 options:

Fill: Puts water in the bowl. It can be pressed twice (but not more) to fill the bowl to the maximum level that would be prudent on a boat.

Flush*: Adds some water, empties, adds some more, empties that.

Quick Flush*: Adds some water then empties.

Empty: Just empties the bowl without adding any water.

Options marked * may be inaccurate as I mainly use Fill and Empty.

The point I am trying to make is that I can be as frugal with water (and therefore PO tank space) as I like.

I have taken it apart once to replace the valve that prevents liquid flowing back into the bowl slightly.  It wasn't difficult, messy, or very smelly.  I am VERY careful to ensure that nothing inappropriate gets put down the toilet, so I never have had to deal with a toilet jammed up with solids. 

[Keeping Up]

Our holding tank is about 45 gallons, and lasts the two of us for about 3 weeks which works out at 1 gallon per person per day. This is with an old-fashioned dump-through toilet, a macerator would of course add more water. An advantage of the dump-through is that you can control the amount of water better; if we know things are going to be marginal we can partially close the tap in the water feed pipe.

[Onewheeler]

Depends how close you are to a pumpout point. We haven't been able to get off our mooring for four months and the nearest pumpout is a long trip in both directions.

[cuthound]

34 gallons seems very small, my macerator toilet tank is almost three times that and lasts two of us 3-4 weeks.

 

Does yours have a red "tank full" indicator light?

 

Mine has, but I supplemented it with an MSC waste tank gauge.

 

http://mcsboatproducts.co.uk/

 

Since then the waste tank gauge has shown that the tank full indicator light comes on when the tank is about half full, so effectively halving my pump out costs.