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I've got a few mm of condensation down in the bilges at the bow. The space is a bit tight and I can't really get a disposable nappy to sit on the baseplate. 

 

I've heard cat litter can be used to soak up moisture but never used it myself. Would it be something I could wetvac out later or would it become a soggy muck that's then difficult to remove?

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42 minutes ago, blackrose said:

I've got a few mm of condensation down in the bilges at the bow. The space is a bit tight and I can't really get a disposable nappy to sit on the baseplate. 

 

I've heard cat litter can be used to soak up moisture but never used it myself. Would it be something I could wetvac out later or would it become a soggy muck that's then difficult to remove?

No help with cat litter, sorry, but we use the tiniest baby nappies we can buy. Open it up and as long as you can get some of the small bit which would be between the baby legs against a bit of the base plate it will soak up and fill the nappy ?.

When lifting it out have a pail.or poly bag handy as it will be heavy and you don't want it to burst 

This is the only time I have used a baby.nappy and it was impressive .

 

Haggis

 

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17 minutes ago, haggis said:

No help with cat litter, sorry, but we use the tiniest baby nappies we can buy. Open it up and as long as you can get some of the small bit which would be between the baby legs against a bit of the base plate it will soak up and fill the nappy ?.

When lifting it out have a pail.or poly bag handy as it will be heavy and you don't want it to burst 

This is the only time I have used a baby.nappy and it was impressive .

 

Haggis

 

 

As I said, I can't get a nappy in position down there.

 

15 minutes ago, Ray T said:

Don't use the clay type cat litter you will get a 'orrible mess.

Try Bio-Catolet, it is paper compound easy to suck up with a vac.

 

HOME | bio-catolet (midas-products.co.uk)

 

 

 

Thanks. I see that cat litter is marketed as clumping or non-clumping. I assume I want non clumping if I want to suck it up with a wetvac?

Edited by blackrose
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Use industrial grade absorbent granules such as these:

https://www.spillcontrolcentre.co.uk/absorbent-granules/industrial-absorbent-granules/Organic-Compound-Absorbent-Granules-30-litre

 

Cat litter is not ideal and any form of disposable nappies would be an environmental nightmare. To avoid similar issues in future look at ways of reducing condensate through improved ventilation and better insulation.

 

Edited to add - finding the right form of granular product may be a matter of trial and error but there are products that will:

  1. Soak up the liquid completely so as to appear completely dry, and,
  2. be capable of being removed completely with an ordinary domestic vacuum cleaner.
Edited by NB Alnwick
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14 minutes ago, NB Alnwick said:

Use industrial grade absorbent granules such as these:

https://www.spillcontrolcentre.co.uk/absorbent-granules/industrial-absorbent-granules/Organic-Compound-Absorbent-Granules-30-litre

 

Cat litter is not ideal and any form of disposable nappies would be an environmental nightmare. To avoid similar issues in future look at ways of reducing condesate through improved ventilation and better insulation.

 

Thanks for the link to the absorbent granules. The area is vented but there are areas and equipment that wouldn't be easy to insulate. I'd rather just soak up a little bit of condensation each winter.

 

I regularly use disposable nappies to mop up rainwater that somehow gets into my engine room bilges. I probably use 1 or 2 a month so it's really not the environmental disaster you describe. Wherever I drive my diesel car, fly abroad, or use too much toilet paper to wipe my arse, in the back of my mind I console myself with the thought that unlike most people preaching about the environment I never had any kids that would have increased my environmental impact exponentially.

Edited by blackrose
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I have always used cotton waste to clean under the engine and gearbox (as recommended in the Kelvin handbook) but it isn't as cheap as it once was - probably because we no longer have those 'dark satanic mills' needing to get rid of bales of the stuff. The beauty of cotton waste is that it is bio-degradable (eventually) and easily disposed of if one has a solid fuel stove. Oil soaked cotton waste makes a brilliant firelighter.

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Clay cat litter is some sort of fullers earth or bentonite clay. I bought some to mix with fine sand for foundry sand. Thought if I soaked it it might break it down into some sort of mud. No chance. Damn stuff was still like road chippings so totally useless to absorb water in a bilge. Hardly possible to grind the stuff up either so I bought a really cheap coffee grinder which worked quite well but its not much use for coffee anymore. 

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1 hour ago, blackrose said:

 

As I said, I can't get a nappy in position down there.

 

 

Sorry ! I saw that you said that but I thought you might (like me) not be used to the proper use for baby nappies and didn't realise that you can get really small ones. Also I thought you might not have realised that you didn't need to have the whole nappy in touch with the base plate and I was just tying to be helpful Sorry ? 

 

haggis

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10 minutes ago, haggis said:

Sorry ! I saw that you said that but I thought you might (like me) not be used to the proper use for baby nappies and didn't realise that you can get really small ones. Also I thought you might not have realised that you didn't need to have the whole nappy in touch with the base plate and I was just tying to be helpful Sorry ? 

 

haggis

It will be fun getting the vacuum cleaner nozzle down there then to suck out all the litter if access is that tight

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12 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

It will be fun getting the vacuum cleaner nozzle down there then to suck out all the litter if access is that tight

 

In tight places I have tied a string onto a nappy and poked it into place with a stick.

If you can get a vacuum nozzle/pipe in then you can get a nappy in, push it in, wiggle it about with the stick and use the string to pull it back out

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20 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

In tight places I have tied a string onto a nappy and poked it into place with a stick.

If you can get a vacuum nozzle/pipe in then you can get a nappy in, push it in, wiggle it about with the stick and use the string to pull it back out

That sounds a bit rough on the kids?

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5 hours ago, NB Alnwick said:

I have always used cotton waste to clean under the engine and gearbox (as recommended in the Kelvin handbook) but it isn't as cheap as it once was - probably because we no longer have those 'dark satanic mills' needing to get rid of bales of the stuff. The beauty of cotton waste is that it is bio-degradable (eventually) and easily disposed of if one has a solid fuel stove. Oil soaked cotton waste makes a brilliant firelighter.

 

Biodegradability as a form of waste management is a bit over-hyped I'm afraid.

 

Most waste in this country still ends up in landfill so unless you're composting it yourself (regularly turning the compost heap to aerate it) there's very little chance of it being sent for municipal composting or anaerobic digestion. There just isn't the infrastructure. Landfill isn't really suited for waste which decomposes as waste gets compacted in landfill to save space and can degrade anaerobically producing methane (CH4) a greenhouse gas which has 25 -30 times the global warming potential of CO2.

 

4 hours ago, haggis said:

Sorry ! I saw that you said that but I thought you might (like me) not be used to the proper use for baby nappies and didn't realise that you can get really small ones. Also I thought you might not have realised that you didn't need to have the whole nappy in touch with the base plate and I was just tying to be helpful Sorry ? 

 

haggis

 

No need to apologise, but I do need a loose material that I can get in contact with the whole area.

Edited by blackrose
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4 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

It will be fun getting the vacuum cleaner nozzle down there then to suck out all the litter if access is that tight

 

I don't see it being "fun" but it will be very easy as I have a thin tube attachment that goes onto the end of the wetvac hose. It's useful for difficult to access areas. 

 

You really didn't think I'd already thought of that when I posted the question?

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4 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

In tight places I have tied a string onto a nappy and poked it into place with a stick.

If you can get a vacuum nozzle/pipe in then you can get a nappy in, push it in, wiggle it about with the stick and use the string to pull it back out

 

But I've already tried a nappy and already tried poking it about. It doesn't work. If it had worked I wouldn't have posted the question about cat litter. 

 

In my experience nappies have to be in contact with the moisture for a while to absorb it. I'd be poking it around all night to get it to work.

 

Thanks

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8 hours ago, blackrose said:

 

But I've already tried a nappy and already tried poking it about. It doesn't work. If it had worked I wouldn't have posted the question about cat litter. 

 

In my experience nappies have to be in contact with the moisture for a while to absorb it. I'd be poking it around all night to get it to work.

 

Thanks

That's odd. I always found that nappies, provided the "proper bit" was in contact with a bit of the dampness absorbed the dampness really quickly with no need to poke them around and cover the whole area . Maybe nappies aren't as efficient now as they were the last time I used one to dry the bilges.

 

haggis

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17 minutes ago, twbm said:

If you've got a wetvac and need to adapt the nozzle, why not just suck the water out?  

 

I have done thanks, but can't get the nozzle to every area. 

 

Part of the idea of nappies and other media used to absorb water from bilges is to keep the steel dry between the times you can get down there. That reduces corrosion. Also I'm thinking it will be easier to suck the absorbent granules out.

 

7 minutes ago, haggis said:

That's odd. I always found that nappies, provided the "proper bit" was in contact with a bit of the dampness absorbed the dampness really quickly with no need to poke them around and cover the whole area . Maybe nappies aren't as efficient now as they were the last time I used one to dry the bilges.

 

haggis

 

Well, I can only repeat that a nappy hasn't worked. Perhaps you're using better nappies than me ? I've always found they need to sit there for a while before they swell up

Edited by blackrose
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On 30/01/2021 at 10:33, ditchcrawler said:

Surly if you put granules down there and leave them they will just hold the moisture sitting on the steel, I wouldn't thought they would take it away.

 

No think by absorbing the moisture, nappies or other highly absorbent materials hold the moisture away from the steel. When I pull swollen nappies out of my engine hole the steel underneath is often dry to the touch. Part of the idea of modern disposable nappies is that by using highly absorbent materials they keep the baby's skin dry.

 

Anyway I've figured out exactly where the condensation is coming from and it's the parts of the water tank bulkhead and the bow thruster tunnel that haven't been insulated. It's very difficult to insulate those areas as the water tank outlet is there so I can't spray it. I could fit a computer fan down there but wouldn't that just draw more warm air in from the cabin and make matters worse? Another idea might be to fill some plastic bags (vapour barrier) with rockwool and stuff the areas with the filled bags without compressing them too much to retain the insulation properties?

 

 

 

 

Edited by blackrose
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Well before fitting a computer fan I've just tested the theory with a mains fan. I'd wetvacced the whole area so it was looking pretty dry but after a few hours with the fan it's all sweating again. So as suspected a fan on uninsulated steel below the waterline just leads to more condensation. So much for extra ventilation! There's no point moving more warm air through the area.

Edited by blackrose
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1 minute ago, blackrose said:

Well before fitting a computer fan I've just tested the theory with a mains fan. I'd wetvacced the whole area so it was looking pretty dry but after a few hours with the fan it's all sweating again. So as suspected a fan on uninsulated steel below the waterline just leads to more condensation. So much for extra ventilation!

If the dew point of the air is above the temperature of the steel the moisture will condense 

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