Where should i dispose of oily water?

[Kane Brennan]

In the engine area there was a collection of oil bottles, some were 15 years old and rusty according to the dates on them. But overall a mix of metal, plastic and even milk bottles that have seeped out and have left a trail into the engine bilge. 

I have disposed of all of them at the local Recycling centre. Now for the mess I have bought a large spill kit which consist of giant socks and pads and I understand how these work with some  grease emulsifying bilge cleaner.

I checked the engine oil before I picked the boat up, then did a 13 hour cruise to where I am living then checked again, no oil lost from the engine, so it is clearly from the mess of bottles. Surveyor suspected the same. 

The plan is to use the kit to absorb as much of the oil as I can out of the water in the bilge. Scrub the walls and surfaces with the bilge cleaner. Then do another round with the kit. Then extract the water which may have some oil content left in it.

But what should I do with the water?

It is a cruiser stern and not every bit of decking has drain channels and I have heard cruiser sterns are notorious for letting rain water in. We are thinking about getting a rubber mat and cutting it to cover the whole stern deck. We have a 3 element pram cover for when it is stationary

 

[Arthur Marshall]

24 minutes ago, Kane Brennan said:

It is a cruiser stern and not every bit of decking has drain channels and I have heard cruiser sterns are notorious for letting rain water in. We are thinking about getting a rubber mat and cutting it to cover the whole stern deck. We have a 3 element pram cover for when it is stationary.

 

Covering the stern deck with a mat won't stop the water getting into the bilge - it's got to go somewhere and it'll just make your deck rusty underneath. With a cruiser stern, you're always going to have water in the bilge. If you can keep it fairly clean, not much oil goes into the canal, some always will and there's nothing you can do about it except bung some washing up liquid on it.

I saw a survey somewhere that said there were bugs in the canal that basically eat the stuff, so it disappears in time. No idea if it's true, but I'm damn sure that in the days of working boats there was a lot more oil and diesel in the cut than there is now.

Someone will be along in a minute to tell me how wrong I am... and if they can tell me how to keep an old Lister bilge spotless I might even listen.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

This time around, for the big clean up if it really is a black mess, I’d get a yard to pump it out. 
They’ll have the equipment to do it and it’ll be done in no time with out you fretting about leaving a mess. They ‘ll dispose of any liquids. 
 

Once cleaned, like Arthur says, in the future just pump your water in to the canal. 
 

I did mine that way earlier in the year and it was a horrible black mess for someone else to get rid off. 
Now any water is clean enough to pump in the canal. 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Goliath

[Kane Brennan]

18 minutes ago, Goliath said:

This time around, for the big clean up if it really is a black mess, I’d get a yard to pump it out. 
They’ll have the equipment to do it and it’ll be done in no time with out you fretting about leaving a mess. They ‘ll dispose of any liquids. 
 

Once cleaned, like Arthur says, just pump your water in to the canal. 
 

I did mine that way earlier in the year and it was a horrible black mess for someone else to get rid off. 
Now any water is clean enough to pump in the canal. 

Do you know what they charge for something like that?

[LadyG]

25 minutes ago, Kane Brennan said:

Do you know what they charge for something like that?

Unfortunately it all depends, expect to pay £50 per hour for labour not sure about disposal.

[Kane Brennan]

7 minutes ago, LadyG said:

Unfortunately it all depends, expect to pay £50 per hour for labour not sure about disposal.

It is literally an inch or two of dirty water. Hence why I am considering doing it myself. 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

Shouldn’t be much.

If you have done all the scrubbing and cleaning and if you have used bilge cleaners to break down the oils and grease, all you require them to do is pump out and dispose.

Its a real simple job for them to vacuum out the liquids and poor them into a holding tank.

 

🤷‍♀️Depends on yard as to cost. Do you have a yard or marina you use and you’re friendly with?

Ask at wherever you buy your diesel.

I’d expect £20-30 🤷‍♀️
If you’re down south it’s anyone’s guess 😃

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Goliath

[Kane Brennan]

9 minutes ago, Goliath said:

Shouldn’t be much.

If you have done all the scrubbing and cleaning and if you have used bilge cleaners to break down the oils and grease, all you require them to do is pump out and dispose.

Its a real simple job for them to vacuum out the liquids and poor them onto a holding tank.

 

🤷‍♀️Depends on yard as to cost. Do you have a yard or marina you use and you’re friendly with?

Ask at wherever you buy your diesel.

I’d expect £20-30 🤷‍♀️
If you’re down south it’s anyone’s guess 😃

 

 

 

Thanks I got it.

Still use my oil kit and clean it with the bilge cleaner, then get someone to clean it out. We are at a marina and there is a boat yard next door.

So once we have cleaned it, get them to come look and see if they can/will do it. 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

Just rereading your first post, by the sounds of it you’ll be getting the bilges quite clean by lifting out the worst of the oil on cloths and mats.

I’d be tempted to try the bilge pump after cleaning and see what happens.

A very quick on off to see if it’s going to make a mess in the canal, and go from there.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by Goliath

[Tony Brooks]

I would remove the residual oily water by using disposable nappies and putting them in the waste bin. I used Aldi Big Boys nappies. Just don't eave them in the water for too long because they will then split and deposit jelly into the bilge.

[Dockeroo]

Give the mythical oil bugs something to eat!

[blackrose]

3 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Covering the stern deck with a mat won't stop the water getting into the bilge - it's got to go somewhere and it'll just make your deck rusty underneath. With a cruiser stern, you're always going to have water in the bilge. 

 

It stopped it on mine. My bilges were normally dry but in heavy downpours the gutters and downpipes couldn't cope with the amount of water. So I covered the deck boards on my cruiser stern widebeam with a rubber mat 2 years ago and don't get any rainwater down there anymore. And we've had lots of really heavy downpours.

 

My mat extends beyond the deck boards all around by about 4"

 

 

Also if you epoxy your decks as I have done it won't go rusty underneath. I epoxied them years ago as standing puddles of water used to lift the single part deck paint. 

 

13 minutes ago, blackrose said:

 

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by blackrose

[MtB]

Whatever you do, don't dig a hole in your garden or some remote spot and just pour it in and find 6 months later its all disappeared (like my dad used to do with old engine oil when I was a kid).

 

Definitely not ok. Ok? 

 

 

 

[TandC]

I've had a cruiserstern for 15 years...  I am well versed in this issue...  I've spent hours of my life trying to get a cover that works, drain channels that work, etc....  it's a never-ending battle.  

 

Nappies are probably okay for small amounts and good when you know you've got very oily waste to dispose of. 

 

but if it is a lot of water (with a thin layer on top) then you will do far better with a cheap wet and dry hoover - they crop up in Aldi or Lidl, or second hand on Facebook Marketplace etc.   Accept that it will be oily forever so probably only really any good as an engine vac.   But, it is absolutely the best tool for the job.   People have recommended nappies or even cat litter - but for large amounts it is just another something to get rid of and is probably less environmentally friendly than having a tool that you can use again and again.

 

A wet vac will get your engine bay really dry -  wheras the bilge pump will not, plus eventually it will get clogged and burn out.   If you've got loads - then suck out from the bottom to collect the water and stick that in the hedge, then collect up the oily sludge floating on the top for disposal. 

 

If is is really oily, then stick it in containers and take it to the local recycling centre and put it in the waste oil point. 

 

If it's just general engine 'ole murkiness... I've poured it in the hedge.   There's abundant nettles growing away on the spot i frequently use... that has to be better than straight in the canal.

 

This reminds me of the time  i saw a kebab van pouring all their waste cooking oil into the CRT Elsan point .....  

 

 

 

 

[Tony Brooks]

I think the OP says he is going to use an "oilzorb" kit to take the oil from the top of the water.  In cat there are many hydrophobic oil absorbent mats on the market that sill do the job well, but they wo't get the last dregs of oil off the water, but a nappy seems to absorb that as well.

[Onewheeler]

I've used hydrophobic oil absorbent mats from RS in the engine bilge for years (something like 872-5722). They soak up the oil, not the water. The mat gets changed every two or three years, usually after I've made a mess of changing the oil filter. The water / antifreeze from minor leaks gets pumped out occasionally and taken to our recycling centre where they have an antifreeze tank. Nappies work well for cleaning a separate bilge after dumping the coolant into it for the occasional change.

[Arthur Marshall]

15 hours ago, blackrose said:

 

It stopped it on mine. My bilges were normally dry but in heavy downpours the gutters and downpipes couldn't cope with the amount of water. So I covered the deck boards on my cruiser stern widebeam with a rubber mat 2 years ago and don't get any rainwater down there anymore. And we've had lots of really heavy downpours.

 

My mat extends beyond the deck boards all around by about 4"

 

 

Also if you epoxy your decks as I have done it won't go rusty underneath. I epoxied them years ago as standing puddles of water used to lift the single part deck paint. 

 

 

I suppose it ensures all the water goes into the drain channels rather than between the boards into the bilge.

I keep trying to do that but due to the terminal incompetence at Kerridge (now, note, under new management, I understand) that doesn't work for me. They installed a self-draining deck with channels (originally everything just went into the bilge) and manage to bollox it to the extent that the starboard channel actually drains the wrong way ie into the bilge, not out. When I pointed out that one drainage hole at the stern was three inches higher than the other, and the whole back deck is on a slant, they shrugged and suggested I retrimmed the boat to compensate. I was younger then and didn't make the fuss I would now. The port channel, under normal trim, only drains when completely full, as its more or less horizontal. The only way to keep the bilge fairly dry in winter when the boat's not used is to load everything on the port side so the boat leans that way, and hope some of it goes down the one working channel rather than the hole where the control cables go.

They also managed to mess up (same time) the install of a new drive shaft so the boat nearly sank two years later. And put in a fuel tank without a drain tap.

I know it's under new management, but...

 

[blackrose]

The main reason I need to use the rubber mat is because it's such a big uneven deck that it collects water in puddles. I never realised until I started using the mat that in one place the deck doesn't drain overboard. Now I use the mat a large puddle appears but it just stays on the mat until I sweep it off or it evaporates. It never gets down into the bilges anymore. Had the builder considered this they should have angled the deck very slightly down on all sides away from the deck boards so that it drained overboard.

[haggis]

I think your  cruiser stern deck is a bit different from most in that it is level right to the outside edge . Many have a  metal surround which stands a few inches higher than the deck. And this prevents any water running off the deck