anti freeze in bilges - safe or not?

[Burnham Bob]

I have to drain and refill my beta 13.5's freshwater cooling system. The drain tap is at the bottom of the engine and with very little room for anything oter than draining the system into the bilges, then pumping it out with the bilge pump. The coolant currently contains anti freeze.

Anyone see any problems? The only alternative i can think of is a pump - the kind you use for changing the oil to put on the drain and then pump it up into a container.

Any suggestions?

 

[sarabande]

What is the hull material ? Is it well painted with bilge paint or similar sealant ?

Where are you proposing to dispose of the old antifreeze ?


It is DEADLY to cats. And not very good for the rest of the natural word, too.

 

[Bosun Higgs]

Anyone see any problems? The only alternative i can think of is a pump - the kind you use for changing the oil to put on the drain and then pump it up into a container.

Thats what I do - use the Pela pump to empty the bilge.

 

[VicS]

Ethylene glycol will cause no problems with GRP.

It is somewhat toxic to animals Sarabande has some info that that its is especially toxic to cats but I have found no figures.
It is also somewhat toxic to fish and other aquatic life.

It is however readily biodegradable.

 

[sarabande]

VicS -

http://www.rspca.org.uk/allaboutanimals/pets/cats/health/antifreezepoisoning


and it has been implicated in several deliberate poisonings of urban cats.

 

[Appleyard]

I have to drain and refill my beta 13.5's freshwater cooling system. The drain tap is at the bottom of the engine and with very little room for anything oter than draining the system into the bilges, then pumping it out with the bilge pump. The coolant currently contains anti freeze.

Anyone see any problems? The only alternative i can think of is a pump - the kind you use for changing the oil to put on the drain and then pump it up into a container.

Any suggestions?

It will not do any harm whatsoever to your bilges..but pump it out into an old container & take it to your friendly local garage who should have disposal facilities for oils,fluids etc.

 

[Cliveshep]

..........It is DEADLY to cats.

Many aquatic cats round your way then mate? (Love it!)

I would have thought that the small amount already diluted in a cooling system would be further very swiftly diluted in a river or harbour to harmless levels. I pump my bilges out with a Pela pump, wonderfully useful bit of kit that happily takes out the last few filthy gallons that the auto pump leaves behind. I decant it into a plastic drum and deposit it over a particularly spiteful patch of brambles and nettles on the path to my mooring. Given that my bilge water has a goodly amount of old oil in it plus antifreeze etc and usually some Jizer (40 year old leaky engine) and that it is supposed to be a pollutant you'd have thought that the nettles and brambles would have succumbed long ago. Not a bit of it, they seem to regard it as plant food!

 

[oldharry]

Anti freeze main component ethylene glycol is quoted by some as a very effective anti rot treatment for wooden boats, and afficionados pour it in to their bilges in the hopes of killing off rot spores.

 

[VicS]

ethylene glycol is quoted by some as a very effective anti rot treatment for wooden boats

Dont know about ethylene glycol but propylene glycol is particularly effective for preventing rot when it contains about 20% disodium octaborate!

 

[planteater]

It is somewhat toxic to animals Sarabande has some info that that its is especially toxic to cats but I have found no figures.

I remember reading that the smell and taste is particularly attractive to cats. If you leave it lying around they will lap it up and poison themselves.

 

[lw395]

I have to drain and refill my beta 13.5's freshwater cooling system. The drain tap is at the bottom of the engine and with very little room for anything oter than draining the system into the bilges, then pumping it out with the bilge pump. The coolant currently contains anti freeze.

Anyone see any problems? The only alternative i can think of is a pump - the kind you use for changing the oil to put on the drain and then pump it up into a container.

Any suggestions?

Will it harm the rubber bits of the bilge pump? Give it a good rinse!

A tray under the engine and a pela would be my approach, I found a plastic cat litter tray that was ideal, just flexible enough to bend around whatever was in the way.

 

[Dan the man]

and, dont forget, that experimental cook who put anti-freeze in her husbands curry! I think he had been playing away...only reason it would have gotten into the news of the world!

 

[LittleSister]

Isn't anti-freeze supposed to remove paint? Many bilges will be painted.

 

[fishermantwo]

Isn't anti-freeze supposed to remove paint? Many bilges will be painted.

Leaves a bit of a stain if not washed off. I use it to treat softened wood before other rot treatment.

 

[oldharry]

Dont know about ethylene glycol but propylene glycol is particularly effective for preventing rot when it contains about 20% disodium octaborate!

IIRC it was a Propylene Glycol based gunk they used to preserve Mary Rose, wasn't it? Lots of other preservative add ons as well, but apparently ethylene glycol is also effective and readily available in solution as anti freeze. No guarantees, but read up on it when I had a wooden boat, with sceptisism from both me and local boatbuilder.

 

[VicS]

IIRC it was a Propylene Glycol based gunk they used to preserve Mary Rose, wasn't it?

Polyethylene glycols to displace the water apparently.

From Wikipedia:

Conserving the hull of the Mary Rose was the most complicated task for the project. During passive conservation, the ship structure could for practical reasons not be completely sealed, so instead it was regularly sprayed with filtered, recycled water that was kept at a temperature of 2–5° C (35–41° F) to keep it from drying out.[109] Drying waterlogged wood that has been submerged for several centuries without appropriate conservation results in considerable shrinkage (20–50%) and leads to severe warping and cracking as water evaporates from the cellular structure of the wood. The substance polyethylene glycol (PEG) had been used before on archaeological wood, and was during the 1980s being used to conserve the Vasa. PEG was sprayed over ship timbers for several years so that it would penetrate the wood and gradually replace the water. The years of PEG saturation were followed by a long period of controlled air drying. After almost ten years of small-scale trials on timbers, an active three-phase conservation program of the hull of the Mary Rose began in 1994. During the first phase, which lasted from 1994 to 2003 the wood was sprayed with low-molecular-weight PEG to replace the water in the cellullar structure of the wood. From 2003 a higher-molecular-weight PEG has been used to strengthen the mechanical properties of the outer surface layers and this final stage of PEG treatment will be completed in 2010. The third phase will consist of a controlled air drying that will last three to five years, giving a final date of complete conservation of the Mary Rose no later than 2015​