God help us and our super-stinky bilge

ChattingLil

ChattingLil

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when we bought Ocean Lady she had a rather peculiar set up for grey water disposal. Everything went into a sump under the engine (aka the horrible hole). This hole is about 3/4 meter deep and it was rancid to say the least.

We remedied the grey water disposal but are left with the on-going battle of the legacy of the horrible hole.

Unfortunately, it is virtually inaccessible - being directly under the engine and very deep.

We are gradually fixing all the little diesel and oil leaks, but there is very obviously something very horrible in the the horrible hole. Most of the time it's fine, but every now and then the most vile stink emanates. We have tried gallons of bilgex and gallons and gallons of piping hot water flushed and pumped through. But nothing is working at the moment. It's totally vile. HWMO has just ordered some of the bacteria bug munching gloop, but does anyone have any other miracle ideas to help. ?

My instinct is to avoid putting bleach or a proprietary drain cleaner down there. Is this correct?
 
My universal salvation is to spray copious amounts of a strong kitchen degreaser that is called Chante Clair. I don't know if it will cure your "horrible hole" but it might be worth a try.
 
if you have a mix of oil, and grey water, you will get nasty and noxious bacterial development.

Try contacting support at www.oiltechnics.com.

They have a range of environmentally friendly mixtures which contain enzymes and bacteria which eat up the smelly bacteria and clean out the engrained diesel and oil. Far more sophisticated and efficient than Bilgex or Cat Poo Remover.



(Satisfied customer only; no affiliation)
 
ChattingLil said:
when we bought Ocean Lady she had a rather peculiar set up for grey water disposal. Everything went into a sump under the engine (aka the horrible hole). This hole is about 3/4 meter deep and it was rancid to say the least.

We remedied the grey water disposal but are left with the on-going battle of the legacy of the horrible hole.

Unfortunately, it is virtually inaccessible - being directly under the engine and very deep.

We are gradually fixing all the little diesel and oil leaks, but there is very obviously something very horrible in the the horrible hole. Most of the time it's fine, but every now and then the most vile stink emanates. We have tried gallons of bilgex and gallons and gallons of piping hot water flushed and pumped through. But nothing is working at the moment. It's totally vile. HWMO has just ordered some of the bacteria bug munching gloop, but does anyone have any other miracle ideas to help. ?

My instinct is to avoid putting bleach or a proprietary drain cleaner down there. Is this correct?
Click to expand...
auto washing machine powder will do it
 
not as well as a properly designed cleaner, honestly.

Washing powder is all surfactants. You need special enzyme and bacteria mixes.
 
We had a similar problem in a deep bilge. I have found "odorloss" holding tank chemical cleared it straight away.
 
Thanks everyone. To answer a few:

Maybe we could cover up the hole while in port, but it is our only bilge - all other voids are filled with tanks.

We have tried the giant tampon thing - it works but doesn't get it all. We know it works because the smell coming off it afterwards is out of this world.
We have tried detergents, washing powders, bilgex - again it works on the fluid stuff, but it would seem there is a sludge lurking at the bottom that we can't get at.
We have tried a brush on a stick, but the hole really is almost inaccessible - you need extra long bendy arms with probably two extra elbows. The top of the hole is about a foot square but it is about 8 inches below the engine, which is itself in a dip.

There must be something ambient (change in temperature?) that disturbs the sludge every now and then, because it can be fine for months and then, by God, suddently it's not fine at all.

Today, HWMO, is home tackling it. I think he has already ordered the bug munching stuff and today he will remove the bilge hose pumps and make sure they are long enough to reach the bottom (as I suspect they are not). He is armed with wire and bottle brushes to fashion something to try scrub the sides and the the bottom - but it needs to be done blind, you really cannot see anything beyond the top 10 inches or so.

Last night I could smell it from the pontoon. :-(

Fingers crossed the bacteria muching stuff...
 
Might be worth getting a endoscopic camera - I've found one very useful for all sorts of odd things on the boat. An HD one with USB plug can be got on Amazon for under £20 and means you can look at inaccessible spaces on your laptop screen. There may be something obvious lurking there, like a shelf full of gloop, and you will be able to see exactly what the bilge pump pipes are reaching
 
RupertW said:
Might be worth getting a endoscopic camera - I've found one very useful for all sorts of odd things on the boat. An HD one with USB plug can be got on Amazon for under £20 and means you can look at inaccessible spaces on your laptop screen. There may be something obvious lurking there, like a shelf full of gloop, and you will be able to see exactly what the bilge pump pipes are reaching
Click to expand...

Good idea.
You can do so much with a mobile phone camera, but they have limits.
Set mobile to video, put it in a poly bag and mount it on a stick with a light....
 
If it were my boat I'd pour boiling water and detergent down there and after drying everything out, plug the hole with a light fiberglassed in cover.
It just ocurred to me that filling the hole with fresh water and some detergent and then heating it with a heating element would probably dissolve everything very effectively.
 
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Sarabande's suggestion is good. After trying several other things suggested above, I used this http://www.oiltechnics.co.uk/OffshoreBioShopBioClean.asp
to kill the stench that impregnated the bilge after a fuel leak that took months to track down.

I now have sweet smelling bilges. It also mops up for me after an oil change and the inevitable leakage when changing the filter. A spray over the oily bits of the engine and half a cup in the bilge. A week later, the oil's gone and it's safe to pump out.
 
In days gone by the cross channel ferries had problems with "unpleasantness" in heads and tanks, by-products of 'mal de mer', semi-solid chip fat and other matter. They used a product called Gamazyme which I believe is still available. It was squirted in to all the facilities and the active bacteria within populated the pipework and tanks then proceeded to eat their way through the grot until light and purity reigned. It was good stuff and even had a NATO stock number because the "Andrew" used it. It used to come in a box of 12 x 1 litre squeezy type bottles. There was a joke that each box came with 12 bottles and a mallet, because once the bugs had eaten all the grot they turned on each other until there was only one big bugger left. That's when you needed the mallet. There were times when it didn't work but on investigation it was shown that the dopey deckies were squirting Gamazyme down the loos with a bleach chaser, thus killing the bugs.
 
Stemar said:
Sarabande's suggestion is good. After trying several other things suggested above, I used this http://www.oiltechnics.co.uk/OffshoreBioShopBioClean.asp
to kill the stench that impregnated the bilge after a fuel leak that took months to track down.

I now have sweet smelling bilges. It also mops up for me after an oil change and the inevitable leakage when changing the filter. A spray over the oily bits of the engine and half a cup in the bilge. A week later, the oil's gone and it's safe to pump out.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I spoke to Oil Technics and they recommended OT8. Have bought some and will report back! Marc is working on cleaning it out now - he is up to his armpits and not reporting happy! (makes me glad to be at work!)
 
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