Jabsco sea toilet - embarrassing problem !!

had the jabscoelectric head for a season..lasted til a 6 year old tried to flush for 5 minutes with water supply to drybowl. blew the motor....it also sounded like a jet plane at 2 am and you always knewwhen someone wasusing the loo. the noise will stir the dead..replaced withthe plain old quiet manual head...

we supply a quntity of cheap small plasticshopping bags and ask all crew to place all toilet paper etc. into a. bag then tie itup and place it. into the rubbish bin in the head. avoids guests trying to flush baby nappies and lord knows what else into thehead. a bizarrerule that has worked faultlesslyin the30 years we have been enforcing it..no head blockages...
 
bluedragon said:
A certain member of crew has difficulty in flushing their "waste" into the sea or holding tank...it gets stuck in the pipework of the loo itself it seems :o though it may be further along in the pipes! It takes a huge amount of pumping to shift it. This happened on our last boat as well (same loo) so it's not the particular installation here. I wondered about fitting an electric version and whether this has some kind of macerator fitted which may assist matters...any thoughts or solutions?

PS - I'm not even supposed to be posting this "personal" problem so pretend you know nothing about it if by any chance our paths cross for real! :D
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Everytime you drop one pump water 10-25 times then dry 10-25 times depending on length of pipe.
Loo roll into a paper bag and off the stern.

We have Macerator pumps on all the heads and you still have to be careful with these.
 
flush well

marine toilets need to be pumped well not when you see the bowl empty it has to travel along the pipes before it gets overboard.
 
The only thing you should put down a marine loo is what goes through your body. Put paper, tampons and anything else in a bin. We do that and have never had a blockage. The other blockage is Calcium build up so keep the pipework clean by banging it hard on the ground to remove the Calcium .
 
I'm afraid I cannot cope with this idea of bagging soiled loo paper - if it came to that, I think I would just carp over the side! We use that Thetford loo roll that is claimed to dissolve rapidly and have had no problems yet - the rule is "wipe, flush, wipe, flush..."

Only time we had a problem was when a friend brought his Thai girlfriend along for the day - her English was too poor to get the "wipe, flush, wipe..." message across. Just about got away with it following a lot of flush, flush, flush...
 
bluedragon said:
A certain member of crew has difficulty in flushing their "waste" into the sea or holding tank...it gets stuck in the pipework of the loo itself it seems :o though it may be further along in the pipes! It takes a huge amount of pumping to shift it. This happened on our last boat as well (same loo) so it's not the particular installation here. I wondered about fitting an electric version and whether this has some kind of macerator fitted which may assist matters...any thoughts or solutions?

PS - I'm not even supposed to be posting this "personal" problem so pretend you know nothing about it if by any chance our paths cross for real! :D
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I have a Lavac vacuum toilet, Every month or so i pump it out without the lid down and it empties the bowl, I then turn off the sea cock and pour about 3 or 4 bottles of vinegar down till the bowls fill to the brim and let it sit for 12 or more hours and then come back and flush it. the bowl sparkles and the calcium is all gone,
I used to scrub all the gunk off and it would take ages and i started to scratch the bowl,
But vinegar works like a miracle cure when it comes to cleaning,
I definitely wouldnt use acid etc, it cant be any good for the rubber within the pump or the ocean itself..
 
maby said:
I'm afraid I cannot cope with this idea of bagging soiled loo paper - if it came to that, I think I would just carp over the side! We use that Thetford loo roll that is claimed to dissolve rapidly and have had no problems yet - the rule is "wipe, flush, wipe, flush..."

Only time we had a problem was when a friend brought his Thai girlfriend along for the day - her English was too poor to get the "wipe, flush, wipe..." message across. Just about got away with it following a lot of flush, flush, flush...
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Presumably you'd never have a holiday in Greece then, as that's the rule even in hotels?

I didnt go for the rule of binning it not flushing it until we started using holding tanks as that offers so much more likelihood of blockages as there are more corners and joins just to pass through the tank, and when the outlet is shut you get paper settling at the bottom.

Having once spent hours dismantling pipe and emptying a tank full of 10 days of 4 blokes output I wouldn't use paper through a tank ever again. The guy in the water clearing it from the outside had an even nastier job.

Little pedal bins with disposable bags works fine, especially if tied up and emptied daily into our cockpit locker main rubbish bag. Guests find the whole flushing bit a lot more difficult than putting the used paper into a bin by their feet.
 
snowleopard said:
Two tips - when flushing, make sure you pump water into the bowl before emptying it. The second is to pump as you go - every time you put something in, pump it out, whether it be paper or wastes. Don't wait till the end and try to pump it all out at once.
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Under no circumstances do this with the Lavac. If you are of moderate size. A large lady once did this and tried to suck herself down the loo. This caused a prolapse.:eek:

When Lavacs were first introduced in the 60s, I think, They had a transparent version hooked up on their boat show stand. They did indeed flush a small unpealed banana round and round the system.
 
maby said:
I'm afraid I cannot cope with this idea of bagging soiled loo paper - if it came to that, I think I would just carp over the side! We use that Thetford loo roll that is claimed to dissolve rapidly and have had no problems yet - the rule is "wipe, flush, wipe, flush..."

Only time we had a problem was when a friend brought his Thai girlfriend along for the day - her English was too poor to get the "wipe, flush, wipe..." message across. Just about got away with it following a lot of flush, flush, flush...
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You are obviously not a diver, maby. If you have ever dived in clean marina or busy anchorage water, you would see the devastation caused by toilet paper. The waste itself is fully degradable and fish love to eat it but the paper lasts on the bottom (no pun intended) and kills all the plant life.

We have a large sign over our Lavac "Nothing to be placed in this toilet, which has not first been eaten or drunk"
 
nauticalnomad said:
I definitely wouldnt use acid etc, it cant be any good for the rubber within the pump or the ocean itself..
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This has come up on here many times. Hydrochloric acid has minimal effect on any of the seal materials used for toilets, nitrile or neoprene most commonly. In dilute form, and for the short duration we are talking about, it has no effect. It also does not react with the metal, plastic or ceramic of the toilet.

So far as the environment is concerned, the acid reacts with the calcium salts to produce CO2, water and calcium chloride, which is what is pumped over the side. None of these has any detrimental effect and the sea contains lots of the latter two already.

Most liveaboards in the Med, along with the majority of the local population, dose their toilets with HCl on a regular basis. Most supermarkets in Med countries sell it.
 
Digbydog said:
You are obviously not a diver, maby. If you have ever dived in clean marina or busy anchorage water, you would see the devastation caused by toilet paper. The waste itself is fully degradable and fish love to eat it but the paper lasts on the bottom (no pun intended) and kills all the plant life.

We have a large sign over our Lavac "Nothing to be placed in this toilet, which has not first been eaten or drunk"
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It would never occur to me to flush a sea toilet in a marina - well, it has occurred to me at 3am on a cold, wet night - but I have resisted the temptation!
 
RupertW said:
Presumably you'd never have a holiday in Greece then, as that's the rule even in hotels?
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I ignore that rule in Greek hotels - its uncivilised. AFAIK I've never caused a blockage. On a boat, I don't use the heads on board when in a marina except in emergency. At sea, we flush toilet paper in moderation as, storing in a plastic bag and then throwing overboard is a worse option. We've never had a heads blockage but do flush excessively.
 
ghostlymoron said:
I ignore that rule in Greek hotels - its uncivilised. AFAIK I've never caused a blockage.
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My understanding is that it's not a case of blockages, but that the sewage treatment systems used outside urban areas (ie, where seaside hotels are) can't cope with lots of paper.

Pete
 
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