Jabsco toilet - rotten egg smell

[vyv_cox]

I can't believe that the trick with fresh water has persisted so long when it is unnecessary. I think it was our own Vyv Cox from these forums who did the experiments with various sea-waters and how much they smelled after being left for a few weeks in an enclosed space. The answe is NOT AT ALL!

The real answer is that the smell is almost certainly from detritus getting past the main pump seal and decomposing in the inlet pipe. Therefore it is not necessary to do complicated things with fresh water, but to make sure that you pump enough seawater through in the first place to get rid of every last bit of effluent. Since we started doing this on our boat, we have eliminated the smells on first flush on return to the boat every time.

Absolutely correct. The fundamental problem is that the flap valves on the inlet side of a cheap toilet are just that - cheap. Their efficiency is very low, and a good proportion of what is inside the piston chamber goes the wrong way, into the inlet pipe. In a week or so it will have fermented and produced loads of evil-smelling gas. The solution that worked very well for us was to eliminate the 'bowl empty' phase when leaving the toilet. If there is no air in the piston and chamber beneath the toilet it will not smell. Seawater itself does not smell, so using fresh water is a complicated and unnecessary procedure.

 

[Leighb]

Seawater itself does not smell, so using fresh water is a complicated and unnecessary procedure.

I am sure that is correct regarding the open sea, however muddy contaminated estuary water may be a different story.

As I have already posted I use the freshwater rinse before leaving the boat. It takes a couple of minutes so is hardly complicated. Prior to using that method I used to pump extensively to try and clear any detritus from the system before locking up, but it always ponged. So for me, freshwater is a simple and effective cure.

 

[Mandarin331]

Thanks vm for all your input, I had no idea this would generate such interest.

To reply to a couple of points which were raised above:-

- We do flush the toilet through a lot before leaving, use toilet cleaner etc etc, and keep it very clean in normal use
- In normal use there are no smells at all - only after leaving the boat for a week or so
- The Marina water is probably pretty high in 'nutrients' - no through current and a couple of hundred boats, so its not the same as fresh seawater.

We'll try the fresh water flush next time and see if that helps.

Thanks one and all

 

[fireball]

Fresh water flush ....

DO NOT CONNECT YOUR TOILET DIRECTLY TO YOUR FRESHWATER TANK

As suggested elsewhere, go via a basin or a seperate toilet tank - but you should not connect directly to your freshwater tank as that gives a direct path for bugs to head for - and contaminate your freshwater tank ... I believe I first heard this advice from TheHeadMistress ...

 

[Mandarin331]

Fresh water flush ....

DO NOT CONNECT YOUR TOILET DIRECTLY TO YOUR FRESHWATER TANK

As suggested elsewhere, go via a basin or a seperate toilet tank - but you should not connect directly to your freshwater tank as that gives a direct path for bugs to head for - and contaminate your freshwater tank ... I believe I first heard this advice from TheHeadMistress ...

Good point, and to be honest I really don't want to set up great plumbing systems just for this, so as we always fill up the water tank before leaving her we'll just fill a bucket up and tip it down the toilet last thing...