Latest thoughts on toilet smell management !!

Andy Cox said:
I agree with your assumption, but what makes a siphon break better at preventing bacteria from going backwards than a closed valve and a check valve?

I think good hygiene, regularly using a suitable anti bacterial cleaner in the toilet helps mitigate any risk. Also, although we treat our water with Aqua Sol every time the tank is filled, which is claimed to kill all water borne bacteria, we don't drink water from the tank other than from the kettle, instead keeping a good supply of bottled water on board for drinking :encouragement:

If I felt there was any risk of contamination of the fresh water supply then I wouldn't do it.

Andy
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All valid comments. Personally, I don't like the idea of plumbing the toilet flush into the boat fresh water supply - partly because of the difficulty of ensuring there is no risk of contamination and also because I hate filling the water tanks - which I have to do far too often without flushing half of it back into the marina! Bacteria are little buggars - and viruses even smaller - I'm not sure that I trust even a valve to keep them in their place - far less a simple syphon break!

The value of plumbing in a fresh water flush probably depends on your pattern of boat usage. We spend four to five days of the week on the boat every week and we are really not the victims of much toilet smell. Typically, we arrive at the boat on a Sunday evening and the first flush is smelly, but I put a lot of water through and that clears the smell. The toilet is then used several times per day, every day, and it does not smell at all. We close the boat up on Thurday or Friday and it will smell again on the first flush when we return. I guess that people who use their boats less frequently and for shorter periods will notice the smell more.

We keep our tanks very clean and do drink the water from them unboiled, so it is very important to us to avoid contamination.
 
Bouba said:
I think unlike a house where there is a constant water flow, a boat can sit for months without use and without electricity to pressurize the system. Add the heat and I’m not yet convinced that a direct connection to the fresh water supply is completely safe. But for ease of installation, I wish it were
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I think you'll find that there are other issues related to the domestic supply to the toilet in your house. The flush to the toilet is normally via an intermediate tank - the cistern - and that puts a big barrier in the way of bacteria trying to migrate into your drinking water.
 
maby said:
I think you'll find that there are other issues related to the domestic supply to the toilet in your house. The flush to the toilet is normally via an intermediate tank - the cistern - and that puts a big barrier in the way of bacteria trying to migrate into your drinking water.
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Yes, exactly as I said before
 
Type 2 air gap like your house cistern or a seperate water supply is your gold std .
Your house air gap in the cistern is protect the mains , your neighbours etc .

Most boats don’t have one of the above . Your bog contents can’t wind up on your neighbours dinner plate .
But might wind up on your plate / cup - that’s your problem .

Remember your own personal hand hygiene, so you inadvertently soil a finger with some cheap bog paper wiping up after a good curry the day before :)

You touch a tap , a soap dispenser or a bar of soap , hands get a a good wash and now smell nice .
What happens to the contaminated tap and soap ?
Sombody else touches the contaminated tap or soap after washing contaminates themselves ,then moves to the galley and handles your plate / cup .Now they are contaminated with the faecal matter picked up from the tap .

So regularly dose your tank with a boat water disinfectanting agent and also put something antimicrobal in the pan regularly to kill any pathogenic biofilm .Disinfect the tap faucet .

I wouldn’t worry too much about your fresh tank contamination, because you are looking down the wrong end of a telescope.
There been some interesting studies .
Class of 32 kids .One kid has a pea sized fluorescent dye only visible under UV light placed on the tip of the nose .Its invisible.
The kid or the rest don,t know he / her has been tagged .
At the end of the day switch on the UV light the fluorescent dye is everywhere, on most kids hand s lips , eyelids , all over the teacher , on the door handles etc etc .

Following logically your seawater flush in a static marina is actually potentiality bringing in pathogens from your neighbours.Ok only in the pan .
Nice to somehow add a secret UV dye and see where that ends up at the end of the day :) You will be shocked .
 
Andy Cox said:
I agree with your assumption, but what makes a siphon break better at preventing bacteria from going backwards than a closed valve and a check valve?

I think good hygiene, regularly using a suitable anti bacterial cleaner in the toilet helps mitigate any risk. Also, although we treat our water with Aqua Sol every time the tank is filled, which is claimed to kill all water borne bacteria, we don't drink water from the tank other than from the kettle, instead keeping a good supply of bottled water on board for drinking :encouragement:

If I felt there was any risk of contamination of the fresh water supply then I wouldn't do it.

Andy
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I’m afraid I’ve no idea. But tecma and jabsco have probably got some people that do and I’m happy to pay the £120 for the valve therefore and keep the cheaper valve limited to my screen washers.

I’ll never know if I’ve wasted my money but it’s not something I wanted to speculate on.

Having said that I never treat the fresh water tank and happily drink it with no issues thus far.
 
Elessar said:
...

Having said that I never treat the fresh water tank and happily drink it with no issues thus far.
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We've regularly treated the fresh water tank since our first boat sprang a leaak in the tank which required it to be replaced. We were horrified at the mount of much in the bottom - the boat was quite a few years old, bought second-hand by us and we had been drinking the water from the tap! Now, I add Aqua-tabs on most refills - the boat is new with clean tanks and I intend them to stay like that...
 
maby said:
All valid comments. Personally, I don't like the idea of plumbing the toilet flush into the boat fresh water supply - partly because of the difficulty of ensuring there is no risk of contamination and also because I hate filling the water tanks - which I have to do far too often without flushing half of it back into the marina! Bacteria are little buggars - and viruses even smaller - I'm not sure that I trust even a valve to keep them in their place - far less a simple syphon break!

The value of plumbing in a fresh water flush probably depends on your pattern of boat usage.
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There is something in that .The yacht we chartered last year had sea water flush and no smells at all. The holding tank was not very big so emptied daily at sea. I think everyday use in itself solves the odour issue.
 
MartynG said:
There is something in that .The yacht we chartered last year had sea water flush and no smells at all. The holding tank was not very big so emptied daily at sea. I think everyday use in itself solves the odour issue.
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Definitely - the smell is caused by seawater stagnating in a closed space - the inlet pipe. If there is enough flow of water, then it does not stagnate and does not smell.

There is a commonly held belief that it is caused by cross contamination in the toilet pump which allows sewage bacteria from the outlet side of the pump to the inlet side. In fact, I believe that the book referred to earlier states this. I strongly believe that this is not true. On our current boat, we have a Jabsco electric flush toilet which has two completely independent pumps - an ordinary water pump to draw water in from outside and a macerator pump on the outlet of the bowel. There is no common component of these two pumps and the inlet and outlet skin fittings are some feet apart on the boat, so there will be minimal contamination of the inlet from the outlet. Even so, the first flush after the boat has been empty for several days still smells. I have also noticed the same hydrogen sulphide smell in the engine cooling water filter when cleaning it - and that inlet is a long way from the heads outlet.
 
maby said:
Definitely - the smell is caused by seawater stagnating in a closed space - the inlet pipe. If there is enough flow of water, then it does not stagnate and does not smell.

There is a commonly held belief that it is caused by cross contamination in the toilet pump which allows sewage bacteria from the outlet side of the pump to the inlet side. In fact, I believe that the book referred to earlier states this. I strongly believe that this is not true. On our current boat, we have a Jabsco electric flush toilet which has two completely independent pumps - an ordinary water pump to draw water in from outside and a macerator pump on the outlet of the bowel. There is no common component of these two pumps and the inlet and outlet skin fittings are some feet apart on the boat, so there will be minimal contamination of the inlet from the outlet. Even so, the first flush after the boat has been empty for several days still smells. I have also noticed the same hydrogen sulphide smell in the engine cooling water filter when cleaning it - and that inlet is a long way from the heads outlet.
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You may well be right about electric pumps, I don't know, but manual pumps cross-contaminate with every stroke as the cylinder walls are not completely cleaned by the piston and on each cycle have the whole wall covered with sewage then the whole wall covered with inlet water and before the rubber valve closes a little of the contaminated water goes back into the inlet pipe.

It has been shown many times that seawater without faecal contamination does not smell even after weeks - although I haven't seen tests done with muddy sea-weedy water.
 
RupertW said:
You may well be right about electric pumps, I don't know, but manual pumps cross-contaminate with every stroke as the cylinder walls are not completely cleaned by the piston and on each cycle have the whole wall covered with sewage then the whole wall covered with inlet water and before the rubber valve closes a little of the contaminated water goes back into the inlet pipe.

It has been shown many times that seawater without faecal contamination does not smell even after weeks - although I haven't seen tests done with muddy sea-weedy water.
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There certainly is cross-contamination between the chambers of a manual pump, but my point is that that cannot be the cause of the smell we are discussing here because the same smell will occur in systems with electric pumps that have no possibility of cross contamination.
 
Just answering my own question.
I phoned Jabsco and they said the solenoid is not on demand but activated under power so won’t work for me. Interestingly they said you can’t use a toilet pump in conjunction with your boat pump even with a non return valve. I understand that many of you are doing just that successfully.
 
All Flemings feed pressuried water to the whole boat, including the heads which operate under solenoid control. Never had a problem in 16 years, and Flemings have been in production for almost 30 years....
 
DavidJ said:
Just answering my own question.
I phoned Jabsco and they said the solenoid is not on demand but activated under power so won’t work for me. Interestingly they said you can’t use a toilet pump in conjunction with your boat pump even with a non return solenoid valve. I understand that many of you are doing just that successfully.
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Piers said:
All Flemings feed pressuried water to the whole boat, including the heads which operate under solenoid control. Never had a problem in 16 years, and Flemings have been in production for almost 30 years....
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Piers does your Fleming have a separate fresh water tank for the heads?
 
I just close the water in seacock and then pump a bucket of fresh water through the toilet and then close the out seacock. The smell comes from bacteria in the seawater so flush it out at the end of each trip and job done
 
Piers said:
Maybe we've become hardened over time....We only flush the system with Milton Fluid once every 5 years.
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I have given up with the Milton treatment since someone suggested a good flush with ordinary tap water is sufficient . However it has not yet been 5 years !
 
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