Vinegar in the toilet

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I should - then pour it over tomatoes and mozzarella, with some oregano......
Made myself hungry now!!

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I usually pour used frying oil in the toilet (after having cooled it of course /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif ), as we fry something at least a few times every season, it makes a nice regular lubrication for joints and valves
 
vyv

Has your treatment been enough to stop the calcium build up? I have just had to take all my sanitary pipes out as a result of that ..and it is not a job I want to repeat.

Frankly I would far rather replace seals etc!

How often do you dose the heads and with what concentration? I assume you are using the standard agua fuerte which I think is at 20% before you mix it with any water.
 
I have used vinegar (left in place for a week or two) without apparent damage to seals/valves. And it certainly has a very satisfactory effect on scale inside the body of the pump.
 
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The vinegar you put on chips is 4%

[/ QUOTE ] Oh know it isn't. I dont put it on chips or anything else except brussells sprouts.

Wiki was quoting 18% for pickling. Don't eat piclkes either. Can't stand vinegar.
 
On the toilet end of the discharge pipe, i.e.before the top of the loop, the HCl seems to clear the scale out completely. I am now using Greek acid which doesn't state the concentration but 20% doesn't sound too unbelievable. I pour some in the bowl, pump a couple of times, wait a bit, pour and pump again, until all used up. The gas can be heard quite clearly bubbling out of the skin fitting.

I completely rebuilt my toilet at the beginning of 2008 season and the hose at this end was completely clear.

Doing the seacock side of the loop is a different matter, as it is difficult to keep the acid in the hose for any length of time. When I removed the hose from the seacock at the end of last season there was some build-up but not too bad.

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Removing the hose completely would be a massive job for me so I resorted to banging it with a plastic mallet, which was surprisingly effective. Got a lot of scale out of the discharge end.
 
Vinegar is fine - and the private label variety very cheap. Whack it in and give the pipes a gentle massage to increase the beneficial effect.

I also use last season's undrunk Cola - best place for the entire national output, if you ask me!

Veggy oil to pacify the seal on the plunger - works wonders, several times a season.

And fresh water to clean down for that sweet neutral odour.. the one SWIMBO goes for when boarding! Smelling of vinegar gives the game away....Victor!!!

PWG
 
Steve, Like many others who liveaboard in the Med, we use Hydrochloric. My father 'discovered' it in 1973 after deciding that bashing toilet pipes on the docksides was not for him -- in the UK he had to sign the poisons book to buy a winchester from the chemist! As Vic says, you buy it in the supermarkets in the Med.

My method (from father's experience). Fill SL or Jabsco toilet to the brim with hot fresh water. Add a good teacup of HCl (20% in Spain) or two (10% in Italy). Let that act under the rim to dissolve scale there, and give a good brush round to clean. Slowly pump the bowl out with no inlet water. I pause for a few minutes half way through. When the solution has been pumped through, a couple of tbsps of old cooking oil in the bottom and leave for a few hours. We have never had a problem with ours and, as you know, have lived aboard since August 2004.

I do this weekly, or make up for lost treatments when I forget or can't be bothered.
 
Several problems there. The OD of my double wire reinforced butyl toilet hose is something more than 2 inches, so there's no way a mole wrench will fit it. And it's so stiff that I don't think it would be crushed anyway. Banging it with a mallet was quick, easy and did no damage, so why choose anything else?
 
Vyv

Thanks for the reply and the photo. My pipe was so gummed up that there was only a hole in the centre the size of my little finger!

The fact that you still have a build up at the seacock proves you are not doing that any damage with the use of acid, as the calcium salts would be the first to be attacked by the acid - I would think.

I had always meant to use vinegar, but could never find any cheap stuff. I think I shall join you and use HCl.
 
Bubbles of Acid?

You might have a think about pouring some of these acids down the head. They dissolve the calcium and release lots of carbon dioxide and you'll probably get small droplets of acid aerosol. So I suggest you pour it, pump it and leg it.
I'm not worried about acetic acid but breathing in hydrochloric or phosphoric I'm less happy about.
 
Re: Bubbles of Acid?

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You might have a think about pouring some of these acids down the head. They dissolve the calcium and release lots of carbon dioxide and you'll probably get small droplets of acid aerosol. So I suggest you pour it, pump it and leg it.
I'm not worried about acetic acid but breathing in hydrochloric or phosphoric I'm less happy about.

[/ QUOTE ]That simply doesn't happen. Loads of liveaboards on this forum -- particularly those in the Med -- use it all the time. Surprisingly little gas is given off....I have a suspicion that the precipitate is not CaCO3 but a carbonate that does not liberate much CO2 with acid. The kettle fizzes like a firework, but not the bogs. Vic might come to the rescue with the probable explanation.
 
Re: Bubbles of Acid?

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Vic might come to the rescue

[/ QUOTE ] Not a rescue exactly. If it's a carbonate it'll effervesce with dilute acid, producing carbon dioxide. If it doesn't it is not a carbonate!
 
Re: Bubbles of Acid?

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Not a rescue exactly. If it's a carbonate it'll effervesce with dilute acid, producing carbon dioxide. If it doesn't it is not a carbonate!

[/ QUOTE ]AFAIK, the sea contains a lot of dissolved carbonates from fish bones, shells, etc. and all the chalk (itself due to past fish life) so CaCO3 is almost everywhere in the sea. In the toilet, our pee rapidly breaks down to give quite a strong concentration of ammonia -- used since ancient times as a dye mordant and detergent; the ancient Romans used to collect it and judging from the smell of a few places I've visited recently in Rome, the modern Romans do, too! Anyway, it is often said to be the dissolved ammonia that reacts with the CaCO3 and out precipitates that stuff that clogs our pipes. What I do know is that even after putting a strong solution of acid into hot water in the bowl and pumping that through, I seldom hear any bubbles though I can always hear the outlet bubbles through the hull when flushing so I would hear any significant gassing if it was happening. I do get fizzing around the top rim and I put that down to sea water depositing CaCO3 in the upper flushing section -- nothing to do with pee or ammonia.

I'd love to know the actual reaction and even whether the explanation of ammonia precipitating 'limescale' is correct.
 
Re: Bubbles of Acid?

Most of the carbonate is downstream of the joker valve, although there is a little in the base of the bowl and connecting pipe. The vast majority of the gas given off goes out through the seacock. I recall dosing with HCl in Olbia in wind of about 40 knots. We could hear the gassing quite clearly as it bubbled through the water, even over the noise of the wind.
 
Re: Bubbles of Acid?

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whether the explanation of ammonia precipitating 'limescale' is correct.


[/ QUOTE ] Yes I think that is correct. The carbonates are actually in solution as bicarbonates. The ammonia (produced by the action of the bugs on the urea etc in urine) is alkaline so that raises the pH and causes the precipitation of the carbonate.

HCO3¯ + OH¯ --> CO3²¯ + H2O
 
Without a doubt, but hopefully just the surface. I used it to clean up a 26 year old gate valve that was a bit of a mess. Applied with an old tooth brush for 10 minutes then washed off. Gate valve re-greased and fitted back again. The stainless steel prop needed a bit longer but cleaned back to the original shinney finish without the need for sanding.

Pete
 
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