I Cured the Smell from My Head

[sailorboy1]

Amazing thread drift.

I agree with those who feel the bleach going into the ocean is a problem. I feel THEY should stop using it and allow the natural bacteria etc of the water tanks etc to occur in their drinking water. You guys should also stop using anti-foul bottom paints. And while at it stop using medinces that are getting into the water system as waste products that the rest of use end up getting.

Now back to the regularly schedule thread:
While I understand the cause of these head odors and dicussion I sometimes don't understand why it seems such a big problem. I mainly only use my boat on the weekends and the 2 boats I have had don't have an odor issue, and I use seawater flushing. Sometimes I remember to give the head a fresh water flush as I leave, but not always. And if forget it just takes a few pumps to clear the head and lines and put some oxygen in the tanks, which causes a small amount of odor that quickly airs out.

[hellosailor]

Daze, are you sure you're not committing EnviroDyslexiTerrorism with that statistic? You claim Chlorox has .2%ppb of mercury in it. That's a curious not-quite-parallel of what Chlorox actually says on their web site, which explains that the DETECTION THRESHOLD for mercury is .2ppb and that Chlorox must contain LESS THAN THAT since it CANNOT BE DETECTED in their product. At all.

That's a very different thing from saying that it DOES contain mercury, in any amount. And if it did contain mercury, since that much mercury can simply be in the drinking-grade water that is used in the manufacturing process, it would still be "zero" additional mercury compared to simple ground water running off into the sea.

So where do you get your statistics?

"Is there mercury in bleach?
According to Jim McCabe, who is responsible for the environmental safety and regulatory compliance of all Clorox products, in the most recent round of testing in 2001 that included all seven of its U.S. facilities, Clorox found that the amount of mercury in its final bleach product was less than 0.2 parts per billion.
McCabe: When we did our last major round of testing in 2001 that included all seven of our U.S. facilities, we found no detectable level of mercury in our final bleach product (the detection limit is less than 0.2 parts per billion). To put that into perspective, federal rules allow drinking water to contain 2 parts per billion of mercury, or at least ten times more than the detection limit. Moreover, federal rules consider mercury hazardous waste at 200 parts per billion. In other words, by not finding any mercury at its detection limit, our bleach is at least a thousand times under the level of being considered a hazardous waste due to mercury.) "
From Clorox Bleach Facts
[Emphasis added]

[Sailor g]

Originally Posted by peghall

Yup...you did indeed kill the odor...for now. And if you keep on using bleach to kill it, you'll also kill all the rubber parts in your toilet and wipe out the head discharge hose's resistance to odor permeation...which can only be solved by replacing the hose.

And if you also decide to use bleach in a household toilet, you'll find out that, although it's not harmful to the bowl, bleach products that you put in the flush water tank will destroy the rubber ball and flapper valve in the flush water tank. Takes about 3 months. Ask me how I know this...and how I discovered that that the new piston style flapper valve has a rubber gasket.

So put the air valve back into the vented loop where it belongs...it's kinda needed there. And if it's manual toilet or one of the 370xxx series, you DID put the loop where it belongs--between the pump and the bowl, NOT inline between the thru-hull and the pump?

There's a MUCH better way to solve the intake sea water odor problem: tee the head intake line into the head sink drain line just above the thru-hull. This provides a safe source of clean fresh water to rinse all the sea water out of the WHOLE system--intake line, pump, channel in the bowl AND the discharge line--before the boat will sit (which is when the sea water stagnates and stinks). Last thing, after you've closed all the seacocks, fill the sink with clean fresh water...flush the toilet. Because the seacock is closed, the toilet will pull the water out of the sink.

Follow it with a weekly cupful of distilled white vinegar to prevent mineral buildup in the system. Do NOT leave it sitting in the bowl...flush it all the way through...and after an hour, follow that with a quart of clean FRESH water.

Going back to Peggy Hall's answer - why use bleach which can destroy the rubber and kill other things when a small amount of white vinegar will do the same thing safely?

[nigelmercier]

Originally Posted by peghall

... And if you keep on using bleach to kill it, you'll also kill all the rubber parts in your toilet and wipe out the head discharge hose's resistance to odor permeation...

Much as I hate to disagree with the acknowledged expert on such matters, surely damage to rubber will only happen if the bleach is allowed to remain in contact with it for some time?

[hellosailor]

Some damage happens instantly on contact. The stronger the bleach, the longer the contact, the more damage there is. And of course all "rubber" is not the same, there are chlorine-resistant elastomers but (haha) customers only see more expensive rubber and that's a hard sell.

If you let rubber parts SOAK in bleach solution, that's when the worst damage happens. Just splashing it past them, and rinsing it 100% off? No big deal. But of course in a typical marine head, even if you flush all the way into the holding tank, isn't there going to be some bleach solution holding back against a joker valve or other rubber part?

[DeepFrz]

Rum sure does make ugly people beautiful

Might depend on what side of the glass you are looking through. I have seen it work in reverse many, many times.

[senormechanico]

This thread has to have made some kind of record for subject drift!
My only question is, can you get any of these germs and microbes by handling your anchors or guns, and are you safer or more at risk in a monohull or multi?

[peghall]

Originally Posted by nigelmercier

Much as I hate to disagree with the acknowledged expert on such matters, surely damage to rubber will only happen if the bleach is allowed to remain in contact with it for some time?

Unless you follow it immediately with plenty of clean water (which is unlikely and also kinda defeats the purpose for using it), it's in contact with rubber long enough to do SOME damage.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by peghall

Unless you follow it immediately with plenty of clean water (which is unlikely and also kinda defeats the purpose for using it), it's in contact with rubber long enough to do SOME damage.

Earlier in this thread Peggy eluded to chlorine damage to rubber parts in home (chlorinated water) toilet systems. I think most readers have noticed this specific degradation in water closet parts caused by chlorine at very low (0-1 ppm) levels over long periods. She made her case. There are better approaches than bleach, for those of us that would rather not rebuild head pumps.

[Capt Phil]

I found that brushing my teeth regularly improved the smell from MY head... Capt Phil

[bazzer]

Turns out the smell is being emitted from the breather tube which is next to a porthole and Dorade. With both closed no smell when the bog is flushed!!!

[peghall]

Anyone tied up next you or on deck or even downwind of you can tell you that you didn't CURE anything, you simply "closed the windows" that let the odor into the cabin.

However, you DID confirm that the tank was the only source of the odors INSIDE your boat, which is worth something.

[bazzer]

Originally Posted by peghall

Anyone tied up next you or on deck or even downwind of you can tell you that you didn't CURE anything, you simply "closed the windows" that let the odor into the cabin.

However, you DID confirm that the tank was the only source of the odors INSIDE your boat, which is worth something.

Yep, you are right, but the smell of black water is common in my marina and I'd like to bet most use various chemicals to try to prevent it, a toilet,head or whatever you want to call it, will ALWAYs smell at some time or other, even the Queens sh't smells.

[peghall]

That may be true, but Her Majesty's loos do not. And yours doesn't have to either. It's not true that ALL holding tanks stink...it's actually a fairly easy problem to cure, but not with chemicals. But, if you don't care, I don't. After all, if you were to cure it, you'd no longer fit in at your marina!

[bazzer]

Originally Posted by peghall

That may be true, but Her Majesty's loos do not. And yours doesn't have to either. It's not true that ALL holding tanks stink...it's actually a fairly easy problem to cure, but not with chemicals. But, if you don't care, I don't. After all, if you were to cure it, you'd no longer fit in at your marina!

Oh great oracle of the toilets, I hate to tell you, but as a ex member of the Queens Flight at RAF Lyneham in the sixties I promise you the the Queens bog did smell as did the excrement that was pumped out of it hence the famous RAF saying " even the queens sh*t smells", a floater is a floater in the holding tank and any open system, I.e one with a breather it will emit smells sooner of later and I didn't state I DON'T CARE, you freely offer expensive advice which may not always be correct. So I can categorically state YOU ARE WRONG.