raritan fresh head using sea water

[sailalibi]

Has anyone tried using seawater to flush a raritan fresh head? I'd like to install a y valve to flush with seawater while off shore and fresh at the dock.

[LLCoolDave]

You'll need to install a pump for it to work. A freshwater head relies on the boat's water pump. A saltwater head has its own pump. There may be other things. I'm sure Peggy Hall will chime in.

[peghall]

At the very least you'd need to add a remote intake pump to supply the sea water, but that's not the only thing. Using the same intake line and inlet fitting to supply fresh and sea water risks contaminating your fresh water with sea water. So I'd have a chat with Raritan tech support before doing anything. 800-352-5630 x 6.


--Peggie

[mvweebles]

If you have an anchor wash down pump, you could try plumbing that to your head. As Peggie suggests, there is no way to safely install a Y-valve to allow switching between salt and fresh water. The risk is not just salt in your fresh water, but the organisms that come with it are quite alive.

I can't speak to whether the head itself will do well with salt water. I can't imagine it would care much, but a quick call to Raritan as Peggie suggests could save you from an expensive mistake.

Good luck

Peter

[bc_seattle]

curious if anyone ever ended up speaking with Raritan.

I found this on their website and it references "the SeaFresh option it includes the vacuum breaker and check valves to protect the onboard fresh water."
https://www.raritaneng.com/en_US/page/seafresh

Curious if anyone has actual experience with it.
I like the idea of switching back and forth easily. My issue when a liveaboard wasn't so much the smell but the calcification inside the hoses. Hoses that were very inconvenient to swap out. Very, very inconvenient.
thank you all for sharing all the wisdom you have!

[donradcliffe]

I put a 5 gallon bucket of seawater in the head with a scoop when I ran low on freshwater.

[rwidman]

I believe Raritan sells a head that can be used on potable or sea water. Check the Internet or boat supplier's websites.

[Bill O]

Originally Posted by bc_seattle

Curious if anyone has actual experience with it.
I like the idea of switching back and forth easily.

Never done it and agree w/Peggie's response above, why would you want to possibly contaminate your freshwater supply (w/saltwater) if you put in a Y-valve?

Don's idea of a bucket is a simple one when running low on fresh water. Alternatively a separate hosed saltwater source to fill the bowl may be convenient also.

[peghall]

Raritan's SeaFresh kit is ONLY for use on their Marine Elegance, Atlantes Freedom (both fresh water toilets) and SeaEra QC (freshwater version of the SeaEra) toilets, all off which have separate inlet fittings for fresh and sea water and require adding a remote intake pump to bring in sea water (toilets designed to use fresh water don't have an intake pump, they use pressurized fresh water.

--Peggie