Making My Heads Salt Water or Fresh Water Flush

[Jim Woodall]

Originally Posted by Sailor647

This makes no sense to me. You defecate in your toilet bowls, right? And you don't drink out of them, right? You think water in the occasional anchorage is going to be "dirtier" than what you defecate into your toilet?

The reason you don't run a water maker in contaminated anchorages is because it will harm the membrane, and they are expensive and time consuming to replace.

It's pretty simple to clean a toilet.

This dirty water was caused by runoff from the streets of La Paz, Mexico after a rainstorm in September 2019, which also contains sewage due to the poor sanitation system here. The seawater cleared up after a few days, and it didn't harm our sparkling white Groco toilet one bit.


Attachment 230686

The problem with the dirty raw water coming into the toilets is it will produce a foul odor while sitting in the bowl for a couple of days. We don’t leave our waste in the bowl for hours, so that’s a different issue. Waste is pumped into our holding tanks or overboard and we’ve never had odors coming from our holding tanks. Even clean sea water will begin to smell after awhile and we have 3 heads so each head doesn’t get flushed everyday. The commoderizers do a fantastic job on relatively clean sea water - zero smell even after several days, but dirty sea water is more of a challenge. It’s probably one of the major reasons thousands of marine heads are converted from salt to fresh water every year.

[LittleWing77]

Originally Posted by Dave22q

For most sailors fresh water is rationed due to limited supplies. I see no odor issues with using abundant salt water so cannot see using fresh water as a good idea.

Dave, you are echoing my thoughts exactly.

This is one of the most extraordinary questions I've ever seen on this Forum.

Catamaran owners are definitely in another realm...

[jtsailjt]

Originally Posted by LittleWing77

Dave, you are echoing my thoughts exactly.



This is one of the most extraordinary questions I've ever seen on this Forum.



Catamaran owners are definitely in another realm...

I used to feel that way until I got a boat with vacuflush heads that use fresh water and I don’t ever want to go back to salt water flushing. With usually just 2 of us onboard we use less than 3 gallons a day this way which equates to under 15 minutes of Watermaker run time. That’s just not a real big deal.

Advantages are no smell from dead organisms in water that sits, easier on seals and hoses, no chance of siphoning through head sinking our boat.

[malbert73]

Originally Posted by Lost Horizons

Why not using a shower head to feel the toilet bowl when needed?

It doesn’t flush the water supply to the bowl which is where most salt water stink comes from. In my prior boats I had the T into sink drain near seacock for salt water flush supply. Close seacock, fill sink with fresh water, and flush. I would do this at night and end of cruises and it prevented salt water stink