A large PVC pipe eliminates odors
Issue 74 : Sept/Oct 2010
During a recent trip to southern Florida, I spent two enjoyable afternoons walking the docks. I use these opportunities to chat with sailors I meet. On the day before we headed north, I met Thaddeus, a man who had taken a novel approach in solving an odor problem with his head and holding tank.
Thad invited me aboard and, once I was relaxing with a cool beverage, told me his tale of foul odors, his quest to eliminate them, and his solution.
He sails a late 1970s Islander 28 that he maintains meticulously. About a dozen years ago, he noticed a “head odor” in the head compartment and the main saloon. His first corrective action was to pump out the tank, flush the system with fresh water, and deodorize it with a common household product, followed by a final freshwater flush. But the odor remained.
Thad next suspected that the hose connecting the toilet to the holding tank might be the culprit. He replaced the hose, which was more than three decades old, with Series 148 vinyl hose. This nearly eliminated the odor in the head compartment, but not in the saloon.
Thad then directed his attention to the holding tank, a rubberized bladder beneath the starboard settee. The odor was noticeably stronger once he removed the cushions and plywood base. Instead of replacing the bladder, however, Thad elected to encapsulate it in vinyl sheeting and tape all the seams and potential openings with duct tape. This cheap fix did the trick, at least temporarily.
A year later, the odors returned. Thad’s examination of the bladder revealed that its routine expansion and contraction had chafed the vinyl covering and the bladder at several locations. He needed a new holding tank.
Thad removed the bladder and replaced both the newer Series 148 vinyl hose and any remaining original waste hoses with Series 101 multilayer rayon-and-rubber hose. In place of the bladder, he installed a 6-foot section of 8-inch diameter, Schedule 40 PVC pipe. He mounted hose fittings in the end caps, one for the inlet from the head forward and near the top, and one for the outlet for the pumpout aft and at the bottom. He installed a fitting for the vent line at a point about one third of the length of the pipe. He double-clamped all the hoses with stainless-steel hose clamps. Then, using 1-inch nylon webbing, Thad secured the new holding tank to the wooden settee-support structure.
He reports, and I can confirm, that his boat no longer has a head-odor problem. Thad further states that, while the PVC-pipe holding tank’s volume (approximately 15.5 gallons), is less than that of the original bladder, it easily suffices for a week-long cruise.
Gregg Nestor is a contributing editor with Good Old Boat, and is the author of three books, All Hands On Deck, Twenty Affordable Sailboats to Take You Anywhere, and The Trailer Sailer Owner’s Manual: Buy-Outfit-Trail-Maintain. Having recently sold both their good old boats, Gregg and his wife, Joyce, are currently searching for the perfect replacement.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
