I came across this in a recent thread here, and had never heard of it, or considered it before.
We get some bad smells, sometimes, out of vent. Here's the scenario:
We are basically weekend sailors/residents on our boat. We flush with seawater, and are moored in a tidal river. When we arrive on Friday evening or Saturday morning the boat has been pumped out. For the first flush I pour about 1/2 a bottle, 4 oz., of Thetford Campa-Chem. The holding tank is about 20 gallons.
For the first few flushes there's a bad smell from the vent. After some use the smell goes away. At the end of the weekend we mark the toe rail of the boat with tape, which is the "request pump out" signal in our harbor, and it's pumped out, usually on Monday.
The sanitation system works fine, and I'm not interested in flushing with fresh water, or T-ing into the head sink drain, etc. I am, however, very interested in the idea of being able to filter out, absorb those odors.
I see that there are activated charcoal filters available in the $45 to $100 range, but they don't appear to be renewable. Then I found a DIY one here:
http://www.clubsearay.com/index.php?threads/diy-holding-tank-vent-filter-cheap.26508/
I might grab the parts for this on my next Home Depot trip; then, I might have everything I need in the basement!
Any thoughts on the choice of ABS vs. PVC pipe?
Any thoughts on the 'foam' used to contain the charcoal? (I have some very fine mesh copper screen I was thinking of using instead.)
Thanks,
jv
We get some bad smells, sometimes, out of vent. Here's the scenario:
We are basically weekend sailors/residents on our boat. We flush with seawater, and are moored in a tidal river. When we arrive on Friday evening or Saturday morning the boat has been pumped out. For the first flush I pour about 1/2 a bottle, 4 oz., of Thetford Campa-Chem. The holding tank is about 20 gallons.
For the first few flushes there's a bad smell from the vent. After some use the smell goes away. At the end of the weekend we mark the toe rail of the boat with tape, which is the "request pump out" signal in our harbor, and it's pumped out, usually on Monday.
The sanitation system works fine, and I'm not interested in flushing with fresh water, or T-ing into the head sink drain, etc. I am, however, very interested in the idea of being able to filter out, absorb those odors.
I see that there are activated charcoal filters available in the $45 to $100 range, but they don't appear to be renewable. Then I found a DIY one here:
http://www.clubsearay.com/index.php?threads/diy-holding-tank-vent-filter-cheap.26508/
I might grab the parts for this on my next Home Depot trip; then, I might have everything I need in the basement!
Any thoughts on the choice of ABS vs. PVC pipe?
Any thoughts on the 'foam' used to contain the charcoal? (I have some very fine mesh copper screen I was thinking of using instead.)
Thanks,
jv