Maybe someone here can offer some troubleshooting advice?
Late last summer, I arrived at the boat in its marina slip one day and found the head full (almost to the point of overflow) of water.
My first observation was that there wasn’t any toilet paper or human waste, and my second observation was that I had forgotten to close the hatch in the head when I had left the boat two weeks before. In that time, there had been a major storm system that came through the area (enough to cause flooding all over). I suspected that a significant amount of rain had come in through the hatch, going into the sink, the head, and the bilge.
The head is a Raritan 12-volt electric model. After checking the bilge and pumping it out, I powered up the head at the panel and was able to flush away the water in the bowl. I spent the night on the boat in the slip and observed that water appeared to be slowly accumulating in the bowl while I was there.
I made plans to return to the boat at my next opportunity and have it pumped out, thinking that the problem was the fullness of my holding tank. I was able to come back the next week and get a pump-out. When I arrived for the pump out, the head was full of water again. Once more, the water did not appear to dirty backflow from the holding tank.
The next time I came back to the boat was haul-out day. To my surprise, the head was once again full of water. This water I vividly remember as being crystal clear, and having pumped the holding tank dry just recently, I started to wonder if the problem was something far different than my suspected open-hatch-in-a-storm theory.
One thing I can’t clearly recall as I was going through all the above: whether or not the seacock of the intake valve was open or closed, and whether I manipulated this in troubleshooting at that time. I want to say that I was closing the seacock at all times, unless I was going to flush the head.
Schema of the plumbing system
The head is a Raritan 12-volt, with a Sea Era integral pump, on the port side of the boat, forward of the salon, aft of the v-berth.
The head draws water from a sea intake through the hull forward of the head, beneath the v-berth but accessible from an opening in the wall separating the compartments.
Intake water is drawn up and flows through the bowl strainer fitted into the clear hose and then on to the pump.
Intake water passes through the pump and now up through the white hose, heading out the wall of the head compartment. This white hose comes out the other side in the storage area beneath the port settee.
The water in the white hose continues up, until it reaches a plastic Y-valve.
The water then goes back down in the return white hose, back through the settee storage space and through the wall of the head compartment.
And the white hose brings the water back to the head in the center-back at bowl level. (Through elbow joint at bottom of following image.)
What does your experience and instinct say? Is it the intake valve seacock? Is it a problem of siphoning? A bad joker valve? Something I'm not even thinking of?
Thanks in advance for ideas, observations, or questions!
Late last summer, I arrived at the boat in its marina slip one day and found the head full (almost to the point of overflow) of water.
My first observation was that there wasn’t any toilet paper or human waste, and my second observation was that I had forgotten to close the hatch in the head when I had left the boat two weeks before. In that time, there had been a major storm system that came through the area (enough to cause flooding all over). I suspected that a significant amount of rain had come in through the hatch, going into the sink, the head, and the bilge.
The head is a Raritan 12-volt electric model. After checking the bilge and pumping it out, I powered up the head at the panel and was able to flush away the water in the bowl. I spent the night on the boat in the slip and observed that water appeared to be slowly accumulating in the bowl while I was there.
I made plans to return to the boat at my next opportunity and have it pumped out, thinking that the problem was the fullness of my holding tank. I was able to come back the next week and get a pump-out. When I arrived for the pump out, the head was full of water again. Once more, the water did not appear to dirty backflow from the holding tank.
The next time I came back to the boat was haul-out day. To my surprise, the head was once again full of water. This water I vividly remember as being crystal clear, and having pumped the holding tank dry just recently, I started to wonder if the problem was something far different than my suspected open-hatch-in-a-storm theory.
One thing I can’t clearly recall as I was going through all the above: whether or not the seacock of the intake valve was open or closed, and whether I manipulated this in troubleshooting at that time. I want to say that I was closing the seacock at all times, unless I was going to flush the head.
Schema of the plumbing system
The head is a Raritan 12-volt, with a Sea Era integral pump, on the port side of the boat, forward of the salon, aft of the v-berth.
The head draws water from a sea intake through the hull forward of the head, beneath the v-berth but accessible from an opening in the wall separating the compartments.
Intake water is drawn up and flows through the bowl strainer fitted into the clear hose and then on to the pump.
Intake water passes through the pump and now up through the white hose, heading out the wall of the head compartment. This white hose comes out the other side in the storage area beneath the port settee.
The water in the white hose continues up, until it reaches a plastic Y-valve.
The water then goes back down in the return white hose, back through the settee storage space and through the wall of the head compartment.
And the white hose brings the water back to the head in the center-back at bowl level. (Through elbow joint at bottom of following image.)
What does your experience and instinct say? Is it the intake valve seacock? Is it a problem of siphoning? A bad joker valve? Something I'm not even thinking of?
Thanks in advance for ideas, observations, or questions!
