Cant open the seacock

[Tony C]

My wife is planning on coming along for a 2 day trip this weekend and I don't have the heart to tell her that I can't pump water into the head so that she can flush .The seacock that allows you to pump water into the head appears to be frozen shut. I tried tapping on it and applying some chemicals, but still can't manage to pry it open. The sensation that I get is as I pull on the handle, the metal bends a bit ready to break if I keep pulling hard. Is the only way to fix this problem to haul out the boat? If so, how long will this take and what tools do I need to pull out the old seacock from the thru hull.PS - any other ways of flushing if you dont have access to pumping water?Thanx, and my wife thanx all of you in advance as well.

 

[Merrythought]

Use Fresh Water

Use fresh water. I do all the time on my boat.

 

[Ian McGain]

dry flush

No problems-Dry flush, and if you have solids in the bowl, use a jug of water. The jug of fresh water will keep your holding tank smelling sweeter than the water over the side. If this runs out, use the water over the side. Hang a small plastic bag to capture the wiping cloths that women prefer to use. Dispose at end of trip. Replace valve when you haul the boat in October.

 

[Tony]

use shower head

In the Bay, water is full of critters and inake line for water flush can get very funky making the first flush when you return quite unpleasantWe close that thru hull and just use the shower head to flush very easy very convenient no smell at end of weekend put a full bowl of fresh water in tank with CP and pump thru about 10 strokes to clear line to tank come back after hot week off boat and no odor at all(cp/ko great in bildge as well)t340

 

[Bill O'Donovan]

Ian is right

You have just encountered the unintended benefit of a boat problem. You absolutely do not want to use the raw water intake for flushing, because it will stagnate in the lines between trips and cause that awful sulfer smell. Keep a jug of fresh water in the sink, and reload from that sink or the kitchen. That in turn will run your water pipes, which is always a good thing. At the end of the day, tell your wife you decided not to open the valve in the first place because you got thisbrainstorm.

 

[JC on Bainbridge]

Always work the seacocks.

For the time being, use fresh water like the others have already said until it is time for you to haul the boat out.Now is a good time to start working all of your seacocks. Whether you normally shut them off when you leave the boat or not. I always close "every" seacocks when I leave the boat after a cruise, and open them when I arrive back on the boat. This gives me a chance to feel how the seacock is working. If it is sticking, loose, or just plain broke. I don't want to wait until the boat is sinking to find out that a seacock won't close.When I haul the boat out, I close all the seacocks, then I use a small paint brush to spread grease from the outside, then I work the seacock back-n-forth to spread the grease around the inner workings.

 

[Peggie Hall HeadMistress]

Whatever you do, do NOT connect your toilet intake

line to your fresh water plumbing! NO toilet--manual or electric--that's designed to pull in raw (lake, river, sea) water should ever be connected to the fresh water plumbing...it cannot be done without risk of polluting the fresh water supply, damage to the toilet, or both--and every mfr specifically warns against doing so in their installation instructions. Only toilets designed by the mfr to use PRESSURIZED flush water can safely be connected to the onboard fresh water system.Use the shower head, or pour water into the bowl using a cup or a jug, but don't have a "brainstorm" that the solution to your problem would be to connect the intake to a fresh water line...'cuz that's a MAJOR no-no. Btw, whether fresh or sea water is used to flush has no impact whatever on holding tank odor, only on odor from sea water trapped in the head intake--and MAYBE from the head discharge line too, if the joker valve in the toilet is so worn that the slit has become a hole. There's so much bacteria in waste alone that whether any more is contributed by sea water makes no difference whatever in the tank. The tank is rarely if ever the source of odor INSIDE the boat anyway...'cuz unless it's leaking, odor in the tank only has one place to go: out the tank vent. However, rinsing out the head discharge hose before the boat sits helps to prevent odor inside the boat because it helps to prevent the hoses from becoming permeated with odor.There's a very simple solution to sea water intake odor: tee the head intake line into the head sink drain line. Before the boat sits, after you've closed the seacocks, fill the sink with clean fresh water...flush the toilet. Because the seacock is closed, the toilet will pull the water out of the sink, rinsing the sea water out of the whole system--intake line, pump, channel in the rim of the bowl and the head discharge line.

 

[Fred Ficarra]

More on Peggies last idea.

We have a LectraSan and therefore have to use saltwater to flush. Our boat is sailed on saltwater so a salt dispenser is not needed. But the point is, another way to control odor from the intake line when flushing with raw water, is to install a black hose. The smell generated by stagnant saltwater is mostly from stuff that need sunlight. If your boat has that see-through vinyl hose then switch to black hose. It worked for us. We made the change in the late 80s and now have little to no odor when flushing no matter how long the boat head is unused.

 

[Peggie Hall HeadMistress]

Fred, I suspect that has more to do with

hose permeation than light. Clear hose is MUCH less resistant to odor permeation than black or white sanitation hose. In fact, clear hose isn't even rated for sanitation system use. Sea water is alive with micro--and not so micro-organisms. When they're trapped in an anaerobic environment (inside a hose that gets no air), they die, decay and stink whether they're exposed to light or not. The first clue is: the first flush after the boat has sat, especially in hot weather, will knock you out...but the odor goes away as soon as all the stagnant sea water has been flushed out of the system.Occasionally, some animal or vegetable not-so-micro sea life gets sucked into the head intake and gets trapped in the intake line or the channel in the rim of the bowl to die and decay. When that happens the odor won't go away until the remains of whatever it was are flushed out the system--which, if it's in the channel in the rim of the bowl, can require removing the bowl and putting it on the dock so the channel can be blasted out with a hose. The major clue: black flecks in the bowl when you flush. The preventive solution: a strainer in the intake line...strainers are a LOT easier to clean out than toilet bowls and pumps!If there's nothing trapped in the system, and the odor doesn't go away with the first flush, permeated hoses and/or a shower sump in desperate need of cleaning are the next things to check.See link below for more details.And btw...anyone who doesn't close all the seacocks--especially head seacocks--before leaving the boat is asking to find his boat sitting at the bottom of his slip...'cuz relying on the wet/dry valve is suicidal It's too easy to forget and leave it in the wet position...and wet/dry valves have a high failure rate. Open head seacocks when no one is aboard is the #1 cause of boats sinking in their slips.

 

[Baysailor2]

Bug sprayer!

Tony, run down to your nearest hardware store and buy a one or two gallon bug sprayer. Fill it with fresh water and use the spray head to flush the bowl. If it's going to be a long weekend, throw a couple of gallon jugs of tap water in a locker to refill the sprayer.