the head

[ezstreets@yahoo.com]

My Hunter 30 has amacerator pump between the holding tank and the deck pump out.There is no y valve or thru hull to pump out the tank. My questions are, how does this system work. Can this system pump its self out or do yuo have to have it pumped. I wouldappriciate any info on this . Ed ezstreets@yahoo.com

 

[Ron Dague]

It's Goofy

I'll try to save Peggy a response, we work her too hard! There is no reason to have a macerator between the tank and the pumpout on deck. A dock pump out station will such all the s%*@ up, without being macerated. And it is unlikely that you'd ever want to eject macerated waste up onto your deck! The macerator pump is designed to evacuate your waste tank by pumping the waste through a thru hull. That through hull is normally put below the water line in order to minimize the staining that will occur if the waste is allowed to flow over the side of the hull. You have 2 options. 1) Remove the macerator entirely; or 2) intall a Y-valve, a thru hull with a proper ball valve, and a siphon break. You could then select between dockside pumpout, or macerate and evacuate the tank yourself. Your decision will probably be based upon where you sail, availability of pump out stations, legality of pumping wast overboard where you are, and how much work you want to do with very messy plumbing. Have fun.

 

[Peggie Hall/Head Mistress]

Thanks for trying to save me some work, Ron...but-

My guess is that there once was also a piece of hose that attached to the deck fitting and dangled over the side, and the macerator was used to pump the tank contents overboard through it. It's not a common arrangement, but I've seen it done on boats on which the toilet's overboard through-hull was too far from the tank to plumb back to it, and the owner didn't want to put another hole in his boat...OR, there was no thru-hull at all, and the owner didn't want to put one in. I've only seen it done on boats that never use a pumpout because nearest one is so far away it takes 'em longer to go it than to go out to sea and dump the tank.Your advice is spot on: remove it. It's just about impossible for a pumpout to suck out a tank through a macerator pump. And attempting to use it as an "assist" is both unnecessary and a disaster in the making.