three questions and your thoughts please.

[KD3PC]

Guys and Gals,

First Question...I have an wafting in the air odor, usually a tad worse in the salon, but often throughout the boat, seems to collect in your clothes, bedding and nose. Noticeable, "boat smell". Engine area is clean leak free and checked, not a diesel or fluids smell. All sanitation hoses are new white hose and I did the wipe with rag thing, not there.

Heads and holding are in decent shape, not THAT odor, I opened the holding tank pump out fitting and checked the toilets to "compare".

Bilges were pumped, vacuumed and cleaned, (will do them again next weekend). This Hunter has a multi-compartment bilge, high and low pumps. I can not run a snake from the aft middle bilge to the forward middle bilge (if you have a 42 you will know what I mean)...but water flows from one to the other, I can "push" it - just the limber hole seems to have some structural thing in between the two bilges

Galley sink drains were left for two days with KO and water in them with outflow thru-hull closed. Same for shower sumps.

What am I missing? Yes I own, read, read again and re-read Peggie's book and most of the posts here for the last year or so...but it does not appear to be a "head" odor...

Second question, I have a hunter Passage 42 with Jabsco electric heads, seawater pumped in...How SHOULD they work...here is how they work now.

Open thru-hull, turn on toilet
use toilet, we are of the put the paper in a ziplock crowd, flush for a few seconds, bowl fills to 1/3-1/2
stuff circles and goes down, then sea water accumulates a tad,
release flush button
remaining flush water drains in about a minute or two
head is drained and ready for next use
shut off breaker and thru-hull

Lastly, has anyone done a recent PurScan install on this type boat in the recent past, that is on our plan with new heads? Where did you put the unit. I think I am about 12' from the holding, but can't see all the lines to see where they go.

Thanks in advance.

dave

 

[SanderO]

Interesting question in that I posted a thread on another forum if it was possible to bottle a smell.

Our noses are quite sensitive and obviously what we smell is chemicals in the air "off gased" by "things" in the environment. Some things don't off gas and some perhaps are light enough to be carried in the air into our noses where they are processed into smells.

It would certainly be useful in this case if you could bottle the air in your boat and send it off to a lab to be analyzed for what the smell is or given to some good sniffer to tell you what he smells.

We can sample air for various pollutants but I don't know that scientists have figured out how to identify (easily) all what is in the air we breathe.

A new industry business concept?

 

[alexco38]

What if you open up a couple of baking soda in the cabin and get a good size fan to ventilate for a few days. Fabreeze spray might help to capture the smell left on the fabric. Orange spray cleaner to wipe all the hard surface. Once the odor gets into things it has to be removed and keep the place ventilated.

Do you happen to have solar vents on the boat to keep it ventilated. For a 42 footer, you'll need more than one or two.

 

[Peggie Hall HeadMistress]

Just based on your description...

Each type of odor--bilge, sanitation hoses, sea water, raw sewage...--has its own distinct characteristics...and after 20 years, I can recognize which is which. But based on what you've said here, I'm guessing that there's trapped water somewhere:

"this Hunter has a multi-compartment bilge, high and low pumps. I can not run a snake from the aft middle bilge to the forward middle bilge (if you have a 42 you will know what I mean)...but water flows from one to the other, I can "push" it - just the limber hole seems to have some structural thing in between the two bilges."

You say the bilges were "pumped, vacuumed and cleaned"...describe "cleaned" in detail for me

You said, "What am I missing? Yes I own, read, read again and re-read Peggie's book and most of the posts here for the last year or so...but it does not appear to be a "head" odor..."

Apparently you missed the chapter "Boat Odor Isn't All in Your Head." What about sumps and the chain locker?

About your toilet's performance...three things to check...
1. voltage to the toilet. Low voltage is the most common cause of sluggish discharge. So check for corroded terminals/connections, and put a volt meter on the toilet. It should read a full 12v WHILE FLUSHING.

2. Partia tank vent blockage

3. Sea water mineral buildup in the head discharge hose.

As for adding a PuraSan...great idea! But it needs to be within 6' of the toilet (that means it has to be within 6' of BOTH toilets if you want to connect two toilets to one device) AND the overboard discharge thru-hull. If you haven't read the installation instructions, you'll find 'em here: Raritan Purasan If you're also planning to replace the toilets, we prob'ly oughta have some conversation about which ones are best for YOUR boat, use and budget.

 

[KD3PC]

I am thinking trapped water as well....but can't find where.

Bilges - pumped them as low as the pumps would take them, then vacuumed them dry. wiped up sediment, dried them out, then vacuumed dried out stuff again. Then cleaned with citrus cleaner and they were still dry and clean two days later when we left. Will check them when we return this weekend for water and "smell"

Anchor locker was cleaned out and everything dried out well, could not find any leaks from the locker, nor is there in water coming in though the vberth liner, that I can find.

Other sumps that I found are all dry. Still pulling up stuff to make sure that I have searched everywhere..

Thanks for the ideas so far.

dave

 

[Scott B]

Shower drains on a separate pump or drain into bilge and trapped water somewhere?

Hose to macerator, macerator to thru-hull, or macerator itself?

Water trapped between source and thru-hulls?

 

[Peggie Hall HeadMistress]

I think you've figured out where...

You said it: "I can not run a snake from the aft middle bilge to the forward middle bilge...but water flows from one to the other, I can "push" it - just the limber hole seems to have some structural thing in between the two bilges."

My guess: the limber hole has a "sill" that traps water behind it...or maybe just a buildup of crud that's created one.

Bilge cleaning: you failed to mention one very important step: rinsed out ALL the dirty water. If you only sloshed some citrus cleaner around in 'em and vacuumed that out, without flushing out ALL the dirty water, you left out the most important step. Compare it a kitchen sink after washing dishes: would the sink be clean if you didn't rinse it after scrubbing it? Neither will your bilges.

Same is true of sumps...ya gotta rinse 'em. However, once you get 'em clean, it's easy to keep 'em clean: just before the boat will sit--or when it CAN sit at least overnight--fill a quarter- half full with clean water...put 2-3 oz of Raritan C.P. (C.P. is a cleaner, K.O. isn't) down the drain into 'em. Same for your sink drains...they'll stay clean as a whistle and sweet smelling if you'll do this once a week.

 

[Guest]

Odor

Hi Dave, our P42 has that same bilge smell. Not sewage, permeated hoses, diesel, etc. The admiral says it is diesel, but no leaks anywhere.

When was the last time you had the sole board that covers the holding tank removed? There could be trapped water there as did ours. same with the molded compartment back by the quadrant. Ours was filled with sea water (no idea why) when we took possession in 2002. I pumped it out and it has been dry ever since.

I do not mind the smell and it dissipates once you open up the boat. Fabreze helps as does KO.

Terry Cox