Wake up Call

[Roger Long]

I went to use my head and was shocked to find it filled with water nearly to the brim. I'd left the boat a few hours before just after having the holding tank pumped out. Just before the pump out, I had used the head to "top up" the tank for the purpose of re-calibrating the tank monitor. In my running back and forth to check the tank level and pumping, I forgot and left the head pump lever in the up position.

I have a properly installed vented loop and usually hear the anti-siphon valve working. After pumping out the head, I noticed that I'm not hearing the slight sucking. The valve has gotten plugged with something. Fortunately, I care a spare duckbill but I have to move some things and unscrew a locker liner to get at it.

The head is tight when the valve is down but the level rises very slowly if I pump and leave the lever up. This is something a guest could easily do.

The bottom line here is to always close all seacocks whenever you leave your boat for any length of time. I never used to leave the boat without closing everything but, now that I am aboard full time, I've gotten a bit lax when doing errands ashore.

My bilge sump pump would have easily kept up with this leak but, if I had gone away for a few days, the batteries would have run down. The water would then have risen up to the bilge alarm which wouldn't have gone off because the batteries were dead. If I had been in a car accident or otherwise delayed, the boat probably would have been filled to above the level of the engine and berth cushions before anyone noticed that the waterline was low.

 

[Sanfelice]

Good example

As I read your story I was getting ready to mention the lack of a vented loop. Of course you had one that went sour but it is a good lesson to close all valves.
Unfortunately, so many production boats are not equipped with a vented loop and those that are usually have been installed incorrectly.

 

[Roger Long]

you had one that went sour

It seems to have partially fixed itself. On the stroke where water is not being pushed through it, I now hear a slight sigh as the weight of the water column falls back through the seacock and pulls in air. However, if I pump with the lever up and slowly ease off the pumping, as you might when tired, the valve sometimes doesn't seem to open.

I think the establishment of flow by siphon reduces the pressure differential enough that the duckbill valve remains closed. This shouldn't happen but the little rubber element in mine has been there since I first got the boat and may have gotten stiff or sticky.

If you don't close your seacock, you are entrusting your boat to a little 10 cent piece of plastic that they charge you 20 bucks for. I carry two replacements but this is the first I've needed one.

 

[Maine Sail]

It seems to have partially fixed itself. On the stroke where water is not being pushed through it, I now hear a slight sigh as the weight of the water column falls back through the seacock and pulls in air. However, if I pump with the lever up and slowly ease off the pumping, as you might when tired, the valve sometimes doesn't seem to open.

I think the establishment of flow by siphon reduces the pressure differential enough that the duckbill valve remains closed. This shouldn't happen but the little rubber element in mine has been there since I first got the boat and may have gotten stiff or sticky.

If you don't close your seacock, you are entrusting your boat to a little 10 cent piece of plastic that they charge you 20 bucks for. I carry two replacements but this is the first I've needed one.

Roger,

I replace them about every two seasons. The old ones always clean up fine and I put them in a little baggy labeled "used and usable", just in case I don't have a replacement. I see sooooo many boats with them installed on the suction side instead of the pressure side. I suppose this might keep it cleaner but the performance of your head suffers. Our intake is closed unless flushing and even our four year old knows how to close it now....

 

[Stu Jackson]

"Nearly to the brim"

You could consider raising the whole head just a tad. Our "full" level is just below the bottom of the rim. so if something bad happens, it stays in there - unless, of course, we're heeling, but by them I've checked it. This level thing for us simply has to do with the geometry of our head and the height of the bowl above the WL.

Or, close the thru hulls &/or flip the lever "religiously" like I do, but, there'll always be a "doh, I forgot, moment."

 

[Roger Long]

I see sooooo many boats with them installed on the suction side instead of the pressure side.

How can the head even work that way? Wouldn't it just be sucking air? I miss-spoke above. It sounds like mine is on the loop connected to the sea cock but it's not.

Our intake is closed unless flushing

Mine's going to be closed a lot more often from now on.

 

[kloudie1]

Stu, Mine is the same.. The top of the bowl is about an inch above the waterline. If the head valve leaks, it does not overflow inside. In a protected slip, so heeling and wave action is not an issue.

 

[Maine Sail]

How can the head even work that way? Wouldn't it just be sucking air? I miss-spoke above. It sounds like mine is on the loop connected to the sea cock but it's not.
.

They work, just not very well. All you can hear is the duck bill flapping and diminished water intake. It works marginally and some just don't know the difference. Had one guy who thought it was normal to put one finger over the siphon break and use the other to pump...

 

[Peggie Hall HeadMistress]

How high is the vented loop, Roger? It needs to be at least 6-8" above waterline AT ANY ANGLE OF HEEL...which on most sailboats would put it 2-3 FEET above the bowl...which may not prevent a siphon, but would certainly slow the flo WAY down.

Where is it? If it's not in the line between the pump and the bowl, it's in the wrong place.

See the illustrations for below waterline installation of any manual toilet for the correct placement of intake vented loops.

And finally, you've provided the best illustration possible as to why attaching a vent line to the nipple instead of installing--and MAINTAINING!--an air valve is a VERY bad idea...because that tubing is so small--only 1/4"--that it becomes blocked by seal water minerals and salt almost immediately, turning the loop into an UNvented loop that no loonger has any ability to break a siphon. And because the hose has solved the immediate problem--squirting out the hole in the nipple--it's never cleaned out 'cuz it's made itself "out of sight, out of mind"...till somebody leaves the toilet in the wet mode and sinks the boat.

 

[Roger Long]

How high is the vented loop, Roger?

It's about 1" under the fiberglass deck. That may put it below the waterline at some heel angles but not ones I sail at for more than a few minutes. It is installed between the pump and the bowl and there is no vent line, just the standard vent in the elbow as it came off the shelf.

It's unplugged itself now.