Waste pumps

We have a macerator pump that sometimes works, sometime doesn't (blows the breaker). Either it is jamming or just on its last leg. Has anyone any experience with the waste pumps (non macerating) by Whale or Jabsco. They claim that they are almost impossible to clog. Our boat uses a Vacuflush system, which supposedly already breaks the waste down a little. Just trying to figure out what are the best pumps.........Cheers Mike

The Whale diaphragm pumps are darned near indestuctible. You can run them dry without damage, and they'll handle most things you can throw at them.

"The Whale diaphragm pumps are darned near indestuctible. You can run them dry without damage, and they'll handle most things you can throw at them."


We have tossed ours as the intake and discharge get stuck with waste and paper.

AS a bilge pump , they are OK , (even tho Brit , and of poor quality) since most BILGE water is clear with some stuff carried along..

Not enough to foul the suction valve and hold it open till the rubber remembers not closing.

A WASTE pump gets many times more solids , and "stuff" so they fail to work very quickly.

The "best" macerator pump is the big old Galley Maid.

G-M understands* that holding tank contents would be very solid and not flow very well.

They inject water, (sea or fresh your choice) to the slurry being pumped , so the discharge volume is increased , but WILL flow thru the pump.And not jam the pump .

Second "best" is the Obendorfer which will handle thick discharges ,but it too is almost a grand.
Many pump out stations* use Obendorfer to empty customers tanks.

For folks on a budget the* RV , "marine"* (not Jabsco) style pumps work OK , but will need #8 wiring and a 20A circuit .

The small cheap stuff works best in the 120V version , they last far longer than 12V DC , and with a small inverter ($50) will let you dump overboard , when outside.

Copying the water adding feature could easily be done to a cheap macerator setup.

In Sail mag , a subscriber* "solved" the fresh water toilet bowl rinse hassle with a* smaller dedicated FW tank, so there is no need for a Vacume breaker in the vessels FW system, or much switching complexity


-- Edited by FF on Monday 27th of July 2009 04:38:15 AM

Weeeeelll, Fred... You remind me of my mother...like you, she was sometimes right and sometimes wrong, but she was NEVER in doubt!*

You said,

"AS a bilge pump , they are OK , (even tho Brit , and of poor quality) since most BILGE water is clear with some stuff carried along..Not enough to foul the suction valve and hold it open till the rubber remembers not closing.

Whale makes a variety of pumps for a variety of different applications. And while a waste pump can double as an emergency bilge pump, a bilge pump--especially a light duty one--doesn't work all that well as a waste pump.

"Even tho Brit, and of poor quality" ???? I guess you've never heard of Blakes marine toilets, the best in the world...also British.

"A WASTE pump gets many times more solids , and "stuff"...

Actually not. Solid waste is 75% water to begin with...gets broken up or even macerated by the toilet...so dissolves very quickly in the tank.* And so does quick-dissolve TP.* About the only things that can actually clog a tank discharge pump is premium "extra strong" TP,* wet wipes, tampons and all the things that should never have been flushed down a marine toilet to begin with.* They'll clog any pump.

And I don't agree with much else you said either. The equipment you recommend may have been state of the art 30 years ago, and prob'ly still what you'd want if you were running a "Deadliest Catch" trawler or similar work boat...but not necessary or even appropriate for recreational vessels.

When it comes to tank discharge pumps, the best choice IMO is the SeaLand* T-Series Discharge Pump recently renamed the SaniPump http://www.sealandtechnology.com/productpages.asp?pid=70* They can handle anything that should ever have been flushed in the first place, can run dry almost indefinitely without harm, and require very little maintenance.

Peggy---

On the subject of toilet quirks...... One of our Jurassic Age Groco EBs has within the last few months developed a habit of backfilling the bowl with what was flushed out of it even if what was flushed out was clean water. It doesn't flow back into the bowl all at once but slowly refills it to a depth of about 5 or 6 inches. It has never done this before, and no changes have been made to the plumbing, holding tank, toilet, etc.

I have ruled out anything having to do with the feedwater seacock as it will do this with the seacock open or closed. I have also ruled out a clogged holding tank vent line as we have fired water from a hose into the vent through-hull and it feeds though the vent line into the tank at the same strength and volume that it's coming out of the hose.

The toilet will not backfeed if we completely empty the bowl and then hold the handle in such a way that allows any bubbles in the line to come back, and then pump out the inch or so of water that returns with the bubbles.

So I have concluded that a likely culprit is the duckbill valve. While I have overhauled this toilet (and the forward one) a couple of times in the eleven years we've owned the boat, I believe I only changed the duckbill once, the first time I overhauled it. If it is not closing properly I can see where it could allow water to flow back into the bowl. The lazarette end of the run goes up to the top of the holding tank so there would be a degree of gravity feed trying to flow back to the toilet---not an ideal configuration I agree, but the only one that will work in the boat given its layout.

Having read comments by you and others over the years about the tendency of a duckbill to over time deform, harden, and acquire buildup that prevents it from functioning properly, it is my prime suspect. Do you think there's a good chance I'm correct?

Peggy,
Welcome to the board. I think you will find you have many fans around here. I look forward to your offered expertise.
Steve

Peggy ,

I have seen the Blake OOOPS my mistake , I thought it was a battery charger!

Parts and pieces of different metals in sea water , of course BRITISH.

What works for decades on real boats that get USED,

IS suitable for a pleasure boat with the space for real marine equipment , and an owner with a thick enough wallet to enjoy cruising sans repair effort.

The problem I see is the boats with electric flushing heads use mucho water and the resulting* slurry is EZ to pump from the tank.

Boats with retro fit holding tanks usually are limited in what can be installed .

These folks usually will prefer a manual toilet , so the VOLUME of water can be controlled . Most will simply clear the bowl, not the piping beyond on each flush.

This gives the slurry the density to be a tough thick* mix* , and the ability to hold intake and exhaust valves open on the discharge pump.

Worst of the worst is a bunch of guys , who usually* #1 over the rail and only #2 in the head.* Not "Mostly water" in those tanks!

FF

-- Edited by FF on Wednesday 29th of July 2009 03:36:25 AM

Oops! My bad... I have the Sealand T series diaphragm pump, not the Whale. I was thinking of my Whale "Y" valves I guess.

I had a couple of Groco EB's when I purchased the boat. I almost threw them overboard, but took them out (and sold one on E-Bay!) and replaced with Raritan PHII's. Love them!

Our boat was fitted from the outset with Groco EBs and we have elected to keep them.* So they are now 36 years old.*They need a gasket rebuild kit every five years or so (we use out boat and toilets year round), but they are built like tanks. They will probably function forever as long as gasket overhaul kits remain available.

We've charted boats with VacuFlush toilets and while they were certainly a no-brainer to use, from all the posts I've read on T&T and other places, I've not been terribly impressed with their reliability or ease of service.* It didn't matter on the charter boats because if or when they crapped out it wasn't my problem or expense to deal with them.*

We'e looked at new marine toilets in a superficial way from time to time when we've been in the stores that sell them, but so far our impression is one of lightweight, cheap construction of the "when it breaks you replace it" philosophy.* Granted, we have not seen the makes and models Peggy described as being top notch in her previous post.

I'm certainly not going to claim the old EB is the best marine toilet ever made, but based on our experience with them they seem to be as reliable and trouble-free as a marine toilet can be. If you let them go too long without a gasket change (as I suspect I have with regards to the duckbill in our aft head--- the current one's been in there for at least eight years) they will start acting up but a quick gasket swap restores them to like-new operation.

Based on our experience over the last eleven years*I could not build a convincing or cost-effective*case to spend the many hundreds of dollars it would take to*replace the two EBs with equally stout and reliable toilets*even if I wanted to.* I'd rather pour the money into the fuel tanks and use the boat, "ancient" toilets and all


-- Edited by Marin on Wednesday 29th of July 2009 11:52:17 AM

"I'm certainly not going to claim the old EB is the best marine toilet ever made, but based on our experience with them they seem to be as reliable and trouble-free as a marine toilet can be."

About my feeling about the old Groco model K. Bronze age castings and mostly indestructable.

Mike, I would agree with Keith. Give the What pumps a serious look. We used one on our previous boat for over 5 years and it is still going strong for the new owner. Chuck

The shaft key in the bottom of both my EB's kept coming out, rendering the pump useless, of course usually when it was full. This occured over and over (I got quite good and rebuilding them) no matter what I did. Poor design. No such problems with the Raritan PHII's.

Looked at Peggys'

SaniPump http://www.sealandtechnology.com/productpages.asp?pid=70

And it does look like it would work with waste , instead of flap valves it uses 2* Joker Valves (duckbill)* in 1 1/2 that should work .

But Joker discharge valves on std toilets are usually about the first item to go, and* since there is one on the INLET side of this pump obtaining suction may ne a hassle very soon.

Although all the macerator folks claim some lift ability with there units . I sure wouldnt plan on it.Esp 10 ft as these folks claim!

A simple solution is to NOT follow the instalation suggestion on the web site and mount the pump below a filled tank, below the tank would even be better.

A* T fitting in the line , would allow the suction to be broken and the pump removed.

"Best" fittings for installing the actual pump is the Hayward True Union , which can be opened by hand , the pump would then drop out.

When it craps out,, first try would be to pull the plug in the T and see if a hose wont wash sludge* enough to get running. If not , repair would at least could be done outside.

Peggy sez rightly that tampons , old food and anything not eaten first will block "any " head .

So true , but on a boat with public folks , what is NOT tossed in would be a short list.

Maybe any store bought head* is useless , but I copied the Lavac, with a Liberty Ship 4 inch Monel jewel, and use a 2in bronze Edison to flush..

For a bet I have pumped ties and leather belts overboard.
Tampons are as sawdust.

Befire the holding tank era.(for the record).

FF

Keith wrote:

The shaft key in the bottom of both my EB's kept coming out, rendering the pump useless

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I've read of others having the same problem.* While our toilets never did this, we were advised to install Groco's shaft replacement kit which replaced the original bronze pump shaft with a stainless steel shaft.* Groco told us there were several advantages to doing this, one of which was to eliminate the problem you experienced.* In eleven years of high usage we've not (yet) had a mechanical problem with either of our EBs.

Both of them have the electric motor kit on them but we disconnected the motor drive arms not long after aquiring the boat.**The motor drive is horrendously loud and we quickly*found that operating the toilets manually gave us a better "feel" for*the* pump's*operation.* Perhaps this is one reason we have had no mechanical difficulty with either of them in all these years.

The PO of my boat had the electric motors on the two EB's and had pulled them as well.

-- Edited by Keith on Thursday 30th of July 2009 08:22:39 PM

HeadMistress wrote:

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Welcome aboard Peggy, glad you could join us!