Bilge Cleaning

Latest Practical Sailor issue has an article on making a dust/fluid collector to use with a shop vac in order to avoid mess in vac can. Looks interesting.

Great forum!
I know this is an old thread and may not be seen, but was just reading through it as I just found the site. For all of the shop vac answers, I agree they work great, but if this de-greaser water for example is bad to go in the water, where is everyone dumping the shop vac contents??
Thanks!
Chris

I'm doing just this thing now and it has been a mess. Started out by sucking out 20 gallons of the top into 5 gallon buckets. I'm in the yard so I turned on the bilge pump and sucked down to the oil on top. Then i added 5 cans of foaming degreaser on to eveything i could spray. Soaked for an hour and blasted with a pressure washer. Let evrything settle and pumped out water undeneath once again. Now I'm doing sheets of absorbs about 20 so far and I'm almost done. PO knew he had a leak,just never cared to fix it. Never could understand people like that. Just be persistent and eventually you can come away with a white glove.

Eckcn17 said:

Great forum!
I know this is an old thread and may not be seen, but was just reading through it as I just found the site. For all of the shop vac answers, I agree they work great, but if this de-greaser water for example is bad to go in the water, where is everyone dumping the shop vac contents??
Thanks!
Chris

Click to expand...

All my oily stuff I've been transfering to the oily waste receptacle at the harbor masters. Water just pumping out.

Ok thanks, I guess that's what I was getting at, how /where the oily stuff goes! No oil receptcle at my marina..
Thanks allot for your response!

Oil and filters can often be disposed of at your auto repair shop. Same for wipes and rags. It may cost you a few bucks but better than dumping. Ask around.

I avoid using foaming or sudsing detergents due to the foam. Too hard to control and doesn't work any better.