Marine head calcification

Hello all

We have used our boat 600 or so days in the past three years. I rebuilt the Jabsco Quietflush toilets last Fall. They were gross internally. I noticed what I would call a calcification that built up on the lower part of the toilet where water usually sits, even after flushing. I chipped away at it (was disgusting) and cleaning both toilets the best I could. I have heard this happening with seawater flush toilets when seawater and urine interact but ours are fresh water. Any idea what the build up is and if I can prevent it or clean it easily with a chemical or something?

Thanks in advance!

You could have the same kind of build-up in the hose that runs from toilet outlet to holding tank inlet.

If it's uric acid crystals (yes, could happen with freshwater), Sew Clean by Trac will dissolve that, easily. (I think Raritan still sells the same stuff as "CH" under their own label.) If you happen to have Barnacle Buster on hand, you can use that instead, diluting to Sew Clean ratio instead of the BB proportions.

-Chris

When we were complete liveaboard cruisers ran into the same problem inspite of the occasional run of vinegar through our two heads. Then switched to using only RO water in the heads and double flushing. After that change no further issues. Think the near absence of any salts/minerals in the RO water is sufficient to keep the urates in solution so little or no crystallization occurs. Our heads have #1 and #2 buttons. Ignored that and just used the longer flush so no high uric water was left in the plumbing.

Historically, I too have had the build up. I have attacked with a green pad, which takes time.
Now, I just pour in about 12oz of white vinegar and let it soak while I go shopping.
When i come back, I everything is in solution. 30 sec with a standard toilet brush, flush good. The buildup is gone.

Thanks. I suppose a contributing factor is when we are long-term cruising, we try to stretch out our pumpouts and as the old saying goes "yellow let it mellow".

Acid (Barnacle Buster) or Vinegar (also aciditic) won't hurt the sanitation hoses? There are metal components (chopper plate, etc) and typically you dont want to expose metals to acids...

mystery said:

Acid (Barnacle Buster) ... won't hurt the sanitation hoses?

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Nope, not when used according to the Sew Clean dilution.

Sew Clean is actually purpose-made for this job. Trac has info on their site.

-Chris

Neither vinegar (always use distilled white vinegar...it's more acidic than cider, which can also be sticky), nor any of the products mentioned will harm anything in a marine toilet, hoses or other equipment. Nor will muriatic (hydrochloric) acid, which has long been the recommended product to remove sea water mineral buildup in hoses.

I suppose a contributing factor is when we are long-term cruising, we try to stretch out our pumpouts and as the old saying goes "yellow let it mellow".

Yep...and so will being too skimpy with flush water.

Dan, it's not a good idea to leave vinegar standing in the bowl because soft rubber (your joker valve) left to soak in vinegar will swell and distort. You can prob'ly get away with doing it for an hour or two, but don't even think of leaving vinegar sitting in the bowl overnight.

But the bowl isn't the only place where buildup is occurring...sea water minerals and/or urine crystals also build up in the toilet discharge line. But an occasional run of vinegar through the system is just a waste of vinegar. A cupful--no more than 2 cups--of undiluted distilled white vinegar flushed all the way through the system once a week, followed by a fresh water flush after about 45 minutes is needed to prevent mineral and uric acid buildup in it.

--Peggie

Peggy, shopping takes an hour+ so, I am not leaving it in the bowl over night plus I always give it a very good flush afterwards. I am on a fresh water flushing system.

A 45 min flush might test the limits of most holding tanks?

FF said:

A 45 min flush might test the limits of most holding tanks?

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45 minutes?
I suggest that only be accomplished when you have a pump out or a good way away from shore. ie 3 miles and or, if you can still see the shore line, you are still too close.

FF said:

A 45 min flush might test the limits of most holding tanks?

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If you read it again, I didn't say "45 minute flush," I said "followed by a fresh water flush after about 45 minutes."

Sheesh!! Please don't attempt any electrical work if you can't read instructions more carefully than that!


--Peggie

Peggy is my impression that using RO water prevents or decreases this issue correct?

I have no idea whether it does or not and a search didn't turn up the answer. But it did turn up an extensive article "Health Risks From Drinking De-Mineralized Water" which y'all might find interesting enough to plow all the way through.

https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientschap12.pdf

As for your question, just guessing out loud that while RO water should eliminate MINERAL buildup in sewage system plumbing, I can't see how it can eliminate/prevent URINE crystal buildup. I do know that it's far worse where very little flush water is used...urine crystals ("struvites") not only build up in the plumbing, but also on the walls and bottoms of holding tanks. It's a common problem in RVs.

--Peggie

Know you need a healthy diet with adequate salts and minerals if you’re not drinking ground water which already has them from percolating through the earth. Also know to add drops or salts containing those minerals to the water we drink before it goes into the frig for cooling.
Maybe because we have virtually unlimited water with a watermaker and was primarily in the Caribbean where holding tanks are only used (voluntarily) when in a slip not restricting the volume of water used lead to the absence of that issue. My understanding is that for any crystal, regardless of substrate, you need an fairly concentrated solution. So dilution by increasing volume of water would decrease formation of even struvites ?sounds reasonable is it true?

I suggest you do an online search for "struvites"...you'll get a wealth of information about what they are, the impact of diet on them and a whole bunch more.


--Peggie

Will do thanks

Interesting subject Peggy. Only thoughts are either because RO water is Mg deficient or due to shift in pH struvite scale is less likely to form. However, this subject isn’t in my wheelhouse. Have a son in law who is a water engineer. Works mostly from the ecological slant. Still, much more knowledgeable than me. Will run the question by him and get back to you. I know it became routine to take the hoses off and pound them against something hard to clear them. After switching the need to do that stopped. Also the interval to replace joker valves was dramatically increased. So it’s correlated in my mind but don’t know if it’s the causation.

Hippocampus said:

I know it became routine to take the hoses off and pound them against something hard to clear them. After switching the need to do that stopped. Also the interval to replace joker valves was dramatically increased. So it’s correlated in my mind but don’t know if it’s the causation.

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Only sailors would ever even consider removing hoses to beat them on a dock to clear mineral buildup, then put the same hoses back. As for joker valves...as waste passes through them it stretches the slit till it gradually becomes a hole, rendering it useless to block back up...which is actually the LEAST important function of a joker valve in a manual toilet. If you have my book, read the chapter "Joker Valve 101" for the description of it's real function in a manual toilet. But whether in a manual or electric toilet, joker valves should be replaced at least annually.


--Peggie

If I ever have to remove a hose from the head it is getting replaced with a new hose. The old hose gets plugged with paper towels and taped up with duct tape as soon as it comes off the fitting and then carried off the boat immediately. The hose isn’t expensive enough to reuse the old hose. Particularly if you needed to beat on it to get the hardened stuff out of it.

If there’s no place to buy it you do what you can. Replace when available. No Budget marine nor island water works in many places. Often need to wait a week or more for stuff. Did carry extra but wanted to have one virgin spare at all times just in case.
Was replacing jokers multiple times a year. Buying them 6 at a time. Have two heads. One manual one electric. Just two people. Seems to me need to replace that frequently was excessive. If and when was in a marina did our daily ablutions and functions up there unless inconvenient.

Peggy extrapolating from my limited reading is lady’s pee more likely to produce struvite deposits?

Hippocampus said:

If there’s no place to buy it you do what you can.

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A 15-20% solution of muriatic/hydrochloric acid cleans sea water buildup out of hoses. With the possible exception of third world countries, there are few places on the planet where it cannot be bought when needed...or better yet, bought when provisioning and stored aboard for use when needed....it's available from any hardware store, it's cheap, and a quart bottle doesn't take up much room. And using it is a LOT easier than removing and re-installing hoses.


--Peggie

Hippocampus said:

If there’s no place to buy it you do what you can.

Click to expand...

A 15-20% solution of muriatic/hydrochloric acid cleans sea water buildup out of hoses. With the possible exception of third world countries, there are few places on the planet where it cannot be bought when needed...or better yet, bought when provisioning and stored aboard for use when needed....it's available from any hardware store, it's cheap, and a quart bottle doesn't take up much room. And using it is a LOT easier than removing and re-installing hoses.

Peggy extrapolating from my limited reading is lady’s pee more likely to produce struvite deposits?

That information isn't something I ever thought I'd need to know...but I'm sure you can find the answer if you search for it.



--Peggie

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Great advice. We were using straight vinegar which was insufficient. Would wood beach (oxalic acid) from hardware stores work?

I'm not sure which acid is in Sew Clean/Barnacle Buster; it says on Trac's site, I just don't remember.

In any case, that acid works fine, but I defer to Peggie when it comes to other stuff.

-Chris

A cup of distilled white vinegar in each head every Sunday - let stand 30-45 min then flush. We never had any build up in over 20 years.

This was a thread near and dear to my heart. When we moved aboard Pau Hana last August, the PO claimed the aft head had a "waste priming" issue with the GalleyMaid macerating pump that required occasional use of a plunger. The day head issue was allegedly raw water losing prime, but the pump was also 35 years old. We replaced the midships head with a Dometic freshwater model, and while doing so found the hose looked like it was full of cement to the point where it had to be cut into sections for removal. The aft head simply needed a new hose pulled to the tank - but the old one was, you guessed it, cemented in. From a recommendation from a neighboring liveaboard, I started keeping spray bottles of "cleaning vinegar" next to each head. Following the flush, the bowl is sprayed with vinegar. After pumping out, vinegar is poured down each head and the flush engaged just long enough to get it into the lines to stand for a while. But the other, well-kept secret is after talking to a local vendor, instead of buying the expensive "digestors" for the holding tank, is I flush about half a cup of Cascade dishwasher detergent thru each head every other pump out. I've noticed that not only are my heads flushing more cleanly, both salt and freshwater, but my pump outs are much speedier because the matter in the tank is staying more liquified. Best part of that? A 3lb box of generic Cascade dishwasher powder is about $4. I pulled the tank end of the hoses after 6 months for inspection at the "choke point" in the lines (The T-elbow into the tank) and they're still clean. Just sharing what my experience has been. And NEVER NEVER take shortcuts - Spend the extra for real sanitation hose, don't use heater hose, or "water" hose.

Pool Cell Cleaner

I highly recommend pool cell cleaner which is phosphoric acid. It is normally used to take off the build up that you get on a salt water swimming pool chlorine maker. Its the same stuff that is in a product here in Australia called CLR only a lot more concentrated and as a result much more economical.

It is not a strong enough acid to cause any damage to the stainless fittings within your system and is pretty handy for other jobs like rust stains etc.

Was in Bequia. Chandlery had nothing. Every possible fix out of stock. Hardware store had wood bleach but nothing else. Next resupply boat to the stores was in a week. Had company on the boat who wanted to go to Tobago Cay to swim with the turtles. They had a 8 day vacation. No one lives there. Oh well…

Wife uses (and has me using) white vinegar, fresh water and a drop of Dawn to clean the inside of the boat. We did a deep clean before the guests and ran out. Grocery had no vinegar.

Thanks Peggy now know how to prevent this problem and what to carry in my stores. You are the Head Mistress for sure. But there’s a lot of places where if you didn’t bring it with you you ain’t got it. Then you do what you can.

HeadMistress said:

Neither vinegar (always use distilled white vinegar...it's more acidic than cider, which can also be sticky), nor any of the products mentioned will harm anything in a marine toilet, hoses or other equipment. Nor will muriatic (hydrochloric) acid, which has long been the recommended product to remove sea water mineral buildup in hoses.

(snip)

--Peggie

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Hi, Peggie!

Raritan tells me that nearly any of those things will kill their expensive plastic; that hasn't, now that we've not used any such stuff for years, prevented failures which the factory (after we sent the pump housing with the major cracks and other deformities) is still scratching their heads over.

However, the reason for the reply, other than to caution on the above, is to say that many years ago you recommended the prevention of buildup by aggressive rinsing, carrying all the uric stuff away.

We have done that religiously since that time, and given that we replaced all our hose with PVC, made sure there was no buildup by also, at your recommendation of the time, aggressive air-pumps to force as much water out of the system as possible.

If your anti-siphon valve is working, the end result will be a standing column of air - a dry stack.

We had occasion to remove our Y-valve in the course of redoing our through-hull; here's a picture of the 15-year old (our boat is our only home) end of the PVC just before the Y.

Just sayin' - and thanks so much for the advice so long ago...

Raritan tells me that nearly any of those things will kill their expensive plastic;

That's very strange because it was Vic Willman (now retired), who was with Raritan for 40 years, tech services manager for the last 20, who put me onto distilled white vinegar to prevent mineral buildup in hoses...and before Raritan started private labeling SewClean as their CH cleaner, the instructions for cleaning the electrode pack in the LectraSan and ElectroScan called for a 12% dilution of muriatic acid.

I don't THINK he'd have advised me to recommend anything that would harm Raritan equipment and I KNOW that the Raritan LectraSan and ElectroScan owners manuals wouldn't have included instructions for more than 25 years to use something clean their electrode pack.
that could damage anything in the system.

--Peggie