Is it possible to clean one's bilge these days?

HeadedToTexas · May 2, 2022

Western Lake Erie has at least as many spiders as anywhere and the birds feed on them aggressively. Boat rails make excellent perches and birds take advantage of that to, well, relieve themselves of those spiders. The result is a dark mess that must be scrubbed with soap and water. No problem apparently as everyone in every marina does it once a week or so.

The drip pans beneath our main engine and generator are clean enough to eat from (if you were really hungry) and our bilge is as oil-free as any I can imagine. The same can not be said for stuff growing and accumulating down there thanks to periodic shower sump overflows and the odd rain incursion (a separate matter under investigation). What it really needs is the same scrubbing with soap and water.

The slurry of soap, water, bird poop, and spider guts (and soon mayflies) runs off the deck and out the scuppers right into the marina, but apparently it is a real problem, even legally so, if the same kind of ooze gets pumped into the marina from a bilge pump. Is there a way to conscientiously clean one's bilge these days?

rslifkin · May 2, 2022

If there's no oil in the bilge and you're using an environmentally friendly cleaner I can't see an issue with pumping that over the side.

HeadedToTexas · May 2, 2022

Me neither, but all I read is about the horrors of pumping bilge water overboard.

Comodave · May 2, 2022

You can’t pump over oil or petroleum products. In a few cases there are lakes that you can’t pump bilge or gray water overboard. But in general you can pump dirty water, if no oil, overboard. But if you don’t want to pump it overboard then use a garden sprayer with your favorite cleaner in it, I like Extreme Simple Green, and spray it on the dirty areas, scrub with a brush, spray it with a second garden sprayer filled with water, use shop vac to pick up the dirty water. Don’t use shop vac on a gas powered boat. Then dispose of the dirty water ashore. It is surprising how clean you can get the bilge with only a few gallons of water. I would do the process twice and it would be clean enough to paint.

klee wyck · May 2, 2022

HeadedToTexas said:
Western Lake Erie has at least as many spiders as anywhere and the birds feed on them aggressively. Boat rails make excellent perches and birds take advantage of that to, well, relieve themselves of those spiders. The result is a dark mess that must be scrubbed with soap and water. No problem apparently as everyone in every marina does it once a week or so.

The drip pans beneath our main engine and generator are clean enough to eat from (if you were really hungry) and our bilge is as oil-free as any I can imagine. The same can not be said for stuff growing and accumulating down there thanks to periodic shower sump overflows and the odd rain incursion (a separate matter under investigation). What it really needs is the same scrubbing with soap and water.

The slurry of soap, water, bird poop, and spider guts (and soon mayflies) runs off the deck and out the scuppers right into the marina, but apparently it is a real problem, even legally so, if the same kind of ooze gets pumped into the marina from a bilge pump. Is there a way to conscientiously clean one's bilge these days?

Cruising in a region with the same 'bilge pump shaming' risk, I have adopted the following strategy when I want a warm soapy scrub of the bilge, even when it is oil free.
Using warm soapy water I scrub the bilge as I please. Then I grab the wet/dry shop vac and evacuate the liquid, pour this liquid from the shop vac into 5 gallon bucket(s) with good lid that you can get at any hardware store. I then take this home and dispose of it over my own gravel driveway. I guess I sort of even agree myself that a terrestrial filter might be a good idea for some of this stuff. Probably not a big deal, but feels a little better to me.

HeadedToTexas · May 2, 2022

The sprayer and ShopVac approach sounds like a good default whether or not the bilge has any oil. Falls under the not worth the potential hassle clause.

socalrider · May 2, 2022

Thanks for the Shop Vac recommendation - Great tip!

There's a fuel dock near my boat that will take a 5gal pail of whatever you might want to get rid of and responsibly dispose of it for $5. Having twin 1979 Ford Lehmans I...uh... do not have no oil in my bilge (I'm working on it!) I don't feel comfortable just pumping the bilge gook out & was using a hand pump to transfer into the bucket - will try a shop vac next time.

Comodave · May 2, 2022

One of our previous boats had a really dirty oily bilge when we bought it. Can’t stand that so I wanted to paint it. I had been using Extreme Simple Green for cleaning the radiator in our diesel pusher RV and it worked great. So I cleaned the bilge 2 times and then painted it with BilgeKote. What an extraordinary difference.

O C Diver · May 3, 2022

As others have mentioned, the shop vac works extremely well for removing the cleaning liquid. If you have a place to let it settle out in 5 gallon buckets, you will find a modest oil slime on top, soapy water in the middle and crud on the very bottom. I carry the slime and crud to the local county toxic waste depot and poor the water off.

Ted

RT Firefly · May 3, 2022

Greetings,
I recently bought one of these with a couple of buckets. Worked well for my bilge clean-up. About the only problem was the supplied hose was quite short. $30 is cheap for what I'm using it for.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Bucket-...ible-with-5-Gal-Homer-Bucket-BH0100/202017218

Edit: What I've also done in the past is buy a 25' length of plastic sump pump hosing and put the shop vac outside the boat (dock or ground) to save lugging a soapy, sloshy, messy liquid filled vessel (vaccum cleaner) up stairs and through the living areas of the boat only to be emptied on shore.

https://www.harborfreight.com/1-14-in-x-24-ft-sump-pump-discharge-hose-kit-56702.html

Gdavid · May 3, 2022

Make sure you use a soap that does not foam for the shop vac approach as your shop vac will fill up with bubbles in short order and it will make a massive mess with slimely water oozing out around the electric motor while you are blissfully working away with the end of the hose, unaware.

SeaLion · May 3, 2022

I flush the shop vac contents, assuming a minuscule amount of petroleum, down a land based toilet.

rslifkin · May 3, 2022

The shop vac and dispose method is the safe option. Beyond that, provided you're not making a sudsy mess of the area around the boat or discharging anything significant in a confined area (like a marina basin with little flow), I can't think of a legal issue beyond oil.

Generally I keep an oil pad in the bilge to ensure no oil. If I need to clean an area, I remove any water first and then typically scrub with cleaner and wipe with paper towels before using any large amount of water. Keeping most of the grime as solid waste makes clean-up and disposal easier and avoids dealing with multiple shop vac loads of gross water to carry for disposal.

Re-reading the OP, I'd be inclined to pump the bilge down as far as possible, don some gloves and just wipe out the worst of the grime for solid disposal before scrubbing. Use a cleaner that doesn't make a ton of suds and there shouldn't be much to worry about discharging.

Is it possible to clean one's bilge these days?

HeadedToTexas

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rslifkin

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HeadedToTexas

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Comodave

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klee wyck

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HeadedToTexas

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socalrider

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Comodave

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RT Firefly

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rslifkin

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