E38 Head Plumbing Need Ideas!

Now that I have all new below waterline thru-hulls and a new holding tank from the PO I'm now looking to install a Y valve with manual pump out. My thoughts are to have the head discharge to the holding tank and then to have the Y valve on the current deck pump-out hose and then to a manual whale pump to the overboard thru hull.

There is not a lot of room to loop hoses for anti-siphon so I'm particularly interested to see and hear how other owners of the early model E38's have tackled this crappy (pun intended) problem.

There is not a lot of room to loop hoses for anti-siphon so I'm particularly interested to see and hear how other owners of the early model E38's have tackled this crappy (pun intended) problem.[/QUOTE]

Just a quick "Heads-Up" (back at ya ) as to what I did on my E32, which has a LOT smaller space for all that stubborn plumbing than your E-38.

I placed my "Y" valve in line BEFORE the holding tank so as not having to use and fill the holding tank unnecessarily or, more importantly, require a separate pumping mechanism to drain your holding tank. My method (I think) used less hose and area.)

MOST importantly too is to include a way to lock the "Y" valve in the tank position where laws require holding tanks cannot be drained overboard. (I've not checked recent laws, but in the past, a thru hull is OK IF locked from usage and you have a holding tank.)

-kerry

Mike,
You have the forward head/shower? I can take some pictures today of the factory installation. The factory installation includes a manual pump and there is no Y valve, which is confusing to the Coast Guard sometimes. However, with this configuration you can demonstrate that the contents of the bowl cannot be pumped directly overboard. That satisfies them.

Craig

footrope said:

Mike,
You have the forward head/shower? I can take some pictures today of the factory installation. The factory installation includes a manual pump and there is no Y valve, which is confusing to the Coast Guard sometimes. However, with this configuration you can demonstrate that the contents of the bowl cannot be pumped directly overboard. That satisfies them.

Craig

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I have the forward head/shower. A picture would be great as the original plumbing schematic blueprint picture is hard to read. Behind the head is a cut out hole that I'm guessing is or could be used for installing the manual pump out behind. I'm guessing you could omit the Y valve by using the 2nd outlet form the holding tank direct to the manual pump then to overboard thru hull.

Read plumbing simplified.

Mike & Sherene, We too eliminated any Y-valves as they are prone to added failure and redundant at the end of the day. Our discharge hose leads to the holding tank with a Groco vented loop in the circuit. From there we have two options, direct discharge overboard using our electric macerator (manual works just as well) or to a deck fitting for pump out. The discharge hose at the bottom of our holding tank leads first to a Nylon T-fitting where one leg of the T goes to the deck and the other to the macerator, easy-peasy. We use and swear by Odorlos and have had no head odor anywhere in the boat for the past 22 years. If you want to pump overboard, simply open the seacock and pump out the tank. If back at a dock, open the deck fitting and empty the tank that way. It's a super simple system and it works flawlessly every time. See of you can grab an old copy of the West Marine Catalog and find the West Advisor's "Our Favorite Method" in the head plumbing section. You'll find there an illustration of what I described above except they include a useless Y-valve in place of where I inserted the T-fitting. As a matter of fact, I took my idea from that illustration and substituted the T for the Y. Best of luck, it ain't rocket science and you ca do it, results guaranteed Glyn Judson, E312 hull #55, Marina del Rey CA

Lots of ways to do this. I can't figure out what the PO of my boat thought he was doing... but that's another, more disgusting story.

My head connects only to the holding tank. The holding tank can be emptied through the pump-out or a macerator can pump it out a through-hull. The Y-valve connects the through-hull to the sink drain or to the macerator. This is OK while discharging overboard is a rare occurrence. If I actually spent more time off-shore, a direct connection of the head to the through-hull might be more convenient. One could always install a second Y-valve. Or just switch the hoses around. But in those places that lack pump-out facilities, there might be some advantages to liquefying everything before pumping it out...

I don't have a manual pump option, but I did recently pick up a used "Whale" mk5 pump on EBay for $1 plus the cost of a rebuild kit. I plan to add hoses and a mounting board to make this a portable back-up pump for any place it might be needed on the boat.

BTW: "Odorlos" is simply potassium nitrate. You can get the same thing at your garden center for much less. Chemically and biologically, adding an aerator to the holding tank would do the same thing more efficiently. Depending on whether you think carrying chemicals or adding another gadget is more burdensome.

Odorlos or not.

<snip> BTW: "Odorlos" is simply potassium nitrate. You can get the same thing at your garden center for much less.

Well said and true but Odorlos comes in liquid or crystal form and especially the liquid is supplied in a convenient bottle with integral measuring cup that makes that aspect sooo simple and easy, after which one can simply stow it in the head locker or wherever. How much cheaper can it get than $30.00 for 68 ounces of liquid Odorlos (West Marine) for gosh sake? On our boat fitted with a 13 gallon holding tank we successfully use the recommended 10 gallon dosage so based upon that, a single bottle will treat 68 tank changes. I don't know about anybody else reading this but I'd measure that in multiple years of treatment. I'm just fine with the convenience of the measuring bottle (We do use the crystal too but it's hard to measure out 1 ounce from a tear-open 4 ounce packet and then what do you do with the other three ounces?) Hey, that adds up to very, very, very cheap to me. Regards all, Glyn Judson, E31 hull #55, Marina del Rey CA

OK, well, I have a laboratory and a large greenhouse. Sometimes I forget that everybody doesn't have a jar of KNO3 on their shelf. To me, it's like flour or sugar or sulfuric acid, or helium or coffee. How much cheaper? Like 25 cents compared to 30 dollars.

According to the safety data sheet Odorlos Ammonium Nitrate and not Potassium Nitrate. However I suspect they work in the same way and I am interested whether Spectracide Stump Remover works as well as Odorlos as its a quarter the price.[/h]

Once dissolved in water, these salts are dissociated, so nitrate ions are the active ingredient, no matter what they started out as. (Ammonium could also act as a fertilizer to help microbes grow, as long as the pH stays low, but sewage is generally not nitrogen-limited.) What the nitrate does is support microbial respiration. Some of these products also contain small amounts of detergent, which doesn't really do anything useful.

TMI: When microbes (or us) consume organic matter, they have to oxidize it with something, and in so doing, recover the energy that was stored in the chemical bonds. That's respiration. The handiest thing to use is molecular Oxygen. But oxygen isn't very soluble in water. When O2 is all used up, microbes switch to using nitrate, if they can get it, and nitrate is much more soluble. Although it doesn't produce as much energy as O2. When nitrate is used up, they switch to manganese or iron, if they can get it. When that's used up, they switch to sulfate - but that reaction produces hydrogen sulfide and other nasty odors that we don't want. And sea water has a lot of sulfate in it. When that's used up, they switch to oxidizing part of the organics and reducing another part - fermentation. Which also produces nasty odors that we don't want. (They can get some of that energy back by making methane.) As long as you supply the microbes with plenty of O2, or NO3, they never get around to doing the smelly things. And even if some of them do, the smelly products, which still contain potential energy, get consumed by the microbes that have access to O2 or NO3

toddster said:

.... When microbes (or us) consume organic matter, they have to oxidize it with something, and in so doing, recover the energy that was stored in the chemical bonds. That's respiration. The handiest thing to use is molecular Oxygen. But oxygen isn't very soluble in water. When O2 is all used up, microbes switch to using nitrate, if they can get it ....

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I use a Groco Sweet Tank unit, which pumps air into the holding tank, supplying oxygen to beneficial aerobic bacteria and suppressing smelly anaerobic ones. This is how municipal wastewater treatment works. I strongly recommend it. Nothing to add or monitor.

Yes, but again, it's a scam. A cheap aquarium aerator would work just as well.

kiwisailor said:

I have the forward head/shower. A picture would be great as the original plumbing schematic blueprint picture is hard to read. Behind the head is a cut out hole that I'm guessing is or could be used for installing the manual pump out behind. I'm guessing you could omit the Y valve by using the 2nd outlet form the holding tank direct to the manual pump then to overboard thru hull.

Click to expand...

Hey Mike,
Where were we? Oh yeah. Kerry (kapnkd) is right, there isn't much room for looping 1-1/4" hoses behind the cabinetry, so elbows are used in abundance in my plumbing installation. I am not necessarily endorsing this assembly but it all fits and it is the way I got the boat. Also, actual pictures are not as helpful as either of us would like, so I included a little diagram that shows the hose routing around the manual pump. If the manual pump could be turned upside down the plumbing might be more straight forward. Something to look into.

Not pictured or diagrammed is the hose that goes from the toilet flush pump to the top of the holding tank. I hope this helps.

footrope said:

Hey Mike,
Where were we? Oh yeah. Kerry (kapnkd) is right, there isn't much room for looping 1-1/4" hoses behind the cabinetry, so elbows are used in abundance in my plumbing installation. I am not necessarily endorsing this assembly but it all fits and it is the way I got the boat. Also, actual pictures are not as helpful as either of us would like, so I included a little diagram that shows the hose routing around the manual pump. If the manual pump could be turned upside down the plumbing might be more straight forward. Something to look into.

Not pictured or diagrammed is the hose that goes from the toilet flush pump to the top of the holding tank. I hope this helps.

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A picture says a thousand words so this is very helpful! My new Ronco tank has 2 outlets at the bottom so this plumbing option is an easier option and looks to align with the Ericson schematic, my only concern is my current lack of an anti-siphon loop on the head intake hose. I'm concerned about leaving the intake valve open to the head unless it is being used.

The anit-siphno loop schematic from West Marine looks to be a nightmare to install on an E38.

That anti-syphon scheme shown in the drawing is the same one I referenced in my head re-plumbing thread entry. Strictly FWIW, Ericson did not use either syphon when they built out our boat and neither did I when I reformatted that whole system. Lots more complication in an area with no room to spare as it is.
We do keep all three (water in, effluent out, and sink drain) valves closed when we are not aboard, or if ashore for a while.

One bit of hose clamping trivia: I did double clamp almost all hose connections (and did add several 90 degree fittings due to lack of room for 'bending' the stiff hose sections. I used single clamps on the vacuum side, going to the deck fitting. Logic seemed to dictate that a temporary partial clog requiring more force on the head pump handle would threaten the connections downstream from the head itself to the tank, valve, and the thru hull.... and could cause the maximum anguish if the hose was forced off the fitting. :0

Loren

Thread link: http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?6251-New-Holding-Tank-Piping-amp-Valves

I don't have any anti-siphon loops and agree that they're not practical due to how compact the system has to be in the current layout.

I have gathered most of the parts to increase the holding tank vent from 1/2" to 1" on my boat. I am finally going full speed on my windlass and am stuck on how to keep bugs out of a larger vent thru-hull.

Craig

No Anti Siphon Vent / Loop?

Hmmm. You guys have caught my interest on this as I didn't know that Ericson didn't install anti siphon loops when they made the boats.

I am in the process of laying out the new head and holding tank for my Ericson 25CB. My layout will just connect the head directly to holding tank. One of the two pre-installed exit fittings will go to the pump out, and the other to the thru hull. No Y valve needed. The thru hull will be locked and closed 99.99% of the time as I would rarely be in an allowable discharge zone.

So following the head plumbing discussion of this thread, I now wonder if we really do need an anti siphon vent / loop between the thru hull and holding tank in this situation? I suppose if the valve is opened water could back up into the holding tank.....

olsenjohn said:

Hmmm. You guys have caught my interest on this as I didn't know that Ericson didn't install anti siphon loops when they made the boats.

I am in the process of laying out the new head and holding tank for my Ericson 25CB. My layout will just connect the head directly to holding tank. One of the two pre-installed exit fittings will go to the pump out, and the other to the thru hull. No Y valve needed. The thru hull will be locked and closed 99.99% of the time as I would rarely be in an allowable discharge zone.

So following the head plumbing discussion of this thread, I now wonder if we really do need an anti siphon vent / loop between the thru hull and holding tank in this situation? I suppose if the valve is opened water could back up into the holding tank.....

Click to expand...

John - you still need a pump of some sort between the below the waterline thru hull and the tank. Maybe you assumed that was obvious. But you are correct, if there is no direct head to overboard path, you don't need the anti-siphon loop on the discharge side. Some say you need it on the intake side, but if you are using a fresh water flush method (basin drain connection) you do not need that either.

This again?

Folks, At the risk of beating a long dead horse, I still maintain that a quick dose of (very cheap) Odorlos far outweighs any other method. The cost of that Groco air pump would buy enough Odorlos for the better part of most smaller marinas for the next score of years or more, measure, pour and forget all odors. Do as you will but this has worked for me and most of my sailing friends for decades. Glyn