Latest and Greatest Holding Tank Treatment?
- Thread starter AustinPaul
- Start date
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2002
- RO Number
- 10265
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- 9,958
Where does the air come from? Farts?
I've never used vinegar to neutralize the contents of the tank, but I do use it to clean the system. I pour about a quart down now and then and let it sit a while in the vacuum tank and hoses. I had a problem with calcification a few years ago, and vinegar has been a cheap and effective remedy.
Ok, I can't say much to that! I can only hope that by then, I'll be more willing to pay to make the MSD issues someone elses's problem that I'll just pay to have fixed...
Well hopefully Brett, "excuse me" is part of your extensive vocabulary! If you think about it, it's quite natural to be embarrassed of one's biology. That's not my motivation for my liquid-only policy however. My summer marina pumps-out the boat in my absence. My winter marina has DIY pumps at every dock.
My liquid-only policy is driven by convenient access to land-based facilities, many MSD repairs on my resume and enough experience to know that such a policy does NOT cause odor and problems in the system.
So I'll make my point again. I'm not here to suggest that you can't put solids through your head. To each his own. What I'm arguing against are posts where the underinformed and inexperienced suggest that a liquid-only policy doesn't work. That's just plain incorrect and I'm perfectly willing to prove it.
Since I first had a boat with a marine head and holding tank, I've rebuilt a head twice, replaced one (although both times I rebuilt a head I removed it to work on it so that's much like replacing it), and replaced all the sanitation hoses once.
It's not that bad of a job. Remember, there are plenty of people who do more disgusting things every day as part of their jobs.
I don't want to be a slave to my boat's sanitation system, it's there to serve my needs, not the other way around.
PS: SLW, one of the reasons you have less of an odor problem than some of us is that you are using fresh water to flush your head. Those of us in salt water who use raw water in our heads have the additional problem of drawing sea creatures into our systems and when they die and decompose, they create an odor. The solution here would be to convert to a fresh water flush but that's a whole other thread.
Ron, I guess we just have different perspectives and definition of being a slave. I don't want to be a slave to MSD's either - that's why I'm willing to walk down the dock to keep the system low-maintenance. After 12 years, the hoses are original and odorless, and the aft head is working perfectly with the factory-installed duckbills! The other head on the other hand, well let's just say that I've learned the hard way not to skip the awkward head lessons when guests are aboard...
Water: yes, it's key. Not only fresh water, but LOTS of it. I said in my first post that I have the luxury of being able to send a lot of water through the system. That's part one. Part two is to not keep it in the tank very long! I fully understand that not everyone has this luxury. I've seen boats with woefully undersized tanks, and boating environments with few and far between pump-out options.
If my options were more restricted, I would accept a more intensive/expensive approach. In the meantime, I appreciate having such a low-maintenance, low cost, no-odor system, and I'm glad I knew better than to believe the dock and forum talk which suggests otherwise.
Water: yes, it's key. Not only fresh water, but LOTS of it. I said in my first post that I have the luxury of being able to send a lot of water through the system. That's part one. Part two is to not keep it in the tank very long! I fully understand that not everyone has this luxury. I've seen boats with woefully undersized tanks, and boating environments with few and far between pump-out options.
If my options were more restricted, I would accept a more intensive/expensive approach. In the meantime, I appreciate having such a low-maintenance, low cost, no-odor system, and I'm glad I knew better than to believe the dock and forum talk which suggests otherwise.
Well, if we're at the marina we usually use the marina restrooms. On the water, if you have to go, that's what it's there for.
Back on topic, I looked up Aurora Odor Free and they are pretty tight lipped about what it contains and how it works. Or even how much is in a container.
Is it a "natural" treatment like K.O. or Odorloss or is it a chemical with perfume?
When we are at the marina we use our head on the boat I will occasionally use the rest rooms. We are the last boat down a long dock. My wife has a phobia about using public restrooms, enough said. We have a pump out boat that comes to our slip that works on the weekend it is free (Waste Watcher). If the boat is out of service we run out past the 3 mile limit and dump only if we are almost full and the pump out boat is down. With the price of fuel this year we used the pump out boat the most. I sure wish we were not in a NDZ because I would install a Purasan Hold-N-Treat system. Unfortunately most of our boating is in the NDZ. Someone mentioned fresh water vs. sea water that was another reason we went with the Vacu-Flush system. Since this is about odors I only have a 3/4" vent but it has a filter that we change at the begining of every year. We have -0- odors but I would expect that the system, hoses and holding tank are less than 2 seasons old. I also put about a quart of Vinegar through the system twice a year.
This is everything you want and don't want to know about Odor Free.
http://www.auroramarine.com/aurora/catalog/msds/en/ODOR_FREE_en.htm
Shel
http://www.auroramarine.com/aurora/catalog/msds/en/ODOR_FREE_en.htm
Shel