Air Head

[Stella Maris]

When we purchased Destiny, she came equiped with a head in the Master Stateroom and another off of the Salon. We are currently considering converting the "day head" from a "wet flush" to an Air Head. What steps will we need to be take to make such a conversion? How often do those of you that have Air Heads in place find that you have to empty the liquid tank and the solid tank? I understand that there is a small fan that must run constantly to pull the moisture out of the solid waste. How much power does this fan draw? Do you ever notice any odor either inside or outside of your boat from this venting process? How difficult is it to explain to guest on board how to use such a head?

 

[captain's cat]

David, check out the Cbrats site, lots of info on Airheads and their installation over there.

Charlie

 

[knotflying]

Absolutely no odor. The fan uses very little power, I can't remember exactly but it is in the low miliamp range, less than the carbon monoxide detector. As far as emptying the urine tank, that depends on usage, but I would say on average every 4 days while living aboard and I would empty it when leaving the boat for a period of time. That will be a trip to the restroom or a pour overboard depending on where you are. The solids are very easy. If you are an occasional user you are good for months on end. A full time live aboard using it every day with two people you are good for about six weeks. As an example, we started fresh in January and lived full time for 2.5 months and after that use the boat for week trips and day trips. It is now July 14 and I have not had to empty it yet. When you remove the solids it is a matter of emptying the bucket in a garbage bag and throw away or dump it in your flower garden NOT VEGITABLE GARDEN. Use is easy, open the trap door, do your thing, close the trap door, crank handle a couple of turns. Go to their web site, it explains everything.
Enjoy,
Mike Rizzo

 

[JerryE]

I ditto everything from Mike on Knotflying. Buy the Airhead, not the competitor, and ask Geof for a spare liquid bottle (for obvious reasons). Ask him to put a threaded nipple at the bottom of one bottle so you can later add in a detachable valve hooked up to a hose to empty without having to walk up the dock to the toilet to dump it or when it is not too elegant to dump over the side.

The only install trick is find a place for the vent hose to exit and rigging the fan Mike talks about to a 12v power source. The fan must run continually, so I rigged a little 15 watt solar panel with a controller (that avoids over charging batteries). This kit comes with 12 feet of wire which I ran down through a hatch along ceiling panels to the help where I plug it into the cigarette lighter: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001RJOP5Y/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00 Of course, you must then leave the "house batteries" switch on.

Mike and I along with others have written a ton of stuff about the Airhead on this bulletin board, just search for Airhead and read away.

 

[bbrh842]

Airhead says the fan uses 0.08 amp. The actual fan, supplied with my Airhead, uses only 0.06 amp.