Plumbing the head: freshwater or saltwater?

[Levitation]

I remember reading an article about a guy concerned about clogging the joker valve who puts all the TP into a brown paper bag he later burns on the grill. Not sure what it does for the steaks that night :mrgreen:

 

[baz]

Great videos. Just curious about one point, on the R-27 Dave mentions the toilet is plumbed to the freshwater tank. Has this always been the case in prior years? Thought I read they used seawater, at least some models/years.

Thanks,

Jake

My MY2010 R-25 came stock with manual raw water pump toilet. 1st Mate made it clear that fresh water was to be used. So after 1 year of ownership I did as requested. I removed the stock head and replaced it with a electric flush using fresh water plumbed in from the line feeding the sink with fresh water. Was easy to do. I capped the original line delivering raw water so it would be easy to reverse back to using raw water if necessary. By tapping into the fresh water line to the sink I avoided having to install a separate pump for the toilet's fresh water... I simple use the stock pump that delivers fresh water to galley, head sink and shower. The difficulty was snaking the wires from the electric flush toilet down to the helm DC panel circuit breakers. As there was a spare slot in the breaker panel it was easy to install a 40amp circuit breaker for the electric flush toilet. So to use the toilet the DC breakers for the water pressure and new breaker for the toilet have to be flipped ON.

BTW, the electric flush toilet I installed was the Thetford Tecmar EasyFit ECO electric head. It's bolt holes were almost aligned with the stock toilets holes... just one hole was off a bit and I plugged that with some epoxy colored to match the head's floor color, making it almost invisible to the eye.

Since everything is macerated, pump outs are much easier. 😱

The total replacement task took some 6 hours with the help of a second pair of hands snaking the wires from the toilet down to the DC breaker panel.

 

[pugtug613]

I am about to take possession of my R27 and I plan on converting the salt water to fresh water. You must be careful. I have done this on previous boats and I always used the drain side of the fresh water sink in the head. Just put water in the sink and it is sucked into the head. If you use the input side, there is a chance of cross contamination with the fresh water tank. I guess a check valve can be used? I like the drain side for a few reasons. There is no way to cross contaminate and that drain in the head sink goes into the bilge. Now it will go to the holding tank. No whiskers, toothpaste and hair in the bilge. It also makes winterizing very simple. Pour the pink stuff in the sink and hit the button. Just a thought.

 

[baz]

Good point... we use bottled water for drinking. Boat's fresh water is used for dish cleaning, toilet and shower.

 

[Gin]

Pugtug613, I could be wrong, but I think the head sink on the R27 (ours is a 2013) drains straight overboard instead of into the bilge. FWIW.

This discussion interests me because we wanted to use fresh water for the head and installed a unit that can use either the onboard water or raw. Because we are in fresh water now, we went with the raw water connection.

We knew we can shift over later and replumb the head to use the onboard fresh system if we end up in salt and don't want salt in our black water tank. Making the change would be a modest expense, and a bit of labor. Nothing insurmountable. Still, recently, I have been thinking that if we find ourselves cruising in salt water and don't want to make a permanent change to on-board fresh water, why not just take the pull-out head faucet and fill the bowl as needed, either before the flush, during and/or after? Perhaps not elegant, but not difficult or inefficient either. Just wondering why that isn't the easy way to accomplish what y'all are thinking of. Thoughts?

Gini

 

[Boont Boater]

Our R29 uses raw water (salt water) and we have had no off-smell issues.

 

[baz]

Our R29 uses raw water (salt water) and we have had no off-smell issues.

The off-smell is just one thing to consider IMO. Salt water itself can smell over time as it can remain in the piping for a long time. Salt water is also not friendly with the piping and joint materials and it will cause corrosion with time.

Any off-smell sensed (be it fresh water or salt water) is likely to come from the gray water tank venting at back of the boat after the head has been flushed, especially if there a light breeze following the boat. 😉