Odor from my toilet / holding tank

First the bad news: the best way to find the source of the odor is to get down there with your nose and start sniffing. 1) it sounds like you've got a salt water toilet. These tend to smell. Does it smell like waste or low tide? If low tide it's time for thorough cleaning and flushing with clean fresh water and deodorant. 2) If it smells like waste is there an inline filter such as you have with a vacuflush toilet? If so that may be your culprit. One time overfilling before pump out can do it. 3) it may well be the piping if it's plastic and changing that out is not that big a deal although not pleasant. 4) check the vent hose and all connections for leaks or disconnection. It could be venting or leaking inside the boat. 5) Is your holding tank plastic? If not there may be a leak or, if it is, it could be coming through old plastic. So now the big question: Do you love your boyfriend enough to sniff it out?

There should be a hatch in or just outside the head, but close. When you look in you'll see a valve and sea cock with a hose leading toward the head. If you have it; it's salt water. When you mention using water from the tap instead of pumping it in that hints to me that you could have a bad diaphragm (keeping you from pumping water in. If that's the case it could also be letting gas back up from the holding tank into the head. Again, the nose knows. Sorry, there is no substitute except changing out everything. If the diaphragm is shot it has to be replaced. Get out the manual or have the service dept. at your marina do it. Once it is changed I have heard of people using a few drops of vegetable oil periodically to help keep it lubricated although I haven't done it myself.
Just like your house has a toilet vent pipe on the roof so too your boat has a vent on it's side to allow air to exit as waste takes up the space in the holding tank and yes smells will escape there, but if you keep your tank pumped regularly and don't eat chili your neighbors shouldn't be offended any more than you are of theirs. Sealand has a very good holding tank deodorant. After each pumpout pour 4 ounces straight down your toilet. Also, when you pump out, pump out, take a hose and pour in a couple of gallons of fresh water down the pumpout and then pump that out.
Finally, If anybody needs a bathroom point to the one on shore. You'll never have nastier problems than you will from a marine head. Oh, and don't use Charmine. 4 or 5 sheets of single ply biodegradable toilet paper per flush only.
Welcome to boating. Are you having fun yet? (and welcome to YF).

Resource

For future reference, Peggy Hall is an authority on boat odors especially relating to head and MSD issues. She has written several articles for magazines and she has a book titled "Get Rid of Boat Odors: A Boat Owners Guide to Marine Sanitation Systems and Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor" from Seaworthy Press. It is available on Amazon. Here is the ISBN: 1-892399-15-6.

Hi Bernie,

Corian is a great counter top matieral, easy to router and bleach clean but very expensive.

Good old Formica will do but after a while will delaminate in a steamy galley.

Thin stainless steel works, easy to form over sealed marine plywood, easy to weld and easy to clean.

You can have "no odor", but you have to work for it. First off, on a vessel that vintage, you may as well change out the hoses, and if you can, replace as much hose as possible with copper nickel or 316 stainless pipe and use as short of sections of Trident brand hose. If you can't afford to pipe it, get all Trident hose (no vested interest, do a bit of homework and you'll see why I say that). The hose itself gets permeated with the stank and makes the boat stink regardless. You also need to get rid of the sediment in the holding tank and start with clean. A metal tank is much much much more preferable to a plastic one. Disassemble the pump for the head as well and clear out the sediment there. You also have to provide adequate ventilation to your blackwater tank as the decomposition process needs oxygen to happen cleanly. Sometimes you need a forced air in system, some people even run bubblers.

Yes you household plumber friend can do the job. As for counter tops look around your local store. Corian is a great choice, and considering the small amount you'll be using, may not break the bank. Lots of other choices. Good luck.

I agree totally. Most holding tanks, the smell comes from a blocked vent line. Second largest source of smell would be leaking or permeating smells from the sewage lines. I like the white holding tank hose if you're replacing it.

Corian works really well. You can also use granite and can use it thin if you bond it to wood or divynicell. Merritt is using really thin Granite 3/8" and bonding it to divynicell.

Corian stains easily, specially from tea or cofee, diluted belach can clean it easily, if really bad, use 220 grit sandpaper.

Toilet odors, get Peggy Halls book, remember, neve, never put any chemicals down the toilet, can easily destroy the rubber seals, again, read the book and thoroughly understand the installation before making changes.
Good luck and pleasant odors.

If your heads are salt water flushes, there is a good chance that, especially if they're not used enough, that the micro organisms in the salt water may be creating the problem. It seems that the newer boats have defeated the smelly head problem since they've been using fresh water to flush.

<sigh> I guess you've never heard of 90/10 copper nickel or Monel then right? Neither will corrode in your lifetime. Any plastic (and fiberglass is just a reinforcement material that lives in a plastic matrix) will eventually be permeated with stink and make the whole boat stink.

Cheaper and lighter than an equivalent sized fiberglass on built thick enough not to permeate through after 10 years.

Hi,

Henning- What are the tanks and drain lines made of on your Kingship?

Steel and stainless steel, no hoses at all.