Maintenance Tips for MarineToilets
Raritan Engineering Company your Marine Toilet supplier would like to share with you these topics we thought would be of interest to you this month regarding Raritan marine toilet maintenance.
Cleaning the Lines
Your macerator pump experts know that heads flushed with salt water accumulate scale deposits in the discharge channels and hoses. Scale deposits cause a head to get progressively harder to flush, and it is scale on the valves that allows water in the discharge line to leak back into the bowl.
Avoiding this problem is as easy as running a pint of white vinegar through the head once a month, without using a macerator. Move the vinegar through the head slowly, giving the head a single pump every 4 or 5 minutes.
Marine Toilet Specialist Summarizes Key Points
If you suspect you already have a scale build-up, dissolve it with a 10% solution of muriatic acid, not using a pump, available from most hardware stores. The acid won’t harm porcelain, plastic, or rubber parts.
Your electric toilets experts suggest that you pour two cups of acid into the bowl. It will fizz as it reacts with the calcium deposits on the bowl valve. When the fizzing stops, pump the head–intake closed–just enough to empty the bowl without using a macerator. This moves the acid into the pump. After a few minutes pump again to move the acid into the discharge hose. Let it sit a few more minutes before opening the intake and thoroughly flushing the toilet and lines. The acid is “used up” as it reacts with the calcium, so heavy scaling may call for more than one treatment.
You can find more information as well as get assistance on electric toilets and on marine toilet maintenance tips at Raritan Engineering.
Lubricating
To keep the pump operating smoothly, follow your monthly vinegar flush with a dose of oil. The best choice is a lubricant intended for marine toilets, but you can also use mineral oil.
The usual treatment is to let a little water into the bowl, pour in a couple of ounces of lube, and pump this through the toilet. This method is adequate, but less than ideal because it lubricates only the discharge side of the pump.
While you are servicing the head, lightly coat the piston rod with Teflon grease. This will prolong the life of the piston-rod seal.
Odor
Electric marine toilets need not stink, but they often do. The discharge hose is, by far, the most common culprit. To check yours, rub the hose with a damp, clean cloth, then sniff the cloth, without using a macerator.
Leaking connections are another source of odor, and you can use your cloth the same way to locate a leak. Also check the seal around the piston rod, perhaps near the pump.
Another common source of head odor is grass and other marine life trapped inside the flush-water passage under the rim of the bowl. Prevent this by installing a strainer in the intake line.
An anti-siphon valve in the discharge line can also release odors into the boat. A properly installed valve vents outside the cabin area.
Overhaul
If the toilet gives off a foul odor but it isn’t leaking, if it is difficult to pump but the discharge hose isn’t clogged, or if it just isn’t working right, it is time for an overhaul.
So don’t forget these helpful points on how to maintain your marine toilets. 1) Cleaning the lines; 2) Lubricating and pump maintenance; 3) Odor maintenance; and 4) the need to overhaul.
Raritan Engineering has more information on macerator pumps, electric toilets, marine toilet, and how boat toilets work.
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