4 stages…

Stage Two:

I was amazed that the 1”[ID] sanitary hose run in my 2000 Mainship 390 was 17.5 feet long! I actually had to go back to Home Depot to get the 25 foot version of this auger snake. The 15 footer wouldn’t make it all the way. (I did not attempt to return the “used” + wet ‘n’ dirty 15 footer.) <wink>

There are several twists and turns AND several horizontal runs where rock-hard calcium can accumulate. The snake did not work for me until after the chemical soak for 24 hours. I found the ability to rotate the auger snake is essential. The clog is “hard” as rock and the twists and turns all mean “I need to be able to push AND rotate the thing.”

When done, I hosed this snake down on the dock and I will oil it before pushing back into the crank’s storage / crank end.

But, we are NOT done yet!

Stage Three

Check out Ben Kayfetz’s highly acclaimed Youtube video!

For my Stage Three, I pretty much followed Ben’s example to cycle the CLR product through a circuit of hose to get all the calcium “rocks” out and into a strainer as shown in the vid. About 30-60 seconds of flushing every 10-15 minutes over 2 hours got it all. (1.5 gallons of CLR for this stage.)

Shelly suggested, “Sometimes “pulsing” the electric flush switch is more effective to get things started.” She was right! Try this if ‘laying into it’ fails.

After “straining” out all the calcium “rocks” and saw only clean “coffee” circulating thru, I began to pump the coffee into a 5 gallon pail.

Stage Four

We Started to pour clean fresh water into the toilet bowl to “cycle” it and watched the magic as clean water went through our “new” sanitary hose!!! (When clear water reached me, I moved the hose back into the toilet bowl to let the new clean water to go around the long hose “circuit” for a few minutes.

We see and hear the difference! Flushing now “hums” whereas before it sounded like a loud low frequency dentist’s drill.

The flow is 2x better than anything we have ever seen in the 4 years we have owned this 24 year old boat! No exaggeration. I’m pretty sure I will be able to retire the cleaned plunger to a storage spot in back of more commonly needed things! LOL

Clean up and Credits

Then I Re-attached all our plumbing with some plumber’s putty, and cleaned things up. Sanitized everything, including the tools!

Note: Simply replacing the 17.5 feet of sanitary hose would have been nice. But many boats, including this one, make that impossible; the hose runs behind the shower, cabinets, and bulkheads.

Bottom Line:

This combination of chemical soaking, and auger snaking, followed by a chemical flush cycle worked great.

A special thank you to Ben Kayfetz for his Youtube video.

A special thanks to Shelly’s brother Capt Rich Charette for his research and finding the video. Also to Capt Gene of Galene who prompted the research effort in the direction of a chemical compound-type approach. He also owns a Mainship 390. I bet Gene and I do this preventative maintenance on his 390 next time we are together in FL next Nov or Dec.

My recommendation is to do this every five years as shown in Ben’s Youtube video so you do not get the more severe clog that our week started with. It is a lot easier to do this as a preventative measure than a restorative measure if the hose gets fully clogged up such as ours did.

This project cost us two weather windows to cross Lake Ontario. Net loss=1 full week of cruising progress.

Do you need this? Evaluate the need.

IF you are experiencing the need to use a plunger or loud (or slow) flushes, your toilet may be fine. The sanitary waste line may be getting constricted. Read all the comments by others thanking Ben on his Youtube vid!

Know: This problem will not solve itself. AND we have used “digester” chemicals such as Noflex and Thetford for years. They do not prevent this problem.

Do this type of preventative hose cleaning for a remarkable improvement in your head system’s operation on your vessel (or RV.)

Note: we did this with zero waste going into the waterway (or holding tank). We only consumed 2 gallons of CLR, which is “septic safe” and the 2 gallons of waste was simply flushed in the marina’s head… easily carried in a single 5 gallon bucket.

So, It is an environmentally sound solution.

Plumber’s putty enhances all final hose-clamp joints for a leak-free, worry free finish.

Boat Soap and an extra 5-gallon bucket or two comes in handy for the clean up. Lysol wipes are a nice finishing touch for all surfaces and tools.

Some ask;

Why didn’t I try “Barnacle Buster?” (BB).

Answer: The BB product as described online simply did not mention sanitary hose as one of its recommended applications. CLR did. (Both are great products for what they do.) BB might have worked; I don’t know. CLR is sold in more places than BB. Plus CLR claims to be “Septic Safe”.

Final details

Our head is 3 years old. Electric, 12 vdc, Jabsco Model 37010. US Standard full size bowl. This is not one of the Jabsco “Quiet Flush” units, but it is a LOT quieter now, with no obstructions in the sanitary hose! (If they made an extended size bowl, marine head, we’d buy it!)

Admittedly, for months we were a bit perplexed. “Why is it less reliable recently?!” This week’s diagnosis and subsequent project proved it was not the head at all.

Remarkable improvement to a critical system used every day.