www.iFourWinns.com

Has anyone switched their toilet to use lake water instead of (tank) fresh water? I'm thinking of adding a tee off either the AC or generator water intake (after the strainer), add a small 1Gph water pump (or maybe the same as the house pump to act as a spare) and plumb directly to the toilet.

Some things I've been thinking about:
- does the pump need/should be above the water line?
- does this style of 'house' water pump have the ability to lift the water up a couple of feet? My pump is currently gravity fed from the tank. This ties to the question above, if I mount above the waterline, it will need to lift 18-24".
- everything will of course be double clamped with correct re-enforced water hose.
- I think running it from the generator line might be the best bet - we rarely use it, but use the AC a lot

I'd love to get thoughts / concerns on this idea. When we anchor out for a couple of nights, the water tank suddenly seems to get very small, particularly with 2 or 4 kids on board. I think this could conserve a fair amount.

Steve.

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1969 Chris Craft Commander 47
1999 Four Winns 328 Vista - SOLD

If you have a vacuflush they don't use very much water. I know having kids makes things go quicker though... It should use about 1 pint per "normal" flush.
My concern would be the smell. They use fresh water because there is less bacteria than the lake water which will smell pretty quickly if not emptied right away.
How about bringing more water with you? Get a couple camping jugs and store them in the stern trunk or something.
Just an idea instead of going through all the work of adding a pump.

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--2002 3880 Regal Flybridge | Twin Merc 8.1HO **Seven**
--2003 AB 13 VST Console Inflatable | Tohatsu 40hp TLDI **Phish'n ski**
--310 Mercury Inflatable | 1982 9.9 Johnson

We already bring our drinking water with us, so if I was going to bring more, I'd want to look at adding another tank. True that vacuflush doesn't normally use much water - but get enough people drinking wine and beer and add the ummm, not normal flushes (where everything in the bowl needs to be covered with water if you want to avoid clogged lines) it can really add up. I'm not concerned about the cost or effort to add the pump and plumbing, more about getting the right solution.

I didn't think of lake water smelling, I would think you would need to leave it in the bowl for quite a while before that happened. I'll have to try putting a bowl of lake water on the counter and leave it for a while to test the theory. I suppose I could effectively leave both systems in place and control which was in use based on valves - that way I could just enable the lake water pump/system when we are out longer and water is a concern.

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1969 Chris Craft Commander 47
1999 Four Winns 328 Vista - SOLD

weather
this is something I have been thinking about doing myself my four winns has a vacuflush and uses fresh water but the searay I had before had a hand pump head that used lake water and I never had any odor issues or other problems please post what you end up doing and how it works out

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2005 vista 288

I think your looking for trouble by going to sea water. First off, you will need to add a sea strainer and seacock which means drilling a 2"hole though the hull. It will need to be bonded too. In itself, thats not too bad. Then it will need to be maintained and checked every year.

I'm thinking of sharing the generator intake line and strainer with a tee.

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1969 Chris Craft Commander 47
1999 Four Winns 328 Vista - SOLD

I use lake water and have no odour.

I also think using the generator cooling line is clever and should work well. you will need a back flow preventer on the new line to the head. When the generator is run, you don't want to pull in air from the toilet.

Cheers

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2004 - 288 Vista
Twin - 5.0 Volvo Penta GXi DP

Great advice - I was thinking about that situation while in the dentist chair this morning.

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1969 Chris Craft Commander 47
1999 Four Winns 328 Vista - SOLD

We have the same setup, we have no issues with running out of water, my kids are 7&9. We can go 4 days until. It's time to refill and pump out. Don't go through all that trouble, teach everyone to conserve a good lesson for all is to run out. You can always dump a little lake water in your holding tank provided your and fairly clean water to get by for a night

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2001 328 Vista "Nauta Dream 2"
AB Inflatable 10AL "Little Dreamer"
2000 248 Vista
1997 225 Sundowner


Mike

I agree - however I would rather have them use enough water as to not plug the vacuum lines. Even with a lot of training - it still happens every once and a while. More water covering the bowl contents = less clogging. We have the additional holding tank (so 60 gal total), so holding tank isn't an issue.
We've run out (twice). Just used a drinking water jug to pour lake water in the toilet, and exclusively drank beer and wine. It also allows us to have a spare water pump on board that I could swap out if needed.
The actual setup should be quite simple - finding the appropriate bronze fittings from one source is proving to be the main challenge.

All said - 4 days is impressive, I'm going to have to challenge my family a bit more. I also suspect washing dishes to be the other main water consumer. Other than coffee tea and teeth brushing, we don't drink the holding tank water.

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1969 Chris Craft Commander 47
1999 Four Winns 328 Vista - SOLD

Same here. We don't put tissue paper down the toilet.....that has solved all my problems with the vacuflush clogging.
I am always on everyone about water and hydro when we are on the hook. We have no genset and happy that I have 1 less piece of equipment to break and more room to work down there.

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2001 328 Vista "Nauta Dream 2"
AB Inflatable 10AL "Little Dreamer"
2000 248 Vista
1997 225 Sundowner


Mike

We love the generator for making coffee in the morning and the odd other task - but the room down there sure would be great! The no paper idea makes sense logically - but I've never managed to actually do that, just seems wrong. I removed our battery isolator and replaced it with an ACR - now with full voltage to the batteries from the alternator, they charge pretty quick. I also have added a battery monitor so we know exactly how many amp hours we have left. We do have a strange anomaly that the charger doesn't work correctly when powered from the generator - need to fix that this year.

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1969 Chris Craft Commander 47
1999 Four Winns 328 Vista - SOLD

We have a trash can beside the head that is sealed, it gets emptied every night when back at port. I explained it to my wife that if she or my daughter plugs it she takes it apart and fixes it!! I I or my son plugs it I'll deal with him and it.


Can you explain the battery isolator thing in more detail, you caught my ear!!!

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2001 328 Vista "Nauta Dream 2"
AB Inflatable 10AL "Little Dreamer"
2000 248 Vista
1997 225 Sundowner


Mike

The battery isolator that our boats came with takes in the feed from both alternators and distributes it to the 3 batteries but isolates the batteries and alternators from each other. This comes at the cost of 0.7 to 1.0 volts. So, if your alternator is putting out 14.4V, your batteries are charging at say 13.4V. That's fine for starting batteries which really only need a trickle charge to top up, but will be a slow way to charge house batteries when they discharge to 50%. It is possible to move the alternator sense wire to the battery side of the isolator, causing your alternator to put out 15.4V to see 14.4V at the batteries, but I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not.
We have a couple of 6V, 240Ah batteries, and want them to charge while we are in motion - this was of high importance when we were on the Trent a couple of years ago with very few places to plug in. Essentially I removed the isolator and ran new (properly sized, the factory alternator wires are actually too small to carry the full current output of the alternators) alternator lines through the existing fuses to the battery switches. Each of the start batteries are connected to their respective alternator when the switch is in the 'on' position. When I put a battery switch in the emergency or parallel position it also connects that alternator to the house battery bank, but through an ACR relay, which engages only when there is a charging voltage present. The ACR opens if the charging voltage is not present - this stops equalization that happens when you put two batteries in parallel and stops the house bank from draining the start battery. With this setup, I typically put one battery switch to 'on' and the other to 'parallel', enabling one alternator to charge the house bank. I choose the stronger alternator (newer) since I can see the charge current on the battery monitor. If i really want to charge the batteries fast, I can put both switches in 'parallel' so both alternators are charging the house bank together. This doesn't double the current to the batteries, but does boost it to maybe 1.5x. There are different schools of thought if that is a good idea or not, but I've read of many sailboat cruisers that run two alternators on one engine and do just that without issue. I've read that there is a possibility that if one of the alternator regulators dies, it could damage the surviving one.
So - I've gone from voltage a robbing isolator, undersized wires that also drop the voltage and rob current - to a system that charges at full voltage and maximum current available. It works quite well.

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1969 Chris Craft Commander 47
1999 Four Winns 328 Vista - SOLD