We have had a few months without any major works on the boat so I should expect something to be needed….but it has to be one of the worst jobs on the boat, and is apparently classified as “blue” job by Maria….

When we first got the boat, the first thing we had to do was to refresh all of the toilet pipes because they were blocked. A few years later and we knew it was getting to the time when we would have to service everything. Unfortunately we decided this and then the fun and games happened.

Firstly the main toilet stopped emptying….oh dear. So we went to shut off the seacock so that we could do the required maintenance. Nothing…. The handle wouldn’t budge. We are due to come out in August to have some work done but there was no way that we could survive living aboard with no toilet for six months. So an emergency lift and hold was organised so that we could change the through hull and then get to work on the toilet. On inspection it seemed that the pipes were blocked with calcium and, erm, solids… not quite sure how these hadn’t been flushed away but it had jammed the diverter valve (that allows you to switch between tanks and outside. We decided that the safest recourse was to fully change the pipes and diverter valve although I decided to refurbish the diverter valve, by cleaning it up and keeping it as a spare.

That all worked fine for about a week before the pump that brings water to the toilet was pumping very little water. This pump comes with a filter, which I hadn’t cleaned previously (looking sheepish!), it was a mess. Cleaning this up worked a treat. However, then there was a leak from the filter unit. A quick visit to a shop to buy a new o-ring (50p! – cheapest thing I have ever bought for the boat) and now we are back to new 🙂

Boat jobs seem to go that way though. A blockage in the toilet has required us to do a lift out, change a through hull and valve, change all of the pipework, a new diverter valve and clean/maintain the pump filter. Always the way!