Lectra/San dead, quick question...

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robedney

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Hi,
The electrode pack in my Lectra/San has finally bitten the dust. It'll be a week or so before I can afford to order one. In the interim, I figured it would be a good idea to add some chlorine to the bowl before flushing to avoid contaminating the harbor with coliform. The question is, how much chlorine to add per flush to be on the safe side?
 
robedney, Hi.

No matter what you add to the head, you are still discharging untreated sewage, in contravention of the law.

The only answer is to stop using the head. Either repair the system NOW, buy a porta-potty, or take the walk up to a 7-11.

Sorry to be so blunt, this close to Christmas.
 
About half a cup (4 oz.) per flush should do it. That will keep the odors to a minimum.

But be advised, as NorWester noted, it IS NOT a legal way to use the Lectra/San when it isn't working properly, and the sewage won't be legally treated according to USCG requirements. This method isn't condoned by myself, or by Raritan; it is merely a way to keep odors to a minimum for a few days until you get it fixed.
 
Thanks! I realize it's not technically legal -- but wouldn't the output be similar? I mean, the electrode pack is basically making chlorine from the salt water, right? So, it's not legal because the device is not working as designed, right?
 
The Type I systems are legal only when operated as designed. That's what type approval means. These systems were never tested and approved for use with added chlorine or chlorine bleach.

In this case, "not technically legal" means the same as illegal.
 
quote:
Originally posted by Ghost

illegal yes, immoral no

Click to expand...
Interesting point.

I'm sure Robedney will choose a right course of action, otherwise he wouldn't be asking the questions.

The particulars of this situation need not be discussed here but I recognize that an out of commission Type I is a much more serious situation for a live-aboard who may not have a restroom nearby. For those of us who don't stay on a boat full-time it's a lot easier to not use the system and wait for the replacement part before making repairs.
 
Here's the deal on Chlorox®: One of the original founders of Raritan Engineering acquired a patent for an "Electro-chemical Chlorinator for treatment of sewage from a marine toilet" back in the 1950's. I am paraphrasing the title of the claim as I don't have the documentation close at hand, but the description is essentially correct. That was the product (Electro-Chemical Chlorinator) that caused Raritan Engineering Company to come into existence.

It came on the market well in advance of any regulations ever being enacted for treatment of marine sewage. It was on the market from 1958 to 1976. It used a high speed motor that drove what was basically a dual blender blade inside the unit. As it ran, it created a vortex action around the spinning blade, which caused a suction. This suction was directed to an external bottle of commercial bleach (Chlorox®). As it ran, in addition to "blending" the effluent and toilet paper, it sucked in the Chlorox® solution. It was operated for 60 seconds each time the toilet was flushed. Then it shut off, and the effluent remained inside the treatment box, being exposed to the chlorine solution, which disinfected it to some extent.

Raritan sold scads of them in the 1950's, '60's and '70's, and every once in a while I still get one back for servicing. Of course, we no longer have parts to service them, and at this point in time, they are a "dead item" with us. But it just goes to show you that Raritan has been at the top of the sewage treatment industry for a long, long time. Last year (2008), Raritan celebrated our 50th anniversary. It also shows that boaters are, and always have been, quite environmentally-conscious - or the product wouldn't ever have been the market success that it was.

Now, getting back to Chlorox® - when the Coast Guard began testing various products intended to be used for sewage treatment, Raritan submitted the Electro-Chemical Chlorinator for their consideration. Certification was denied for a few reasons, but the one at issue here is the commercial bleach solutions. They tend to lose their "power" over time, and the Coast Guard testers felt that there wouldn't be any guarantee that the bleach being used in the product at any given time would be "fresh" and at full strength, and thus it wouldn't provide adequate treatment to the sewage inside the treatment unit..

So, based on the rejection by the Coast Guard testers, the Electro-Chemical Chlorinator never gained certification and was dropped from production in 1976. While it DID work, they were a little gun-shy back in those days when the sanitation laws were in the process of becoming implemented. The result was that a really good product never gained certification, so it no longer had a market, and had to be discontinued.

At around the same time, Raritan and Diamond/Shamrock Corp. had been working together in developing the Lectra/San, which went on the market in 1974. The Lectra/San was the very first Type I MSD to gain Coast Guard certification (1975) and the certification has continued uninterrupted ever since. The Lectra/San was discontinued in 2005 and replaced by the now-current Electro-Scan, which uses the same basic design and technology, but with much more sophisticated electronics. The difference of note, between the Electro-Chemical Chlorinator and the Lectra/San was that the Lectra/San creates its own chlorine solution anew, every time it is run, by electrolyzing the salt water inside the treatment unit. This creates sodium hypochlorite (hypochlorous acid), a very powerful bactericide.

So the problem with using bleach is that it deteriorates to some extent with age, and may not be as powerful as it should be, when being added to the unit...
 
Fascinating history Vic, thanks. It all sort of comes back to the boater in the end. I suppose that there are folks who pump sewage through dead Lectra/Sans for years without concern, something I just couldn't bring myself to do, no matter where I was. Then of course there's the old trick here in the Bay of having a through-hull and a diverter valve to a holding tank. The only time the diverter valve is pointed to the holding tank (and locked there) is when the Coast Guard is about to board. Couldn't let myself do that either back when I was a nothing but a recreational boater -- and finding and using pump-out stations is a real pain. I finally pulled the Crown head and holding tank on our little boat (28' woodie) and we just use a porta-potti, dumping it in one of the marina heads. Still not fun, but elegantly simple plumbing (and makes kids a lot more sensitive to the basic problem).
 
Robert, your comment about boaters pumping sewage through Lectra/San units without the system being activated, and thus the contents not being treated, brings back a humorous memory.

The Lectra/San and Electro-Scan have always been described and marketed as "flow-through" devices. The toilet flushes into the treatment box, where the contents are ground up (macerated) and treated. The system runs for 2 minutes, then shuts off. The system has no pump, so everything stays inside, being exposed to the disinfectant solution. That gives it the necessary "contact time," for the disinfectant to work. It doesn't work instantaneously, but requires some contact time.

As additional flushes are pumped in by the toilet, everything inside the unit repeats, and the first flush is pushed farther along inside of the treatment unit. Plus, as it is macerated over and over, the actual particles become smaller, so the disinfectant can work its way all the way into the center of the particle and not just treat the outside of it.

The electrode pack in the center of the unit also acts as a separator, dividing the inside into two chambers, and requires that the effluent be pushed upward through the center stack of the unit, between the two motors, as it is forced through the unit. From there it crosses over to the second chamber, where it gets more treatment and is stirred up via the smaller (mixer) motor, keeping it in solution so that the solids don't settle out on the bottom and form sludge.

That's how the high degree of treatment is achieved, by redundancy; treating it over and over before discharging it out into the water. Eventually, after four to six additional flushes of the toilet occur, the original flush of the toilet is finally pushed out the other end of the treatment unit and is forced overboard.

The system must be used, as there is a restricted passage midway in the treatment unit, in the crossover area, and if the sewage isn't at least macerated, it will eventually clog in that restricted passageway, and your toilet will begin to back up. Not good!

Back to my story, I once received a treatment unit in for servicing, and when I opened it up I discovered that someone had actually cut away the center portion of the electrode pack. It had a 6" X 6" hole cut right through in the center of it! This gave a whole new meaning to the description, "flow-through system." :D
 
Vic,

It's almost like things have come full circle in a way. The Electro-Chemical Chlorinator sounds like the predecessor of the Purasan?
 
As it says in the Bible, Kurt: "There's Nothing New Under the Sun."

Yes, the Electro-Chemical Chlorinator was the forerunner of both of Raritan's Type I systems, and certain basic characteristics of it have carried through with all the newer units, ever since the '50's.
 
Yup, that crossover area can be a problem. The periodic maintenance acid treatment doesn't seem to clean that area very well, so the salt deposits can get pretty hefty up in there. That's a heads-up for folks thinking of living aboard. You've got to maintain stuff like this. As yzer pointed out above, the head on a boat takes on a whole new level of importance when it's where you live. Now that I know that the electrode packs have a limited life I'll eventually order a spare. I keep spare parts on hand for the diesel forced-air furnace I built for the same reason -- being without efficient heat is a real drag.
 
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