Houseboat repair, repairs, maintenance, sales and information

Black Water Sewage Holding Tanks

I had an opportunity to help a friend with his Gibson Boat last weekend.  He apparently had a leak somewhere.  I suspected a holding tank issue.  With a bottle of die (food color) in the sanitation system we were able to pinpoint the origin of the leaking fluid in the hull of his boat.  It was coming from the waste holding tank as suspected.  After closer inspection I noticed the holding tank was made of aluminum.  In my opinion that was a poor choice for a material to build it from.  Waste and especially urine is very acidic.  Over time it didn't surprise me that it had corroded to a point of leaking.  Now for the fix.  First we need to get pumped out completely.  Then through the pump out port outside the boat we need to pour in a couple gallons of bleach.  We then need to finish the fill up with water. You got it get pumped out again.  I feel we need to repeat this process a few times. This tank is mounted under the kitchen floor with no removable access.  1.  Do we cut the floor out and replace the tank and replace the floor and re-tile the kitchen?    2.  Do we use space available in other places for the new PLASTIC tank?  We both agreed it was much better to relocate a new PLASTIC tank elsewhere in the boat.  We found plenty of room in the engine compartment for this addition.  The plan is to mount the tank in the engine compartment.  The next step is run new inlet and pump out hoses up to the old tank. At that time we will remove the inlet and pump out hoses form the leaking tank and join them via the correct size union connectors and clamp them together. This is all it will tank to repair it and actually make it better than it was.  Remember we basically washed out the original tank with bleach.  We did that because it's staying where it is but won't be used anymore.  I hope this situation never happens to you but if it does you might find help here.

Uncle Ricky say's this one won't be hard but takes some planning.