Addressing Blocked Discharge in a Jabsco Electric Head

Jeff: Thanks for watching jabscotech.com. I'm Jeff Lander.

Mike: And I'm Mike Irving.

Jeff: And today, we're going to talk about waste not leaving the bowl on your 37010 and Quiet Flush series toilets.

Mike: We're going to shoot a video to show you the symptoms. Let's go up to the lab.

Mike: Hey, Jeff.

Jeff: Hey, Mike.

Mike: How's it going?

Jeff: Good. We're here in the lab. Mike, why don’t you show him what we’re doing here?

Mike: Check this out. We got ourselves a quiet flush hooked up to a deep cycle battery. Look at the power of the water coming out of that discharge line. We’ve toa a valve installed here, and what Jeff’s gonna do, he’s gonna net down that discharge line, it's going to simulate some sort of blockage, it could be a paper towel that was accidentally flushed. Maybe some debris. But what we're showing you here is a great example. Water’s coming in contact with the toilet’s macerator, but it's got no place to go. See in a few seconds what you'll see is the water stuff spinning around and around. You might actually see this in your head already. And afterwards what we're going to do is we're going to show you a couple of ways to remedy the issue. Well, look at there it goes. What do you think Jeff? Is that a good example?

Jeff: That's a great example, Mike. What's happening is that water is coming in contact with the centrifugal impeller, as the pump is still running right now, but again, it's got nowhere to go because we blocked it. So Mike, let's head back to the studio we'll get you a couple of ways to fix the problem.

Mike: Well, what we showed you up in the lab was a clogged discharge line. The water was swirling around up here, going through the base assembly, coming in contact with the macerator impeller, but it had no place to go. What Jeff's going to do is he's going to show you one way trying to isolate where this issue could be, either the joker valve or a plumbing issue. Jeff.

Jeff: Thanks, Mike. So like Mike said, what we want to do is figure out if it's a problem with your toilet or a problem with your system. The way we're going to do that is we're going to isolate your system and how are we going to do that? Well, we're going to take off your existing discharge hose line, make sure you're wearing gloves because you're going to be coming in contact with human. Another little tip is before you take that hose line off, make sure you have an empty bucket handy because when you take that line off, there's going to be some residual waste and water in that hose. So after you go ahead and take that off, take a new piece of hose that's clear and clean from debris and throw it on that discharge elbow. After you do that run that new piece of hose into an empty bucket. Go ahead and press the switch on the toilet and see what happens. If the toilet flush is fine, then we can probably isolate the problem somewhere in your system. If the waste is still swirling around and around on the top of the bowl after doing this test, we can probably say that the problem is a clogged joker valve inside of the elbow.

Mike: Now on the jabscotech website there's another video that shows you how to swap out those three screws, take out the Joker valve and put a new one in. Go ahead and check it out and give you a good heads up on what you're looking for in in that job.

Jeff: Thanks, Mike. Another quick little tip. If you do this test and find that the problem is probably in your system, a couple of places that check is your existing discharge hose line. Good little thing to do is take a couple of cups of white vinegar, let it sit in your hose line overnight, and then the next day, you know, rinse some water and flush it through. What that will do is that will help some dissolve some of that calcium mineral build up from your waist and urine. Another good place to check is the air vent in your holding tank. Sometimes spiders and other debris get up there, it clogs it up. Take a pressurized wash down hose, blast through there, give it a good clean and you know that should help the problem.

Mike: Now the air vent we see that quite often, especially with overflowing holding tanks. Well, this is another episode of jabscotech.com. I'm Mike Irving.

Jeff: And I'm Jeff Lander.

Mike: Thanks a lot for watching this episode and check back with us soon for more videos.