HELP! Diesel Odor in Aft Stateroom - Help in Mitigating?

[Rockport]

Hi all-

I'm new to all this. Purchased an 88 Nova CPMY Sundeck Trawler. Our second boat (1st was a sailboat). We love it!

There were some leaky tanks in the compartment under the stern fishing deck of the boat which we cut out and removed. The area does not appear to have bilge access from this compartment. Its been thoroughly cleaned with orange oil, and painted. However, it does (still) smell somewhat of diesel / hydraulic fluid.

Way more annoying is that the smell is also in the aft stateroom. There are tanks under the bed, so we don't really seem to have any access to the bilge area under the bed.

I'm looking for any suggestions on how to mitigate this smell. I'm thinking there must be some fluid in this area of the bilge, but it's relatively inaccessible. The stern end of the engine room has a big genset and batteries.

Are there any oil-consuming bio-products that anyone has any experience with? If i cannot get to the area, maybe i can release some critters that will find their way there and convert any petroleum products in the bilge to something that doesn't stink?

Thanks!

Mike

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Welcome aboard! What you might try is a boroscope, of some type to at least "take a look" at the hidden recesses.


While there probably are oil eating microbes, personally, I would want to actually see what is hidden but that's just me. You may have to install access plates at strategic locations for future forays into the your new mistress's innards.


One advantage of the boroscope "look-see" is you can check out locations that would be most suitable for said inspection plates.

 

[PM]

Buy and Read Peggy Hill's book. "Getting rid of boat odors".

She will probably read this post and offer some advice, but buy the book anyway.

BTW "Under the stern fishing area" is commonly called the Lazarett.

pete

 

[sean9c]

If there is oil in the bilges there is nothing you can do until you first get the oil out. Then you need to do an investigation in order to figure out if the oil has gotten into the stringers and bulkhead bottoms, which is common for boats that have had oil in the bilges for any length of time. If it has it's a much bigger problem.
I've never believed that a boat should have bilge areas that are inaccessible. Maybe the first thing to do is make them accessible so you can figure what's in there.

 

[High Wire]

Scrub the bilges with pine sol. Better like the smell of pinesol. Lol

 

[bayview]

The camera is a good idea.
You can also push some oil diapers under the tanks with string attached to pull it out and see what you find.
Another way it to add some water ballast up forward in barrel etc to lift the stern enough to get anything in a low area to flow towhee you can see it.

Diesel smells unique so it should be easy to identify

 

[Comodave]

Welcome aboard. I second Peggie Halls book on boat odors.

 

[Peter B]

Welcome to TF Rockport. However, as you have such a specific issue, I've taken the liberty of moving your thread to an area more likely to be noticed and advice given, than it might receive in the 'How to use the forum, etc' area.

 

[Lepke]

You have to access the bilge to eliminate the smells. There are enzymes that convert oil/diesel, but the oil still has to be removed. Low volume power venting can tame the problem, but it won't go away until the bilge gets cleaned.
I have a 70 year old wood boat. Power venting the bilge areas removed bilge/boat odors, but the major odor causing items had to be removed or at least mostly eliminated. I use standard bilge blowers at greatly reduced speed that run 24/7. They help keep the bilge dry. My boat smells like a house.

 

[SoWhat]

Smell from some spilled diesel should dissipate within days. If the smell has not diminished, you likely have a small leak. You will need a borescope to find it.

Flooding your bilge with a detergent such as krud kutter will clean it up. It becomes oily waste and can't be pumped overboard. I use a hand pump into 5 gal home depot buckets. My marina contracts with a disposal service.

 

[rgano]

After you have cleaned the area use PUREAYER. See www.pureayer.com

 

[BruceK]

My money is on a continuing leak too. You need a way to check the tanks. Can the bed be removed,even just temporarily, to get a proper look at the area? Could it be the aft tanks or maybe the bilge drops towards the transom so it comes from further away. Any correlation between refueling and the smell worsening, ie query leaky filler tube? Any signs of deck issues over the tank areas leading to rusty leaky tank tops? Just ideas, hope it helps.

 

[C lectric]

You will need to gain access to the tank to see what is going on. Check the fill hoses, the vent hoses AND the feed hoses to the engine and other gear that draws from that tank. Flashlights mirrors, maybe a remote camera to see into areas that cannot be seen into directly.

Hoses lose their resilience and take a set/ shrink a wee bit which can mean the clamps are no longer holding the hoses tight on the fittings. Weeps can develop.

GO around with a nut driver and snug the clamps up. Don't crank on them as that may cause more trouble, just a good snugging.

Get some of the blue Scot paper shop towels and use them to wipe all the fitting and connections. I find the Blue towels will show even tiny weeps as a distinct change in the colour, darkening, that a white towel will not..

I have found leaks in water and fuel that way but also by wrapping one of those towels around the fittings and leaving it there for a day. Over time a really small weep should dampen the towel.

Use the towels also to wipe the hoses themselves as the hoses , if old enough, or damaged may weep.

Get Peggy's book as suggested and clean the bilge once you have identified the source.

If there is any corrosion of the fittings, rusty steel fittings, then the loose corrosion MUST be removed as the flakes can create a leak path that no amount clamp tightening can close. THen use a fuel resistant SEALER, NOT GLUE, such as Rectorseal #5 from places like Home Depot.

 

[Westiculo]

Ventilation!
This works amazingly well.

Doesn't matter if our engine room/bilge area is squeaky clean or if we let it get filthy, don't smell a thing. Just have to take off the engine room vent covers when you fire up the engines. The goal is for air from the engine room/bilge NOT to flow into the main living spaces. Do it by controlling how air exits and exits that space. The red line is the sole.

 

[Frosty]

Ventilation!
This works amazingly well.

That's interesting. So is the "non-X-ed" vent one of your normal engine intake vents and you are basically running it "in reverse"? Or is that a new vent, and you cover the normal (X-ed) engine room vents in order to establish your preferred airflow?

 

[Westiculo]

Yeah it's a normal engine intake vent. On our Grand Banks there are 3 vents on each side of the boat (6 total). We installed a Fantech inline centrifugal duct fan (they're very quiet and have adjustable speed) that continuously runs, blowing air out from the engine room. The X-ed vents we made covers for.

 

[Amadeus]

Pete,

It's actually Lazarette.

 

[wkearney99]

I've gotten a lot of use out of a wifi inspection camera:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MV6X4M4/

The idea is you connect your phone to this via WiFi. This lets you prop the phone up somewhere you can see it while jiggling the camera probe around. The kind that connects directly to the phone are a hassle because you invariably need to wiggle the probe cord around at angle and end up knocking it out of the phone (which then falls, and breaks).

The oil absorbing sheets work quite well. I got a bale of these two years ago and haven't run out yet.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003ZHUV18

I keep a few resting in places that might have liquid appear, but might drain and be otherwise pumped out. These cloths catch the oil and let any water pass.

 

[wkearney99]

Yeah it's a normal engine intake vent. On our Grand Banks there are 3 vents on each side of the boat (6 total). We installed a Fantech inline centrifugal duct fan (they're very quiet and have adjustable speed) that continuously runs, blowing air out from the engine room. The X-ed vents we made covers for.

We've got Fantech units at the house and they are indeed nearly dead silent. But they're all 120vac fans. Does Fantech make DC units? Or are you powering yours off AC?

 

[Westiculo]

We've got Fantech units at the house and they are indeed nearly dead silent. But they're all 120vac fans. Does Fantech make DC units? Or are you powering yours off AC?

Powering off AC. Unfortunately I found it impossible to find a quiet DC one, but the AC one is probably more efficient anyway even through the inverter. Also we don't usually run it when we're out and about unless we're at anchor for more than a day.

 

[Rockport]

thanks!
ordered it!

 

[Rockport]

thanks, Pete!

Prior boat was a sailboat, and from that i thought that the lazarette was something you sat on that opened. then after you comment, i googled it, and its a compartment at the stern of the boat!
Regardless, this post has generated some awesome responses!
mike

 

[Rockport]

This is great! buying the book, cleaning the bilges, using pureayre. If nothing works, there will be this active venting solution! My stinky girl! I really want to get to the root cause. Did pick up a horoscope to send down the bile.
Im the aft stateroom there are some small access panels. i looked down there with a flash light and don't see anything, but there is a definite odor. The stern tanks in the lazerette have been removed, and the area they lived cleaned and painted. There is also some hydraulics there for the trim tabs. hydraulic fluid also stinks. Some of that spilled, and i cleaned it up. My bilge access does not seem to run the full length of the boat, it stops well before the bed. (i.e is glassed over) Is this normal?
From the outside (when we hauled), bilge seems to run the length of the boat.

 

[fryedaze]

Take a look at the return air for your AC. Ensure the return air only sucks off the cabin space. Some ACs have grills in cabinetry but the unit can draw air from inside the cabinetry which draws in a percentage of bildge or ER air. I used Armaflex to build boxing that seals the suction path for the AC. This eliminated ER smells from our cabin. Good luck

 

[Rockport]

...If I HAD AC/, which we don't (yet)!
Thanks for the tip, will keep in mind when we do that upgrade!!

 

[Takoradi]

Are you using 3 duct fans on either side or one on each side?

 

[Bryant]

Diesel smell

Hi all-

I'm new to all this. Purchased an 88 Nova CPMY Sundeck Trawler. Our second boat (1st was a sailboat). We love it!

There were some leaky tanks in the compartment under the stern fishing deck of the boat which we cut out and removed. The area does not appear to have bilge access from this compartment. Its been thoroughly cleaned with orange oil, and painted. However, it does (still) smell somewhat of diesel / hydraulic fluid.

Way more annoying is that the smell is also in the aft stateroom. There are tanks under the bed, so we don't really seem to have any access to the bilge area under the bed.

I'm looking for any suggestions on how to mitigate this smell. I'm thinking there must be some fluid in this area of the bilge, but it's relatively inaccessible. The stern end of the engine room has a big genset and batteries.

Are there any oil-consuming bio-products that anyone has any experience with? If i cannot get to the area, maybe i can release some critters that will find their way there and convert any petroleum products in the bilge to something that doesn't stink?

Thanks!

Mike

Same thing happened to me, which means, you have 2 problems. 1. Cleaning it up. 2. Locating it's source and fixing it.

I started smelling diesel in the aft stateroom while we were sleeping. The bilge was full of diesel. Turns out, the fuel return line from the generator had ruptured so the generator was getting fuel from the tank but the line returning unused fuel to the tank was spitting the fuel into the bilge. It was a major cleanup and a minor fix.
Having said that, I can't imagine having no access to parts of your bilge. That seems not only inconvenient but potentially dangerous. I seriously recommend having a competent facility look at that issue and see if it can be remedied. Good luck.

 

[Night Watch]

Nova bilge

Hi, I have the 36’ Nova sundeck
At the foot of the bed in aft cabin there is a small hatch. From there you can view forward and I use a mirror on a stick.
On my boat there is a screwed down round access plate right there. I forgot to open it up when I hauled out in March so not sure what’s in there. I will do it when I’m out of the water though. It doesn’t look original so I’m treating it like Pandora’s Box for now.

From the shower in aft head, the water goes into a bilge that is a little aft of the front of the engines. There is a post on this site which talks about how another Nova owner found gallons of water UNDER the place where the bilge pump and float switch were located here. He ended up cutting that area out and lowering the bilge. He turned out to be my neighbor of all things and I had him show me what he did.

If you flip up the mattress and take off all the panels, you could see if any thing has leaked in to that area at either end. The hyanauntic steering fluid chambers are there on my boat.
I don’t have the fish deck tank so not sure what that would look like.
I’d look at Nordwind’s post for in depth info on his hidden bilge.
Best of luck.

 

[Bellakins]

We had a diesel spill that got into our bilge. What finally did the trick was to pour some blue Dawn dishwashing soap in the bilge and let it sit for several days. It worked wonders. Got rid of the smell permanently.

 

[obenton]

Wipe the hoses with a wet rag then smell them.I went thru diesel smell hell until I took a cabinet apart and found the fill hose permeated with diesel.It was likely original and had delaminated. By the way I tried all degreasers,odor eaters ect. If its a bad hose replacement is the only answer. Good luck.