Cleaning bilge

E

erice

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Jan 4, 2012
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32840
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What do use for cleaning the bilge? Do you use anything to maintain the bilge cleanliness?
 
simple green and a brush w/ a 24" +/- handle. lotsa fresh water. a shop vac to finish.
 
Any degreaser will work as will Dawn in many cases. The degreaser like Zep you by at say Home Depot is way cheaper than Simple Green and works just as well.

As Jamie mentioned keeping some soap of some kind in the bilge helps keep it clean and smelling good. (I like that pod idea.) Of course getting it clean and keeping it dry works best. :-)
 
Be mindful that some "Zep" degreasers are flammable and the spark of the open motor of a shop vac can cause a serious explosion if the LEL is present in a bilge. I have personally been on board a 42' Grand Banks that was destroyed by an explosion caused by an engine shop using Zep ID Red degreaser that was set off by a shop back. Blew the salon overhead up about ten feet, second and third degree burns on two engine shop employees that were in the machinery space when one of them switched on the shop vac.
 
You can buy bilge cleaning products in marine stores, but I use "Dawn" brand dishwashing liquid (and water, of course). Some folks think you can just dump it in there, but I find that it works better if you use a brush to clean it just like you would when cleaning anything else.

Remember that anything you put into your boat's bilge will affect the bilge pump so you don't want to use anything that could attack plastic or rubber.

After cleaning the bilge, I pump the water out and then rinse a couple times.

A clean, dry bilge not only looks and smells better than a dirty or wet bilge, it allows you to see problems such as an oil leak.
 
For the most part I just use a small, portable vacumm cleaner to suck up the bits of sand that get in there or the debri from working on the boat. On a small cruiser with I/O's there should not be water in the bilge. Water in the bilge leads to mildew; had that a couple of times. When cleaning the bilge in the engine room because of mildew, it's important to clean the whole engine room.
 
To clean my bilges I use simple green, a bucket filled a 1/4 with hot water and a cap of Pinesol and clean rags. If I find mold I'll spray Lysol and wipe the area clean after cleaning using the above supplies. I had mmy bilges stripped and repainted in 2007. They looked new then and they still look new to this day. Sandy sent lots of debris into my engine room. This weekend I cleaned the tracks in the cockpit doors and blew out the debris from the various aft deck drains. The internals on my vessel look great it's a matter of staying on top of it to keep it looking new. I get some standing water in the bow that the bilge pump won't remove so I generally pump it out with a hand bilge pump then it gets the same treatment as the engine room under the cockpit. I have V drives so the engines are under my cockpit.
Bill
 
Simple green for initial cleaning, and regular doses of Dawn to keep it clean and smelling fresh.
 
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