Bugs to The Rescue in Cleaning Dirty Bilges

Bugs to the Rescue in Cleaning Dirty Bilges

The bilge in my 40 year old 35 foot Dickerson wooden sail boat Irish Mist was always a bit messy and got much worse recently when a couple of quarts of oil leaked out of my lube oil filter. Looking for an economical way to clean the bilge, I searched the Internet and found a Boating Industry Article on “Keeping Bilges Clean and Green”
http://unireminc.com/documentation/pdfSection6/BoatInd.pdf which discussed bilge cleaners and the advantages of microbial cleaners which have been used for many years in oil spill cleanups. I wondered if the bugs would effect the wood or the epoxy in the boat hull and found an interesting bit of research that showed microbial oil based cleaning products will not degrade the wood or the epoxy. /www.maritime.org/conf-sched.htm (Scroll down to 3rd
International Conference on Technical Aspects of Historic Ship Preservation).

In another Internet search I found a firm http://www.alabastercorp.com/petroclean.htm that
specializes in microbial cleaners for oil. I discussed my problem with a really helpful and interested person Mike–Petro Clean’s Distributor in New Jersey (tel: 609 693 5419) and he recommended I use a gallon of the microbial cleaner Petro-Clean with ½ pound of bugs (which come in sealed pouches). They shipped the product to me with detailed instructions how to use
it.

I applied it as directed and could not believe the results. Before treatment the bilge water was a bit oily( I got some black oil on my fingers). Mike suggested two treatments. For the first treatment at home, I mixed in a 5 gallon bucket 1/2 gal of Petro-Clean with 1/2 gal of warm water and added the necessary microbes provided and then took it to the boat and poured the solution into the bilge. I checked the bilge about 16 hours later and could not believe how clean it was. I did not pick up any black oil on my fingers and it smelled clean and looked clean. The second treatment, which was the same as the first was done three days later.

I noticed that the microbes seemed to eat any oil that was floating on the surface of the water and some of the oil sticks to the wooden surfaces. I discussed this with Mike and his associates and they said that the best thing to do is after adding the microbe solution brush the bilge water which now contains the microbe solution on the wooden surfaces so the microbes come in contact with the wooden surfaces. They reported that this works even in removing oil from concrete surfaces. As Mike told me. “An oil molecule is like an armadillo, so you must scratch the oil to get past the skin so the bugs can work.”

Another way of agitating the bilge water/microbe solution may be to go sailing where movement of boat will put microbes in contact with wooden surfaces.

I was very pleased with the end result and it was well worth the cost of $68

Please let me know if you have any experience in using microbes in removing oil from your bilge and of any suggestions you may have when problems like this arise..

Appreciate your imput.

Joe Slavin, Irish Mist November 2008