Do you leave your water pump on???

When away from the boat for any real length of time I typically turn off the potable water pump and the water heater.

My new watermaker is going to have a autoflush feature and the manufacturer recommends using the pressurized potable water system for that.

Do you leave your pressurized water on when away from the boat?

The next question is why, either way?

At a home I have a well. I never turn that off when I leave the house, why the big fuss with the boat? I've never had a unattended leak on either my boat or my house.

Most people I'd say turn them off. For many obvious reasons.

But in your case if you are going to be away from the boat for weeks at a time you might want to leave it on for your water maker. I doubt you carry enough fresh water to sink your boat if it develops a leak. B

I have about 300 gallons of fresh water in tanks. I do not have a water maker. If I leave my fresh water system energized and I lose a hose connection or a hose breaks, etc, I lose about 300 gallons into the bilge. No big deal because 300 gallons in the bilge, should my bilge pump also fail, isn't the end of the world. The boat will still float.

I don't know how your water maker is set up. However, I can imagine this happening if I owned it....

My fresh water system provides pressured water to my water maker, but instead of back flushing and making water for storage, my broken system is sending it straight to the bilge. Murphy's law takes over and "disables" my bilge pump. My next visit to the boat will give me a good view of the top of the pilot house...

I don't leave my water pressured up. In fact, I don't leave any DC current in the boat while I'm away.

Capt.Bill11 said:

Most people I'd say turn them off. For many obvious reasons.

But in your case if you are going to be away from the boat for weeks at a time you might want to leave it on for your water maker. I doubt you carry enough fresh water to sink your boat if it develops a leak. B

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We turn off the pressure water every time we leave the boat. Along with the WH and the head pumps. City water can sink your boat. Been a case or two in the marina here.

We leave our pump on as we also have a autoflush feature. Our pump has a feature where it senses no load on the pump (running dry) and shuts it's down. So nothing is put into risk.

I don't think it's a good idea to leave mine on. I have no water maker at this time, of course that is a non-issue. If there is a small leak, the pump will continue to cycle to keep the pressure up. Eventually, all the water in the tanks will be pumped out. Then the pump will burn up. We have been off the boat for several months due medical issues. I turn off the dock water & water pump along with most electrical equipment that will not be needed while I'm away.

Giggitoni said:

I have about 300 gallons of fresh water in tanks. I do not have a water maker. If I leave my fresh water system energized and I lose a hose connection or a hose breaks, etc, I lose about 300 gallons into the bilge. No big deal because 300 gallons in the bilge, should my bilge pump also fail, isn't the end of the world. The boat will still float.

I don't know how your water maker is set up. However, I can imagine this happening if I owned it....

My fresh water system provides pressured water to my water maker, but instead of back flushing and making water for storage, my broken system is sending it straight to the bilge. Murphy's law takes over and "disables" my bilge pump. My next visit to the boat will give me a good view of the top of the pilot house...

I don't leave my water pressured up. In fact, I don't leave any DC current in the boat while I'm away.

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Back flushing a water maker does not make water. It just flushes the system.

And 300 gallons of fresh water leaking into your bilge from you water tanks will not sink your boat let alone even change the level of your water line. At least until it's pumped out.

We turn off the dock presure water when ever we leave the boat. A big leak with the dock water connected can sink the boat. However, if we are on our own tank water then we leave it on. 200 gallons will not sink the boat and if we have a line break our pump will detect it and shut down after a few minutes. At least that is what the manual says.

Capt.Bill11 said:

And 300 gallons of fresh water leaking into your bilge from you water tanks will not sink your boat let alone even change the level of your water line. At least until it's pumped out.

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I was gonna say the same thing!!!! Water in your tank is still onboard your boat...no different than in the bilge!!!!....hahaha!!!

Anyway, I do not have the feature that shuts my pump down so if it sprung a leak, I do not want my pump to burn up. So I shut it off.

With that said, I have a guy that is pretty good with AC and refrigeration. He has rebuilt my ice maker twice. He bascially asked me, "What the hell are you doing to that thing???!!!! The gears are plastic and there is basically a pile of plastic dust under where the gears used to be.". Anyway, I would turn my fresh water supply off without turning off the icemaker. The icemaker would continue to try to make ice and would run continuously. So for those with an icemaker if you turn your pump off....either turn the icemaker off or lift the little arm up to keep it from running.

We turn the pressure water pump off as soon as we finish using it. A small leak can cause it to cycle and draw your batteries down. Should the system fail, my bilge pumps would pump the water over the side. Even if my bilge pumps failed (I have three independent pumps), I don't carry enough water to fill the bilge. Since the water is already on the boat it cannot sink the boat. I do not connect to marina water. I just use my hose to fill my tanks as needed. I don't have shore power or a generator, so my water heater is always off (it only heats water when the boat is underway).

If we're leaving the boat alone overnight we will turn off the water pump and water heater. Otherwise they stay on at all times. What we don't do is hookup to city water. We always run of our water tanks.

I shut mine off whenever I'm not using it. If I spring a leak the pump will continue to run until it dies. I don't hook up to city water very often, either. I've got a leaky water heater I need to bypass.

I shut mine off if I am away for the day. We are also hooked up to city water and the standing rule is away from the boat for more than an hour, the water is shut off. Friend of mine just about lost his boat to city water.

Almost Every post on here mirrors the traditional thinking I have been using.

We do not hook up to dock water. Never ever. We fill our tanks with dock water.

So... I turn off my pump so that if I do spring a leak it will not ruin my pump.

I am not worried about my boat sinking because there is zero difference between 200 gallons of fresh water in my bilge (if my several bilge pumps all failed) and that same 200 gallons in my tanks.

In over 15 years of boating my potable water system has never sprung a leak though. Never.

I bought the auto flush feature on my new watermaker. That way I do not have to A. leave a seacock open so the watermaker can keep itself clean, or B pickle the thing every time I leave the boat for a couple of weeks.

I guess I'll just overcome my now clearly unfounded fear of leaving my water pump on and enjoy the benefits of the new watermaker.

Alaskan Sea-Duction said:

I shut mine off if I am away for the day. We are also hooked up to city water and the standing rule is away from the boat for more than an hour, the water is shut off. Friend of mine just about lost his boat to city water.

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Yea, that's why we won't hookup. Can't forget then either.

Personally, I turn my water pump off along with most everything else when I am not on board. I never use dock water for pressurizing the internal system, only to fill my own tanks. I would ask what is triggering the "auto-flush" system on your watermaker? If your water maker is off then it should not trigger or require flushing. Are you running the water maker when you are not on the boat?
Just FYI a small leak say 1 gal per minute which is similar to a tank flush valve in your house not sealing all the way will drop 1,440 gals of water a day. If it drops it in a boat that is 6 tons of weight.

Ok, just a little FYI on watermakers.

They require either flusing or pickling when not in use for more than a few days.

Thats because the organic matter present in sea water starts to rot. Once all the oxygen is used up then anerobic bacteria starts taking over. This anerobic bacteria is hard on watermaker membranes.

pickling is basically flushing the system with a anti bacteria agent.

Regular flushing keeps fresh oxygenated water in the system, so anerobic bacteria cannot grow.

An auto flush system turns on your boost pump for 3-4 minutes every 5 days or so to automatiically flush the system.

I left my boat with the water on for about 70 hours once. When I returned, i found a 4 x 6 delaminated section of my companionway wall soaked with water. While I was away, the original hose on the cold water side of shower popped off and pumped 300 gallons over top the shower cabinet and into the walls. I was sick about it. I pealed off the veneer and was surprised to find the plywood unaffected. With no way to match the original veneer, I framed the area and dropped in a 4 x 6 fiberglass mirror which does nothing but reflect the surrounding teak in the companionway. Other than lightening the area a bit, the feeling remained unchanged and no one has noticed. Lesson learned.

We always turn off the water pump when leaving the boat. It's no burden considering all the other switches that need to be switched. Two-hundred gallons of water in the shallow bilge could cause damage if the sump pump failed to work.

We turned off the dock water when away, but leave the water pump on. In our case, to feed the very nice Scotsman ice maker that makes "real" bar ice, not "frozen ice". I guess if were going to be away a real long time, more than a few days, we'd turn it off.

Your system should have run dry protection either built into the pump or the external pressure switch.

We turned the dock water off merely because it is easy to do; it shouldn't be an issue in a well maintained and properly configured system and I was never uptight if I forgot to do it. You don't turn it off to your house do you?

No Mast said:

Yea, that's why we won't hookup. Can't forget then either.

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Sometimes its a contest over which has better pressure. But as a liveaboard I like the convenience of dock water.

There are flow restrictors that will cut the flow of water after a preset value so as to prevent you from sinking your boat with dock water.

I turn everything off except the battery charger and the auto bilge pumps

I do turn the water off to my house when not in residence especially during the winter months. Furthermore, I now REQUIRE my water customers to turn their's off when not in residence during winter months. I am now too old to spend my winters walking up ice slick mountains looking at water meters to find leaks in unattended homes.

I have two pumps, a 110v (high pressure and flow rate) and 12v. If I remember, I turn off the 110v, when I remember, mostly because I am not sure it won't be damaged or ruined by running dry, but do leave on the 12v.

I need the water for ice cube makers, as well was water maker flushing. And it can be a PIA to re-prime.

My biggest concern in leaving on even the 12v pump is developing a leak and doing damage to the floors or other woodwork. One time our cocktail ice maker developed a major leak, and even though we were on board at least 30 gallons poured out before we noticed. The boat holds 300 gallons of freshwater in two tanks, a 100 gallon main tank, which is gravity fed by a 200 gallon reserve tank. I keep the reserve tank feed valve closed, in part to limit the worst case if something goes wrong while I am not on board.

We always turn off the fresh water pump (along with every other DC powered device) when we leave the boat. We've had a fresh water pump develolp a problem with it's own pressure-holding switch so it would cycle on briefly every few minutes. Lived with it for a couple of years (turning the water pump off at night) but finally got around to changing out the pump a few months ago. But we still turn the pump off when we're not using the boat.

We've also had a plasic in-line water filter break while we were on the boat and this caused the pump to run continuously. We had a spare filter so this was an easy fix although it occured while we on someone elses's boat for the evening and only learned of this when I went back to our boat to get something and found the bilge pump cycling on and off.

While it's true a few hundred gallons of fresh water in the bilge won't change the weight of the boat or sink it, it could get things wet that you don't want wet if the bilge pump(s) fail to take care of it.

The only thing we leave on 24/7/365 is the refrigerator but it's AC/DC. The bilge pump is not connected to the DC panel so turning off all the breakers and the DC master does not affect the bilge pump.

Don't have a need for a watermaker so don't know how its requirements might change our current procedures.

When not at the boat I turn off everything except the separately fused auto bilge pumps. When at a marina, I do the same except also leave the battery charger on.

Ken

Geeez Kevin...like you said...a well maintained boat "probably" will never have a problem.


You have bilge pumps that are powered indefinitely through battery charging...and even the smallest keeps up with a fresh water pump/sysem.


Fresh water pups ca run and have for many days if not months and I have never heard of one starting a fire...they are designed to run dry.


PLUS!!!!!! You are way cool and have your boat monitored via the internet...so you should at any point be able to ta in and see if something is wrong.


Leave it on and just ensure the backups you have...nothing wrong with conventional wisdom in the boating world...I just find it based on very limited real life experience.

I would never connect to dock water. I just use it to fill the tanks. I visit the boat every other day, its only 2 miles away, so I leave most house stuff on including the water pump simply for convenience. The water pump is needed for autoflush of the watermaker. Were I planning to be away for any length of time then I would turn more things off.

All my systems were upgraded or replaced at refit so I have confidence in the wiring and system integrity. Thinking back to the condition of stuff when I bought the boat, with all kinds of poor R&M by the PO and his car mechanic employee then I would still be doing what some above are. It comes down to what you know you can rely on and trust on an old boat.

But I do have the nav stuff off, so am not broadcasting AIS at the dock amongst other things. Anything related to running the engines or being underway is off also, such as the compressor for the air horn. Its loud enough to wake me with a start if I am overnighting.

ksanders said:

Ok, just a little FYI on watermakers.

They require either flusing or pickling when not in use for more than a few days.

Thats because the organic matter present in sea water starts to rot. Once all the oxygen is used up then anerobic bacteria starts taking over. This anerobic bacteria is hard on watermaker membranes.

pickling is basically flushing the system with a anti bacteria agent.

Regular flushing keeps fresh oxygenated water in the system, so anerobic bacteria cannot grow.

An auto flush system turns on your boost pump for 3-4 minutes every 5 days or so to automatiically flush the system.

Click to expand...

Ok, I need water maker lessons here.
- If you are gone from the boat does the water maker not sit idle?
- If sea water is the only source of anaerobic bacteria why, once all the sea water is removed, do you need to continuously flush?

Now the Rube Goldberg assists Red Green part:
If the flush occurs at regular intervals and for a specific time, could you not install a timer in the pump circuit to coincide with the flush?

Also, some insurance policies might have something to say about equipment during prolonged absences.