Dry bilge??? Raise your hand.....

[mvweebles]

Recent thread on a boat with DDs that spilled a slight sheen with TowBoat US asking for an astronomical cleanup fee got me thinking.

What percentage of boats run a dry bilge? As in not a drop of anything? It's been an expensive and hard fought goal for me. But I have a small engine with decent access (at least for a 36 footer).

How many dry bilges out there? Thoughts?

Peter

 

[SteveK]

My GB36 was dry except when it rained and that was traced to the Laz hatches.
My Bayliner pumps about 5 gallons average, 5 times in the last 7 days. So far that appears to be from shaft stuffing boxes after use. Less is pumped as days pass without running engines. This has not reached the top of the priority list to resolve.

 

[DDW]

Yeah, dry except for occasional coolant leaks. Seem to keep chasing those. They are caught by the engine pan.

 

[Serene]

Dry like this?

 

[Delta Riverat]

Not me, packing leaks. But boat is getting hauled next month and new packing is on the list.

It is clean though, drip pans with absorbent under both engines and gears and I dump in a quart of cleaner right where the glands are. No sheen when the bilge pump dumps.

 

[tiltrider1]

My packing drips on use like it is designed to do. I place oil absorbing pads under the engines and other strategic potential leak areas. I rarely find oil stains on the pads. You won’t normally find any oil sheen in my bilge. However, if water level reached my oil absorbing pads I can’t be certain there wouldn’t be some sheen in the bilge. One drop of oil in a bilge can look very substantial.

 

[Max1]

Wet bilge here.
Absorbant pads and socks used.

Like others, packing glad does drip. I definitely need a pad under the drop because just the small amount of packing lube (syntef) causes the drip to be oily

 

[Comodave]

I have a Dry Bilge system that works pretty well. It has a pickup with a sponge in it that absorbs the water and then the pump sucks the water out of the sponge. You can program it to come on multiple times a day and run for a set number of minutes. I have it drain into the shower sump so it gets pumped overboard.

 

[boomerang]

I have a Dry Bilge system that works pretty well. It has a pickup with a sponge in it that absorbs the water and then the pump sucks the water out of the sponge. You can program it to come on multiple times a day and run for a set number of minutes. I have it drain into the shower sump so it gets pumped overboard.

The po of our current boat has the same setup and it works really well. The only modification I made was I did away with the automatic switch and occasionally turn the pump on manually. The thing is a little annoying when in comes on randomly.

 

[twistedtree]

Dry and clean. If anything shows up in the bilge, it's because of a problem.

 

[ranger58sb]

How many dry bilges out there? Thoughts?

We're close. We apparently have an occasional water mini-puddle that dries out faster than I've been able to track source... but I'm hoping that's the last one. Can't yet tell whether fresh or salt.

-Chris

 

[mvweebles]

Dry and clean. If anything shows up in the bilge, it's because of a problem.

Problem identification was my motivation too.. First decade of boat ownership had me believing accumulated water with inevitable layers of sludge (bottom of pool) and oil were unavoidable. About 20 years ago, a friend told me "there's no such thing as an acceptable leak on a boat."

Also has the benefit of greatly reducing boat odors (though some of that is due to going with a compost head.....I know, seems counterintuitive, but that's what happens).

Peter

 

[rslifkin]

I keep my bilge as dry as practical. So unless I've cleaned it out recently and not removed the last bits of water, the engine room bilge is dry. The aft bilge always has a tiny bit of water due to stuffing box drips and an occasional drip from the rudder packing underway. Plus there's not much access to dry things out back there.

I have separated areas under the engines as drip pans (which also have oil absorbing pads in them), a drip pan under the generator, and I keep a piece of oil pad floating in the bilge to catch anything that might make it down there. So it's pretty easy to keep the bilges clean and oil-free.

 

[w8n4sun]

Dry and clean. If anything shows up in the bilge, it's because of a problem.

This for us as well. No liquids allowed in our bilges and the search for the source can be challenging at times.

 

[Trawlerdream]

I have a Dry Bilge system that works pretty well. It has a pickup with a sponge in it that absorbs the water and then the pump sucks the water out of the sponge. You can program it to come on multiple times a day and run for a set number of minutes. I have it drain into the shower sump so it gets pumped overboard.

I’m interested. Do you have a link to supplier.of that system?

 

[Slo-Mocean]

Dry and clean enough to eat off thanks to a freshly refinished/rerigged bilge with 2 brand new motors and gears complete with new PSS dripless seals. Rudder posts are located in a separate watertight lazaret with the packing above the waterline.

 

[Comodave]

I’m interested. Do you have a link to supplier.of that system?

[/https://www.seaflo.us/product/dry-bilge-system/

 

[Hydraulicjump]

Bone dry. And when not bone dry, I begin the obsessive hunt for the culprit, no matter how small. The builder of the boat is amused by my obsession with a dry bilge, pointing out that a bilge is designed to collect various liquids that inevitably find their way into a boat. But experience says, the source of a funky smell is either the head or the bilge or in the worst case, both. And I hate the funk.

My leak OCD has located small ones in the water pump, the hot water tank relief valve, the rudder shaft packing gland, and a mysterious leak from the anchor locker ( have a dripless shaft). I think I have fixed them all with the exception of the water heater. I replaced the relief valve and it still occasionally discharges, now into a small bucket which I empty now and then. It appears that my water heater overheats when on shorepower. With no way to adjust it I am stuck with the bucket solution.

Headed up to Seattle to check on the boat next week and am expecting a dry funk-free bilge. Fingers crossed.

 

[rslifkin]

My leak OCD has located small ones in the water pump, the hot water tank relief valve, the rudder shaft packing gland, and a mysterious leak from the anchor locker ( have a dripless shaft). I think I have fixed them all with the exception of the water heater. I replaced the relief valve and it still occasionally discharges, now into a small bucket which I empty now and then. It appears that my water heater overheats when on shorepower. With no way to adjust it I am stuck with the bucket solution.

The fix for this is to put a pressure tank (like the ones used as an accumulator tank after the water pump) in the system between the water heater inlet and the check valve that keeps it from back-feeding to the cold side was water heats up and expands. Set the pre-charge pressure just below your water pump cut-off pressure. That will allow more room for the hot water to expand so you don't reach the relief valve pressure.

 

[Hydraulicjump]

Thanks. Not to hijack the thread, but I am not sure I have seen said check valve. Just a cold water inlet and a hot water outlet, both coming out of the heater, along with the relief valve. Will look again when on the boat next week.

 

[Hydraulicjump]

It is a Whale F1100W, 11 gallon heater, by the way.

 

[Hydraulicjump]

really useful discussion on Cruisers Forum of this issue. Time to get an accumulator tank I guess.

https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f115/leaking-relief-valve-on-water-heater-200050.html

 

[SteveK]

I’m interested. Do you have a link to supplier.of that system?

https://www.seaflo.us/product/dry-bilge-system/

wonder where the idea came from
https://panbo.com/a-dry-bilge-for-50/

 

[Don L]

How many dry bilges out there? Thoughts?

Peter

Not me and I long ago gave up. Think I only tried the first week with my first boat.

 

[Northern Spy]

wonder where the idea came from
https://panbo.com/a-dry-bilge-for-50/

Other way around. Reverse engineered.

 

[Nick F]

Dry and clean. If anything shows up in the bilge, it's because of a problem.

Me, too.

Drip trays under engines - no way that oily residue should go into general bilge - noone should be set up like that.

If water does get leaked into bilge the bilge pumps would remove large amounts and final (bone dry bilge) achieved with a shop vac in my case.

 

[Bmarler]

I finally got a dry bilge on my last boat, then promptly sold it. I aspire to reach dry bilge status again, and have made large gains, but there’s still more to do.

 

[rgano]

I ran the bilges in my woodie Grand Banks 42 with twin FL 120s and an Onan genny pretty much dusty dry after I shifted to dripless packing glands in the first 5-6 years of ownership, and for a woodie that was a feat indeed! After the switch, I learned how to track the contributors to any wetness like seeps between the hull strakes and rudder posts needing repacking. I hauled it every eighteen months to guard against teredo damage and learned to mark all wet seams under the boat with chalk for the caulker guy - maybe 10% of the hull every time. After a couple of decades of continuing effort, even rain did not contribute to wetness in the bilges.

Now my fiberglass Mainship returns to the slip with a dry bilge from every run, and the oil drip on the Yanmar's number one injector piping pass-through at the head has been resealed to eliminate that source of drips. It's hard and even expensive being zero-defect oriented where a bilge is concerned but very satisfying once you achieve the desired dry end state.

 

[Barking Sands]

My bilge gets fresh water when it rains from the rail stanchions and a few other spots. I added a home made dry bilge system in late 2020. It worked great until last month when the cheap pump died. I replaced all the components again for less than $60 (same timer) and made a few improvements. The bilge stays dry 98% of the time and when it does get a bit of fresh water after a rain its gone within a few hours.

Since the bilge stays essentially dry the main bilge pumps and float switches stay in good shape. I just manually check them every few weeks.

As for the fresh water leaks, I am slowly chasing them down. But the current set up is perfectly acceptable for me.

When under way I get minimal sea water that is again dealt with by the dry bilge system just after shutdown.

 

[fgarriso]

We have dripless shaft seals so that stays dry. The engines have large drip pans under them will oil dry pads and they stay dry with a change of pads every once in awhile.