Water maker?

Rogerh said:

I have a question in reference to the water makers. It is my understanding that they do not work in brackish water, large bays ect. Is that correct?

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No problem in brackish water. What you want to do is back off on the membrane pressure so your rated output is about what it should be in salt water. As an example: If you have a 24 gallon per hour water maker, your membrane pressure is usually set/rated at 800 psi, if you are in brackish water, adjust the membrane pressure down to get about the same rated out put of 24 gallons per hour.

There a 2 things that will kill a membrane, oil and chlorine. If you stay away from those, you can pretty much make water anywhere.

Larry M said:

No problem in brackish water. What you want to do is back off on the membrane pressure so your rated output is about what it should be in salt water. As an example: If you have a 24 gallon per hour water maker, your membrane pressure is usually set/rated at 800 psi, if you are in brackish water, adjust the membrane pressure down to get about the same rated out put of 24 gallons per hour.

There a 2 things that will kill a membrane, oil and chlorine. If you stay away from those, you can pretty much make water anywhere.

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Thanks, didn't know that.

Perhaps this is a repeat of earlier comments, but my general rule/thoughts are that a watermaker is an expensive nuisance if you are marina hopping in the United States and Canada. More maintenance than time saved filling the tanks. Has marginal value for someone who anchors out almost all the time in the same area, issue is how easy is it to dock the boat and fill up the tanks every week.

Once you leave the US and Canada and venture out the value of a watermaker increases. Ignore the cost of the water in the Bahamas. Unless you are marina hopping the water is more difficult to come by and in some cases requires using jerry jugs. Higher percentage of boaters anchor out in the Bahamas and a higher percentage have watermakers. Don't know about Mexico but I suspect there are good justifications for a watermaker there.

Once you proceed east from the Bahamas the value of a watermaker goes up. There are a few spots where water is easily available, Puerto Rico, much of the Virgins, but getting water is clearly more burdensome.

One major factor we have seen again and again. Water usage on anchoring boats with watermakers appears double that of the boats without watermakers. This alone might justify the cost for some of us.

With that news I guess I need to look into getting our going. When we bought the boat it had a water maker on it but the PO had not used it and had the sea cock capped for it. So I know that it will take quite a few bucks to get it running again but it may be worth it. We are planning a 3 month or so cruise in the spring and it would be great to have both for on the hook and when we are in the Bahamas. I will need to look up what unit I have and see who up here in the pan handle works them.

Rogerh said:

With that news I guess I need to look into getting our going. When we bought the boat it had a water maker on it but the PO had not used it and had the sea cock capped for it. So I know that it will take quite a few bucks to get it running again but it may be worth it. We are planning a 3 month or so cruise in the spring and it would be great to have both for on the hook and when we are in the Bahamas. I will need to look up what unit I have and see who up here in the pan handle works them.

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If your water maker hasn't been used for a year plus, even when pickled, there's a good chance that the membrane (s) may need replacement. You can buy a 2.5" x 40" Dow Filmtec membrane for around $200, that plus changing the oil in the high pressure pump, some pre-filters and a carbon filter for rinsing the system, you should be good to go.

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N4712 said:

I'm not sure... But we use the crap out of ours and are happy with it. Like B&B said the membranes life isn't over at 100 hours that's just how much we've used ours. We take real showers and wash the boat.

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Thank You! - To all who’ve posted info.

BB / N4 - I didn't mean to imply that water maker life ended at 100 hrs. Was just using figures provided; regarding per gallon cost to date from previous thread.

I'm fairly confident that at $8.5K the manufacturer's product use-term intent would well exceed 100 hours... couple 1000's seems plausible.

720GPD = 30GPH. 2000 hrs x 30 = 60,000G. 60,000 :- by $8500 = $0.14 per gallon… not too shabby!

Art said:

Quote:




Thank You! - To all who’ve posted info.

BB / N4 - I didn't mean to imply that water maker life ended at 100 hrs. Was just using figures provided; regarding per gallon cost to date from previous thread.

I'm fairly confident that at $8.5K the manufacturer's product use-term intent would well exceed 100 hours... couple 1000's seems plausible.

720GPD = 30GPH. 2000 hrs x 30 = 60,000G. 60,000 :- by $8500 = $0.14 per gallon… not too shabby!

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That's exactly what we run, 30GPH. I'm sure you don't need the size of unit we have, we sized It for our needs. We also went with Watermakers since they're local and that make life that much easier if somethings wrong.( Nothing has gone wrong yet knock on wood) Check out their website.

You are not factoring in the cost of filters and maintiance in you cost per gallon figure. Nor the cost of the power that needs to be made to run the unit. And the cost to maintain the unit supplying that power.

For $8500 you can buy 17,000 gallons of .50/gal water.

Water makers are great. And if you get the basic models with out a lot of electronic displays and such they can be pretty trouble free. But unless you do a lot of cruising in the boonies, the cost can be hard to justify.

And just a heads up. Pretty much all the of the marine water maker companies do not make anything. They just assemble parts manufactured by someone else to create their water makers.

http://www.svsoggypaws.com/files/presentations/Making_Your_Own_Watermaker-Dave_McCampbell.pps.

Watermaker Parts & Accessories by Cruise RO Water & Power



http://www.westward-ii.com/PDF's/How to build your own watermaker.pdf

Art: In your area you have brown water from the delta and blue/green water offshore. IMO a water maker wont be happy in the brown water but very happy in the clear water offshore. You could anchor in Stillwater cove making water forever.

Capt.Bill11 said:

You are not factoring in the cost of filters and maintiance in you cost per gallon figure. Nor the cost of the power that needs to be made to run the unit. And the cost to maintain the unit supplying that power.

For $8500 you can buy 17,000 gallons of .50/gal water.

Water makers are great. And if you get the basic models with out a lot of electronic displays and such they can be pretty trouble free. But unless you do a lot of cruising in the boonies, the cost can be hard to justify.

And just a heads up. Pretty much all the of the marine water maker companies do not make anything. They just assemble parts manufactured by someone else to create their water makers.

http://www.svsoggypaws.com/files/presentations/Making_Your_Own_Watermaker-Dave_McCampbell.pps.

Watermaker Parts & Accessories by Cruise RO Water & Power



http://www.westward-ii.com/PDF's/How to build your own watermaker.pdf

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Therein lies the "Water Maker" cost factor... I've been questioning!

In my opinion you do not buy a watermaker as a cost justified thing.

You buy one either because you need it due to the unavailibility of water, or as a convience thing.

Like most things on a boat if you try to cost justify a watermaker it probably wont work out.

Watermakers aren't justified by cost or cost savings. In fact they increase your water usage so even comparing to Bahamas rates if you were buying $0.50 per gallon water you'd probably use much less than $0.20 per gallon water. Except for drinking, water isn't a necessity in the strictest sense.

However, in my household it certainly is.

Wifey B: We are totally and complete adverse to being among the less clean and even less pampered. We take long showers. Sometimes when we get distracted in the shower they become very long. Well, we do conserve by always showering together. hehe. We each have certain things that we just don't intend to do without. For some of you it's the cup of coffee. That's one I can't grasp. The yucky hot brown stuff. I'll stick to water. But if that's what it takes to make you feel like you're at home and not sacrificing something important to you then coffee becomes very important. So we might average 40-50 gallons of water per shower and sometimes use 100 and sometimes shower twice a day. Then toss in our guests who are as bad as me. Carmen has waist length hair. Wanna guess how long it takes her to shampoo it? And we're just not going to put ourselves in the situation of having to tell guests you can only shower 5 minutes or something.

Even with marinas, some are easy to fill from. But others not so and not enough connections and the quality of water sometimes is awful. Hard water one day, soft the next. I remember the first hotel we ever stayed in with soft water and thought we were going to run them out of water just rinsing the shampoo out of our hair. With a watermaker and filtration, we control the quality of our water and know what we're getting.

Oh plus we often do laundry while underway.

Back to the OP, due to your large tankage and the need for continued water maker maintenance I would pull the unit, making your boat simpler is a good thing.

Hi All

This is my first post on Trawler Forum!! Been on Bayliner Owners for afew years and have really enjoyed it as I had a Bayliner 4788 96 model which we loved!!
Having stepped up to what I think will be last boat a 68' Horizon 98 model that has a Katadyn 160 water maker I thought I might ask a question.
I have never had a water maker before and have not used this one yet, I have had the boat for a year but have had bigger issues to prioritize with the "get to know your boat" reconditioning process .
The water maker has not been used for at least 2 years, probably more and it has been pickled all that time as I understand.

How long can a water maker stay pickled for?
Can I expect filter issues?

Its a 24 volt enclosed version and it runs as I have quickly turned it on and it fired up.

Any advise in recommisioning the unit would be appreciated.

Thanks

Andrew

andrewf said:

Hi All

This is my first post on Trawler Forum!! Been on Bayliner Owners for afew years and have really enjoyed it as I had a Bayliner 4788 96 model which we loved!!
Having stepped up to what I think will be last boat a 68' Horizon 98 model that has a Katadyn 160 water maker I thought I might ask a question.
I have never had a water maker before and have not used this one yet, I have had the boat for a year but have had bigger issues to prioritize with the "get to know your boat" reconditioning process .
The water maker has not been used for at least 2 years, probably more and it has been pickled all that time as I understand.

How long can a water maker stay pickled for?
Can I expect filter issues?

Its a 24 volt enclosed version and it runs as I have quickly turned it on and it fired up.

Any advise in recommisioning the unit would be appreciated.

Thanks

Andrew

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Run it and see what it does.

I have the same model and it stays pickled for 6 months during winter. All I do is run it for a while to get it going.

Thanks for that , yep I will just fire it up and see how it goes. I actually found your detailed start up procedure on another post by coincidence and have printed it out as a guide.

By the way I had a look at your boat on your website...that is one nice 4788! They are a great boat.

As Kevin says, run it and see what happens.

The manufacturers usually say to re-pickle the membrane annually, at least. If the membrane does need replacement, you can buy a new Dow Filmtec replacement, for your unit, for less than $200. Also, get a TDS monitor (less than $25). I's one of the best tools for you and your water maker.

andrewf said:

Thanks for that , yep I will just fire it up and see how it goes. I actually found your detailed start up procedure on another post by coincidence and have printed it out as a guide.

By the way I had a look at your boat on your website...that is one nice 4788! They are a great boat.

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Andrew

It makes me and all other 4788 owners feel good that our migration path, if we choose, is to a vessel like that 68' you moved up to. Nice Boat!!

Thanks for that advise I guess I wont know id the membrane is ok until I give it a run. I intend to run it over the summer break this year to see if we can avoid looking for water. We live aboard for around 10 weeks at this time of year.
Having had many boats in my life since my father started my "footitis" when gave me a tiny Sabot yacht when I was 10!, 20 odd boats later we are good at conserving water!

But with the bigger boat now and having guests on board frequently, including grand children, and land lovers,it is very hard to control water consumption.

I am constantly telling people how to shower and stop rinsing dishes.

I don't know if my little 80 model water maker will keep up but as it runs on 24Volt it can run 24/7 if needed...we don't need to run genset full time unless we need aircon as our fridges are eutectic.

Thanks for your comments Kevin, yes we really thought the Bayliner was our perfect boat , perfect for two with the odd guests but with 4 kids plus grandies we felt the big step up would be better for our lifestyle so kids could occasionally stay. Its worked well for us. I must say that it is very hard to find a boat that is affordable to step up to after the 4788 as they offer so much for the money.

The Horizon 68 has really filled the bill for us.

...thanks again

Happy Christmas

Andrew

andrewf said:

we are good at conserving water!

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Wifey B: I'm lousy at it and no intent of getting any better...ever...

I can't imagine life without a watermaker. Fewer showers, wearing dirty clothes, things like that just aren't an option. The only thing I do toward conserving water is shower with my hubby but then sometimes that has the opposite effect as ..... nevermind why.