bilge pump which one?

[B~C]

Boy I hear you about that confounded autopump keeping you awake at nights. Lots of good ideas above.
Being cheap, I spent $9 on a water alarm at Home depot, if it gets wet it lets out a heck of a squall. I stuck it in the bilge and turned the pump off. That worked for a bit but, being a worry wart, I went on to install the second bilge pump mounted on a piece of aluminum angle mounted accross the fuel tank stops. Ran the discharge as Roger did. I glued a piece of wood in the battery compartment to mount the on/off/auto switch on. The set up works good but it's mounted a bit high and leaves a fair bit of water in the cockpit.

[flapbreaker]

Mine came with a Rule 1100 pump in the cabin and one between the fuel tanks. The one in the cabin will come on by itself or a switch. The one in the stern will only come on when a couple inches of water accumulate. This drives me bonkers so I want to install a switch on that one. When fishing I seem to be stern heavy so that's where the water pools. Seems like it should trigger before it actually does.

[Almas Only]

I've installed a second bilge pump on our 22, in the floor depression between the fuel tanks. Here are a few particulars that might be of use to others:

Forget mounting screws, brackets, etc. Just use 4200 to bond the bottom of the pump's plastic strainer basket to the floor. Has worked for two years, and never come loose. The pump comes loose from the plastic bottom whenever I need to clean the metal strainer.

There's no way you're ever going to pump out all the water from the rear sump. Two factors are at work. First, the pump will start drawing air, and quit pumping, while there's still some water in the sump. There's nothing you can do about this. Second, once the water in the discharge line stops flowing overboard, all the water that's left in the "up" leg of the line will flow back into the sump. The only way to handle backflow, absent a check valve, is to reduce the amount of water in the line. There are three things you can do here. First, keep the line as short as possible. Cut the length of the "up" leg in half, and you've cut the amount of backflow in half. Second, get a pump with the smallest outlet port available. That way, you use smaller diameter hose, and have less water in the hose, waiting to flow back into the sump. Reducing the hose diameter by 1/2 reduces the amount of water by a factor of 4. Finally, as a variant of the second approach, use an adaptor/reducer to reduce the size of the hose. Either way, you're trading off flow rate for volume of return water. That's OK with me, since my purpose in installing the pump in the first place was to get rid of a small amount of water. If I want a backup, high volume, emergency pump, I'll install that separately.

I've wired a bilge pump "kill switch" for the second pump, at the helm station. That way, if the "kill" is engaged, throwing the bilge switch on the main switch panel will only activate the main pump, at the aft of the cabin. With the "kill" disengaged, throwing the main switch powers both pumps.

As somewhat of an aside, after years of getting annoyed at the water that accumulates in the two sumps when the boat is on the trailer, I took a lesson from my dad, and put a small strip (1 inch by 12 inches) of rag in each wet area, and use it to wick the water out. The main bilge sump wicks up onto the deck, and then drains toward the rear sump. The rear wick wets in the rear sump, and goes on through the drain plug hole, with a tail hanging down outside the boat. You have to be careful that the wicks don't end up plugging the drain hole, but so long as you're careful on sizing, and secure the ends, these wicks keep the sumps bone dry when you're on the hard.

[Not For Hire]

Say Dave,

Dad's idea sounds like a good one. I usually have enough of a tilt to my trailer that it stays dry. But, do you think the rag strip would work in the motor well? There is always a pool of water in the motor well as my scuppers are set 1/2 inch or so above the motor well deck.

Regards,

Mark

[Sea Wolf]

Sorry to horn in here, but thought of an idea that might help....

The scuppers/drain holes are about 1/2" above the bottom of the motor well because they cannot be mounted lower due to the curvature at the interface between the bottom of the back necessary for the well's release from the mold in manufacturing, and also because the curvaturre is necessary for cosmetic reasons.

I'll bet that water that accumulates at rest can be evaporated out of there with a wick system, but since a wick or rag would be akward, I'd suggest using a piece of felt surfaced indoor/outdoor carpet instead.

A piece 6'-12' wide and long enough to fit entirely accross the motor well will displace most of the water with it's ribber backing directly, and the front felt side would wick away the rest.

I've noticed this works well on the floor of my 22 where the whole area is covered with carpet that helps wick away that bothersome rainwater that gravitates forward. This works for small amounts of rain, but larger amounts take more serious action.

Just a passing thought!

Joe.

[Almas Only]

Forgot to mention the motor well. The wick approach works great there. If you want to have some fun, let about one foot of wick dangle down outside the boat, and watch gravity do it's work. That wick will suck the well bone dry in no time at all. After a while, the wicks get black with mold, at which point you just pitch them, and insert another.


Let me know how it works for you.

[MOOSE]

I just found a little 3 gpm Shurflo diaphragm pump for about $80 at www.northerntool.com . Of course, it wouldn't be of much help if one took a wave over the stern, but I'm just looking for something to vacuum up what little water usually collects in the aft sump. The inlet and outlet are only 1/2" diameter. But I like the idea of a diaphragm pump to limit the amount of back drainage that occurs with a conventional centrifugal bilge pump.
Al

[SEA3PO]

What I do for that little bit that is always at the bottom....is we use a kids toy water gusher with a tube stuck in the small end..... that way it sucks up all the water from the bottom of the sump and ya just squirt it over the side..... costs just a few dollars.. and is still useable as a squirter if your neighbors get rowdy.

Joel
SEA3PO

[rogerbum]

Joel,

I do a similar thing - I use a manual bilge pump for the last few drops. The manual bilge pump costs a bit more than a squirt toy boy is also useful if I lose electrical power AND is useful for drawing raw water for cleanups too.

[mikeporterinmd]

I've been thinking about using a diaphragm pump and a water witch
switch http://www.waterwitchinc.com/product_sheet/bilge_switchsheet.html

I'll probably use a bronze pickup and of course the pump will be mounted
higher.

I will mount this in the little galley 'bildge' area.

The Rule "automatic" pumps just don't hold up, and then there is
that little start every few minutes. Actually, I shouldn't say the
Rule doesn't hold up. The previous owner replaced the pump, but
not the bottom. So, they never really fit together well, and crap got
into the pump. Didn't realize that until it burned up. But, pumps
are not supposed to burn up.

A CD-22 doesn't seem to generally take on water, so if I do take a
wave over the stern, I'm thinking I'm going to use the trash can as
pump! I also have a decent manual pump on board.

Aft canvas keeps the rain out while in the slip.

Mike