Water Pressure Pump

[Sandero]

These pumps like Shurflo are not terribly expensive and if they last 5 years it's not much per day or week. Keep a spare... use filters... replace as needed.

[Dockhead]

So I just snipped a couple of turns out of the spring in the pressure switch, and Bob's my new uncle. The pump has a high quality sound, which is encouraging. Maybe it will last longer than the Jabsco. I'm afraid that with the higher flow rate and pressure, my water consumption will go up sharply.

Just have to solve a small leak from one connection and I'm done.

I sure hate the amount of time this cost me -- killed about one full day or even more of screwing around with this. "Boat repair in exotic places" -- truer words were never spoken

[a64pilot]

I plan on a water maker, I already have a fresh water spigot one in the cockpit and one on the bow, I rinse the anchor chain off with fresh water as it comes up.
I think this will help with corrosion, and if you have the water, why not?
Tellie convinced me long ago that if I keep the salt off of the mechanical's on deck, it will save me in the long run, and I believe him, cause I know what happens to Scuba gear if you don't rinse the salt off.

Dock, I'm surprised, you don't have two water makers?

[Omatako]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

We are certainly no water Nazis, but we have not reached your level of water nirvana. I don't have a water maker yet as these years I'm never as much as a week away from a port. We have 1000 liters on board and that lasts at least a week.

I guess that qualifies me as a "water Nazi". 1000 litres in a week - you must have "stand under" showers? Washing machine? That's about 170l a day. On my boat, that's considered very luxurious.

We also load 1000 litres but on a trans-Pac voyage where good water was known to not be available, we have stretched our water to nearly five weeks. That doesn't include drinking/cooking for which we used bottled stock so essentially the tanks are used for just showers/personal hygiene. Still, that's nearly 30l a day, I think that's quite a lot

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I plan on a water maker, I already have a fresh water spigot one in the cockpit and one on the bow, I rinse the anchor chain off with fresh water as it comes up.
I think this will help with corrosion, and if you have the water, why not?
Tellie convinced me long ago that if I keep the salt off of the mechanical's on deck, it will save me in the long run, and I believe him, cause I know what happens to Scuba gear if you don't rinse the salt off.

Dock, I'm surprised, you don't have two water makers?

I don't even have one .

My boat has a special compartment for the water maker, pre-plumbed and pre-wired for it, even with space for a day tank.

But no watermaker, because I don't need it at this point, and if I installed it, it would only deteriorate.

But some day . . .



Concerning washing down with fresh water -- I completely agree with you. Sea water is pretty hostile to hardware. I already lost one windlass motor to corrosion .. . .

[poiu]

Originally Posted by typhoon

You can turn any pump into a domestic water pump with these, or you can save a good pump with a bad switch . The Square Ds last forever , I have seen some of them still working after sitting outside for 20 years !

Regards

I've got one, two actually. The old one was removed as it was so rusty I thought it would die at any moment. Now cleaned up as a spare. I run as 30 to 40psi. No need for more.

[Dockhead]

I spent hours last night getting rid of a small drip on the pressure side connection

In case it might benefit someone else, I'll describe the problem, and the solution.

These pumps have spigot connectors with o-rings, which are locked into place with a sliding plate. Jabscos and Johnsons and probably others have the same connectors.

This damned thing leaked. I guess the seat was slightly out of spec or something, because it leaked with the Jabsco spigot, and leaked just the same with the Johnson one.

I first tried building up the o-ring with teflon tape. Didn't work, no matter how thick I made it (and if it overlaps either side, you won't be able to get the locking plate into place). It looked like it should have worked, but it didn't.

I tried several different o-rings -- nada.

Then the light bulb went off in my head -- I built up the GROOVE in the spigot, in which the o-ring rests, with the teflon tape, UNDER the o-ring, to force the o-ring outwards.

Bingo! No more drips.

[botanybay]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Check out the shurflo aqua king II 5.0
I have been very pleased with mine, from a durability perspective none of these pumps will last like a Jabsco diaphragm pump, their downside is noise and the water seems as if it's coming from a pulsating shower head, I keep a spare at all times with the idea of overhauling the busted one and placing it in spares

https://youtu.be/JPMqR5owfv0

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Just installed one of the shurflow aqua king II 5.0 (24V version) on my boat. There were some comments that the pump was noisy online and only decided to go with this pump because none of the jabsco pumps were available at the time. Went ahead and spun the wheel (purchased the extended warrantee to 5 years) and we shall see.

The pump seems to be reasonably well built and is now quiet after some changes to the installation.

Specifically:
1) I did not like the small mesh strainer hanging off the pump out directly from the side of the pump head. Looked like a vibration induced fracture waiting to happen. I much prefer the Jabsco strainer which mounts on the side of the pumphead up close and can rotate around the axis with the hose coming off at 90 degrees. Very unlikely to induce problems.

2) provided inlet lines are 1/2" which appears to be too small for this pump, especially on the inlet side.

Luckily I had the 3/4" replacement inlet parts left over from helping someone else install a new shurflow water pump so after verifying that the pump worked with the 1/2" lines (and it was noisy, looks like cavitation issues in the pumphead) I plumbed the inlet with 3/4" line, used a nice groco 3/4" inline mesh filter, provided a 180 degree turn into the pump which I wrapped in pipe insulation prior to cable tying down gently.

The output line got the same treatment, 3/4" hose directly to the 22mm mainline manifold on the boat, an extra 360 degree turn about 15 inches across covered with foam used to insulate lines at home and then mounted the hose about half way through the turn to a stringer.

At this point the pump is nearly silent. It is under the floorboards and if there is any other noise on the boat it is definitely not noticeable.

Currently on a 1 week vacation with the boat (which is why I had to use the available pump rather than wait for the unknown time for the pump I wanted to show up) So far so good.

This pump is considerably larger than the 3gpm belt driven jabsco which was on the boat before. I had the replace the top diaphragm (which I had a spare of) but decided to check the dampners in the bottom of the pump and in the process of re-installing cracked the case on the 30 year old pump. oops... That will teach me to "just to be sure" when it is a few days before a boating vacation.

So far, very happy with the Shurflow. The bypass a small amount of water from the outlet to the inlet at high pressure does appear to keep the pump from struggling as it comes up to pressure and tends to cycle less during a shower.

I would really love to use the variable speed pumps but I have had too many fail on previous vessels. I did se that Jabsco now has an EXTERNAL variable speed controller which works on most pumps (12v and 24v) which costs about 100 USD. Might be an interesting option.

There is a note with the pump not to use it with a reverse osmosis system, probably will tend to keep the pump running due to the low flow rate.

Will update after I have some liveaboard time on the pump.

[a64pilot]

I thought .5 inch rather small for a 5 GPM pump too, but as my boat is plumbed with .5", it was either stay with .5" or do a major replumb.
Mine is installed just the way it came, has been about a yr now? Time will tell, I still have the old diaphragm pump and a spare Shurflo.


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[botanybay]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

I thought .5 inch rather small for a 5 GPM pump too, but as my boat is plumbed with .5", it was either stay with .5" or do a major replumb.
Mine is installed just the way it came, has been about a yr now? Time will tell, I still have the old diaphragm pump and a spare Shurflo.


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I suspect that just changing the inlet side from the tank to the pump to be 3/4" may be enough to quiet the pump down considerably.

I see that square D pump switch mentioned previously, may install one as the backup for overpressure. I have had pumps fail with the pump on and the switch failed. Having that switch plumbed into the system and controlling power to the pump might be a good idea.

I also have one of the old PAR 4.5gpm variable flow pumps which had the variable flow controller fail. So with the switch plumbed in the PAR variable could become a viable backup.

I have an early European version of the hard plastic tubing which I love, the 55psi did find the one weak connection and blow it out... I was wondering why the pump would not come up to pressure the first time!

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I thought about that.

Even simpler would be to simply plumb in two pumps with changeover valves and switches.

And even simpler than that would be to simply carry an entire working spare. Why wasn't I doing that?

You try to think of everything, but it doesn't always happen.

I ended up with a spare pump kind of by accident. Never quite got around to installing the deckwash...

Came in handy when the pressure pump stopped working though.

[a64pilot]

I don't think mine is loud with the .5 inlet, of course pipe length, height above water tank, number of bends all play into it, my pump is about the same height as the tank, and I believe it's a straight run of about 4 ft. Plus I run mine through a 10" charcoal filter that I am sure restricts flow somewhat and maybe the restricted flow is what keeps it from being loud.
This pump works by having a bypass valve that I believe once a certain pressure is reached, opens and allows the water to flow in a circle back to the suck side of the pump, purpose is to try to prevent short cycling, which is normally done with an accumulator.
Adding on another pressure switch unless set higher than the factory cut off might much up the operation.
The Square D switch has been around at least since I was a kid, we had one on the well pump at the house I grew up at. I believe it is the exact same design, I say that only to show it has a very long track record and is obviously a proven design to still be manufactured more than 50 hrs later.


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[botanybay]

Exactly my thought A64 pilot...

I have had a couple of cases of pumps where the switch failed ON so it would just keep running and trying to build pressure. If I were to add the square D to the system and set its cut in pressure either just above the system pressure to act as a safety backup for the primary switch on the pump.

An interesting alternative would be to set it just below the system pressure of the pump and thus have the contacts in the square D take all of the open/close cycles under load.

It turns out that it is possible to adjust the pressure of these pumps but there is a warning that it is important to move both the pump cutoff pressure and the pressure where the recirculation valve starts to open such that they move together.

Hummm, with that warning came the note that if the pressure cutoff is too much higher than the recirculation valve pressure it will never turn off which is bad.... So perhaps the concept of the pump continuing to pressurize the system to higher pressures due to a switch failure is not likely for this pump. However, setting the pressure of the square D slightly lower than the pumps internal switch would remove the wear and tear from the internal switch.

In the end as someone else said, don't overthink it, carry a spare pump or switch for the pump.... Probably good advice...

[poiu]

Originally Posted by botanybay

Exactly my thought A64 pilot...

I have had a couple of cases of pumps where the switch failed ON so it would just keep running and trying to build pressure. If I were to add the square D to the system and set its cut in pressure either just above the system pressure to act as a safety backup for the primary switch on the pump.

An interesting alternative would be to set it just below the system pressure of the pump and thus have the contacts in the square D take all of the open/close cycles under load.

It turns out that it is possible to adjust the pressure of these pumps but there is a warning that it is important to move both the pump cutoff pressure and the pressure where the recirculation valve starts to open such that they move together.

Hummm, with that warning came the note that if the pressure cutoff is too much higher than the recirculation valve pressure it will never turn off which is bad.... So perhaps the concept of the pump continuing to pressurize the system to higher pressures due to a switch failure is not likely for this pump. However, setting the pressure of the square D slightly lower than the pumps internal switch would remove the wear and tear from the internal switch.

In the end as someone else said, don't overthink it, carry a spare pump or switch for the pump.... Probably good advice...

My system has a timer, which gives protection from over-running, either from a failed off pressure switch or from a failure to build pressure, as happens when I let a tank go dry.

[Island Time O25]

I'll chime in with my 2c worth and a vote for Shurflo.

I got my very first "training boat" over 10 years ago and it was about 25 years old then. It came with the original US made diaphragm Shurflo pump with the date of manufacture (same as the boat's) is still clearly visible. It is still working and I keep it as a spare as my present boat came with similar (same?) Shurflow model and it would be a breeze to replace.

Perhaps when they used to make them here in US the quality was considerably better. Or the marketing concept of "planned obsolescence" was not yet taught in business schools back then.