Why do you need a watermaker?

[scoobert]

Originally Posted by DotDun

That's a lot of condensate. How do you measure it? My house doesn't put out that much.

:P my front bilge pump is shot. i have to pump it out by hand!
lol

[evm1024]

Originally Posted by scoobert

from the CDC site:::





it says


so it must be inhaled.
so drinking should be fine, as also it does not grow in window AC units, and this would be the same size as a marine AC unit.

Actually is does grow in window mounted AC units. the only person that I treated with Legionaires' disease got it from a window mounted AC unit in Rawalpindi. They died by the way. (I am not a doc, I was an EMT on a climb in Pakistan helping out the doc).

[44'cruisingcat]

Originally Posted by scoobert

i am referring to boats equipped with AC, sorry, i thought that was self evident.
a watermaker cost about 3000-5000. an AC and generator can cost up to 8000..
however if you have both.... then you have condensate.

so looking up dehumidifiers...

a 30 pint per day unit consumes 1KWH or 80 amp hours to make 1.85 liters of water.
so for 160 amp hours you get 1 gallon of fresh water.

the cost of the unit is $180.

30 pints is nearly 4 gallons a day. at a total 24 hour consumption of aprox640 amp hours.

and this is linear on the 50 pint and 70 pint units.

what does it take to make 640 amp hours?
easy. a 200 watt panel make 1KWH every 5 hours, or 84 amp hours aprox.
so could this be done on solar alone?
perhaps if you had a 1000watt system.
but for those with larger yachts, we can run a generator.
we can also use a larger unit, making 10 gallons a day.
now, this is not a massive amount. it is also not efficient.
but over a 2-3 year trip, i would bet the math would show it would be cheaper.
how often do we really do a passage? how long are we really from a water source?
is having water for those few weeks worth $5000?
or can you get along with 10 gallons a day, running your generator when needed?
or run an AC unit and make even more water....


with this idea, i don't see the need for a water maker on a larger yacht.

And if it's cold, and the humidity is low?

[scoobert]

Originally Posted by 44'cruisingcat

And if it's cold, and the humidity is low?

in low temp, and low humidity water consumption is minimal.

[tbodine88]

On the USS Midway, we had an air conditioner that cooled our Forward messdeck, its drain line filled with algae, The space in which the condensor sat filled up with condensate which we had to pump out once the water started spilling out the vents.
It took about an hour to pump it down to where we could finish with buckets and swaps. That was an interesting day! Boy were we suprised when we opened the hatch and water started pouring out! This happened while we were sailing near the Phillipines.

So yeah you could get water from your A/C, but what do you do when you sail up to the cooler latitudes? When we sailed up to Korea, in the fall, there was hardly any condensate in the drip pan. (we were checking it weekly at that time )

[scoobert]

Originally Posted by tbodine88

So yeah you could get water from your A/C, but what do you do when you sail up to the cooler latitudes? When we sailed up to Korea, in the fall, there was hardly any condensate in the drip pan. (we were checking it weekly at that time )

interesting story.

there are only a few passages most people make.
the biggest one is Atlantic. i think by far, more people do that, then any.
the other is the south pacific. gag it has to be hot down there sometimes!

[Sailmonkey]

Originally Posted by scoobert

interesting story.

there are only a few passages most people make.
the biggest one is Atlantic. i think by far, more people do that, then any.
the other is the south pacific. gag it has to be hot down there sometimes!

For us it's wasn't about the passages, it was about being able to stay anchored out in undeveloped areas for extended periods of time. IE belize barrier reef islands, no water or fuel there, but all kinds of clean salt water to shove through a membrane.

[scoobert]

Originally Posted by Sailmonkey

For us it's wasn't about the passages, it was about being able to stay anchored out in undeveloped areas for extended periods of time. IE belize barrier reef islands, no water or fuel there, but all kinds of clean salt water to shove through a membrane.

that is why i will get one next summer.
this winter cruising the Caribbean, i don't see a need.

[aclmck]

Hi Scoobert,

You need to get a new source of reference, Here in Australia we have had some instances of legionella in older people, recently from the hot water in the bathroom, and a young olympic hopeful dying from contracting this bacteria.

So it does effect younger people, old people, and as we are learning in Australia it comes from a variety of sources. Yes some people are lucky to be able to drink condensated water with no ill effects, others have a shower and die, it is a risk, it is now a known risk, by drinking it you are certainly gambling with your and your friends lives unnecessarily.

Every time we hear that it only comes from cooling towers we hear that this has spread to other heated water sources, hot water system here recently in a hospital.

[psneeld]

Originally Posted by scoobert

in low temp, and low humidity water consumption is minimal.

Not really if you shower once a day and wash dishes the same amount...those are your 2 biggest users usually.

Not that piping condensate to your tanks is a bad idea...I just think that in most situations the average boat would not make enough to go through all the trouble.

In hot, high humidity environments then it may be worth your time and effort.

Purifying the water is easy...the disease phoebes can relax.

[maersi]

AC condensate does not contain legionella, it is pure distilled water. The problem is with the tanks and drip trays which are not cleaned frequently, and provide a breeding ground for the bacteria.
As for filling up water tanks in the marina, mains supply water is not drinkable everywhere in the world. Where I am living now, the mains supply doesn't even pass the test for watering crops. I don't want that in my tanks.
If the AC unit is maintained, cleaned and sterilized regularly, I would be happy to drink the condensate.

[s/v Jedi]

Sure you can drink from the holding tank. Except when you empty bottles of urine in the sink like many do (no joke!). Or even that is drinkable I'm told. You can all sorts of things until you die from them.

No, we're gonna pull it through an under-sink RO first. So we do not buy a RO system (=watermaker) but run the genset and A/C 6 hours a day to get condensate into the holding tank which we then pull through a low pressure RO unit where we loose half (so have to run genset 12 hours a day?) of the water and end up with what? Madness?

[CardinalFlyer]

The biggest reason to not count on this is dry climates - will work great in the hot and humid areas, not so well in temperate regions

All the concern about contamination is real. The water is precipitating from the air - pretty much as good as distilled water or rainwater. The problem is that you have a fan blowing the particulate-laden air over the evaporator. Some of those particulates may include nasty stuff. And some of that will stick to the evaporator. The water precipitates onto that material before it drips off. If you could keep everything clean, it would be no issue. But any airborne contaminants will also be in the precipitate water because of this, and the A/C evaporators I've seen look hard to clean. If the air flow was clean you'd be fine, but the air filters ahead of the evaporator aren't good enough to keep the crud out. The better the air filter, the less contaminants. If you had a HEPA filter on the system, it would help tremendously.

Most of the contaminants are going to be simply dirt. Dirt isn't really a problem. This would basically be the same as rainwater collection that has collected whatever airborne dirt there is before landing. But if you had someone sick on board, you could pretty much guarantee that the condensate would include whatever germs they are sneezing/coughing up, which would be a formula to have everyone onboard sick in short order (especially if you used untreated water in the shower, aerosolizing it.) Since airborne dust includes dead skin and hair bits, pollens and other organics, not all of which would be trapped by the air filters, there's plenty of material for any random bacteria to munch down on. But will that be disease-causing bacteria or not? Hard to say. UV would kill it anyway. Without UV or some other treatment, there will probably be some bacteria, but again, that's not necessarily problematic unless it's the wrong bacteria and you take it the wrong way. Some bacteria that will make you sick on inhalation will be killed by the stomach, and vice-versa. Given that the initial colonies are going to be airborne rather than waterborne contaminants, it wouldn't be surprising that you could drink the water straight without any effects.

A particulate filter and, since power is clearly not an issue UV, is probably all that would be needed to keep the water at good quality. If your cruising is limited to areas of adequate humidity, I would almost consider it a waste to not use this water. Especially if you can figure out a way to wash down the evaporator occasionally. It would be very interesting to see how much contamination would get through HEPA filters. My only other concern would be the evaporator material - if they use lead solder in areas that will be in contact with the condensate. The condensate would be moving slowly and have lots of time to leach from the solder and any other materials that they didn't consider a problem, since the manufacturer intended the condensate to be wastewater.

[WebWench]

We have a watermaker. It can make up to 7 gallons per hour and runs off the solar and wind power at anchor and engine while underway. We are very picky about what goes in our water tank.....we test and then put water through a charcoal filter to fill our water tank....160 Gal. We are frugal with our consumption but never feel like we don't have enough or that it is risky....drinking water goes through a seagull filter as well.
I would not want to listen to a generator for six hours a day, or have to run it when I don't need the A/c. I would not be happy with the small amount of water I would get from those six hours, or want to worry about risk to health where there is little medical help available. If you got really sick on a passage from that condensate water the price of the water maker would have been a small insurance. But to each his own...we each choose what is important to us and our families.

[Wrong]

The simple answer is most places cruisers frequent nowadays have potable water. And, where water quality is questionable, bottled water is available.

Unless away from places to replenish your water for lengthy periods, including exceptionally long passages (which are very rare)- you don't need a water maker. Period.