Watermaker & two tanks

[Cheechako]

Not that it's a great way to do it, but my watermaker just went into the common vent line for the two tanks.

[wrwakefield]

Originally Posted by hoppy

If you have more than one water tank, how do you setup you watermaker for them?

Do you have it set up so you can fill either tank?
Fill just one tank and have a transfer pump/hose?

When you are coastal cruising do you perhaps just use one tank so that the WM gets regular use and leave the other empty?

For water transfer or even wash down, has anyone added a "garden hose" connection to the boats freshwater system?

Hoppy,

We have 2- 110 gallon potable water tanks plumbed as Tellie describes in his response, above.

In addition, we terminate those two tank vents at [into] the galley sink [after a loop high above waterline so the tanks can't empty into the sink while heeled...]

This way we have a visual when a tank is full.

Additionally, the two vent lines can be connected together by opening a ball valve [normal operating position] that joins the two low, under the galley sink. This acts as an overflow manifold to fill the lower level tank when the one being filled is full. Close that interconnection valve, and the tanks fill independently. This is handy when underway and running the water maker, or when filling from a shore supply. [Even though each tanks has its own deck fill...]

Once water is flowing from the tank vent fitting into the galley sink, both tanks are full.

Re: deck wash down faucets: We have two (bow and stern) plumbed together. There is a Y-valve to select between raw and fresh water [which also has a check valve before the Y...] That way we can blast away with raw water on a dirty job (e.g., cleaning anchor chain as it is being hoisted) and rinse with fresh as needed. (e.g., We rinse the chain pile after it is in the locker...) Likewise for dirty deck jobs, fish cleaning, etc.

Both heads are also plumbed for fresh or raw water flushing- also eminently worthwhile.

Best wishes with your project.

Cheers!

Bill

[accomplice]

We have two (500L ?) water tanks and a watermaker (900gpd ~= 150L/hr). The output of the watermaker is fed through two three-way valves. The first valve offers the choice of direct discharge to a bucket (for "product taste test"), with the other choice headed to the tanks. The second three-way valve chooses whether the output is sent to the port or starboard tanks.

The input water, used for flushing, is taken from the pressurized water system, which can draw from either tank.

Each tank has a separate vent/overflow from the outside of the cockpit coaming onto the deck.

Although we have the option of adjusting the washdown pump to use freshwater, we almost always use seawater.

We typically set it to fill and draw from one tank, using the other as reserve. We periodically switch the primary tank to help keep the tanks fresh.

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by hoppy

If you have more than one water tank, how do you setup you watermaker for them?

Do you have it set up so you can fill either tank?
Fill just one tank and have a transfer pump/hose?

When you are coastal cruising do you perhaps just use one tank so that the WM gets regular use and leave the other empty?

For water transfer or even wash down, has anyone added a "garden hose" connection to the boats freshwater system?

Yes I have, I think it's pretty common. It's a great tool to rinse off salt caking after a passage, especially canvas, turnbuckles etc.

[autumnbreeze27]

We have two tanks, port and starboard, 100 and 125 gallons.

The watermaker is plumbed to the port tank, fills from the top.
When we leave a marina both tanks are full. I use the starboard tank until it gets down to 25%, then I switch to the port tank.
I start running the water maker when the port tank gets to 50%.

I like this setup because it's very simple. Also, if something happens and the watermaker pollutes my port tank, I still have water in the starboard tank as a reserve.

We have both a saltwater and a freshwater deck fitting. It's great to wash the boat, or yourself after you get out of the water, or the dog, etc.

If I wanted to, I could refill the starboard tank with watermaker water from the port tank using the washdown hose and the deck fill. I did that once in a marina when I was cleaning the system, to pump bleachy water from one tank to the other before rinsing the system.

Also, another vote for not T'ing in to the freshwater system for the return. Plumb it directly to the top of the tank, or to a valve that goes to the top of multiple tanks.