General Info: Water pump / Bilge

[Ulstue]

Hello owners

In our Lagoon 450 the water pump is in the portside stern cabin on the starboard side in a "locker". The pump a bit noisy. Did you somehow improved or silenced it?

How dry are the bilges of your boats?

Fair winds, Uli

[DavefromNZ]

Hi Uli,

On the port side of the L450 are two whale gulper pumps for the shower sumps, one gulper pump for the bilge, one Rule 2000 for emergency bilge and the fresh water pump in a locker. Yes noisy but I don't think there is a solution apart from air plugs? I use this cabin as I sleep above the hot water (nice in winter and warms my socks in the under-bed draw) and shower heats quickly.

The gulper pumps that were installed up to about 2012 failed with the plastic gears ripping apart and Whale replaced 4 of mine.

I always had a wet bilge until I fully extended the shower heads and sealed the holes. Dry bilges now. Just as well as the bilge alarms fail and had to be replaced :-(

Cheers, Dave



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[TOT]

Hi Ulstue
Check your water pump filter (it's at the front of the pump) and is a small plastic filter and as it clogs your water pump just gets louder and louder.

Refer to the photos as all you need to do is remove the filter (make sure you turn your pump off first), clean the filter.



SV TOT
Wayne 😃

[katsumi]

Hi Uli
We had the same issue on our boat, trouble is it is mounted onto a bulkhead so noise will resonate through the boat. I improved ours by installing some soft rubber motor mounts between the pump/accumulator assembly and the bulkhead, this made a reasonable improvement. Also check the air pressure in your accumulator tank, I found ours had a small hole in it and would loose pressure, causing I replaced it with a bigger size one made by Grundfoss and it works even better now.
The other thing you could do is relocate the pump to the bilge area, still mount it on a rubber mounts.
We have dry bilges normally, if they are wet then this becomes a priority #1 for us, if you have wet bilges is it salt or fresh water?
Recently we had a number of freshwater leaks, whilst plugged into the marina, I found out that the water pressure at the marina had somehow been increased, we found a few hoses leaking, also strainer cap cracked. Anyway I have adjusted out feed pressure valve and re secured the leaking hoses all good not.

[tuskie]

Good idea from Katsumi to replace accumulator with a larger size. This stores pressure so pump runs less frequently. It is possible to turn off power to pump before bedtime and stored pressure in accumulator will supply a few litres at the taps. Enough for a drink of water in the night but no one gets woken by that noisy pump.
The water pump on our L400 is a crappy Johnson unit. We have replaced rusty accumulator and several cracked strainer caps. Should have replaced whole unit with a better quality brand. At least Lagoon don't fit Johnson toilets! One of my mates has replaced 7 Johnson toilet macerator pumps on his Seawind.

[Ulstue]

Thank you for your postings!
Regarding the bilge, we have quite a bit sealed. Most water on port side comes from the inlet to the water heater. We are looking further, now it is not much. I have wondered if it is condensed water. Thank your comments I know now that the bilge can be dry.

With regard to the freshwater pump: I will mount new as recommended by you, as it was my first idea. The filter is clean.

I have installed Johnson-toilets instead of the Jabsco. I do not think that they are really significantly quieter than the Jabsco.

[tuskie]

Originally Posted by Ulstue

I have installed Johnson-toilets instead of the Jabsco. I do not think that they are really significantly quieter than the Jabsco.

Oh noooo! Johnson heads are very quiet. Silent in fact. That's because water gets into the macerator pump motor and it stops working. Can't be dismantled and repaired either.

[Ulstue]

Thanks for your comment.

I'm not on the boat, and just can not check which fresh water pump is installed.

I chose the Johnson toilets instead the Jabsco, because of the technical data / spezifications. Johnsons should be quieter few a dezibell. And they perform better in tests of sailing magazines. I have never heard of any issues with Johnson. And myself have also not - but the boat is still fairly new.

[gstent]

Thanks to all of you - Very use full post for me as I'm in the middle of trying to fix the Jabsco Floret quad diaphragm FW pump on my L450.

I left the boat for a week with the FW pump turned on - dumb as it had been 'intermittently' running without 'charging'. I hadn't worked our what the problem was - probably air in lines / maybe a leak (have about 500ml fresh water in stb 'owners cabin' bilge) and turned it off overnight etc. Anyway when i returned to boat the FW fuse was popped and after reseting it a couple of times (nifty feature that) I concluded the motor had burnt out - so today I have started the removal process. Lots of contortions and tricks as you'd expect, but does anybody know how to disconnect the motor wires from the electrical junction under the accumulator tank (see pic) I have disconnected the wires from the front of the pressure switch easy enough but I'm not familiar with this type of electrical junction.
Also after the fact did check my FW filter and found --- see attached pic (included as a warning to others with FW probe good to check first!)
/Users/georgestent/Desktop/IMG_1210.jpg
/Users/georgestent/Desktop/IMG_1211.jpg

[gstent]

Oops here are the pics I meant to upload:

The problem electrical connection (this is rotted 90degrees so turn yr head to the left you can see the detached pump motor behind)

as well as the blue plastic found in the filter (just as a FYI)

[gstent]

I have worked out that you can't disconnect the pump from the tank so - No you can't disconnect at that electrical junction! So have now removed the whole unit for servicing. Cheers .. Im sure I'll be back with more L450 challenges soon....

[Ulstue]

Very interesting, thank you for the report. It should be possible to separate pump and tank. If you buy it, it is separated.

[Ulstue]

Hi Katsumi and Tuskie
What size are your new accumulators? Would you choose the same size again?

[katsumi]

Hi Ulstue
Mine is a Grundfoss 2 litre, check out pumpwarehouse.com.au
It is about half the price of the original supplied tank, and has 5 year warranty. I had to do slight modification to the mounting frame to fit the slightly bigger tank in place.
Tuskie interesting your strainers have cracked, I have had the same problem, do you plug into dock water direct feed? I am assuming this is the problem with mine. A bit of a design fault as these strainers are normally on the suction side of a pump, I don't think they can handle the pressure from the dock water supply, not in the marina we are in anyway.
Have a good weekend.

[tuskie]

Ulstue, I've fitted a Grundfoss 8 litre. I just stores a bit more volume, not more pressure, so the pump runs for longer but less frequently.

Katsumi, no, we don't plumb to the dock water supply. I'm too worried that we'd blow a hose (or a strainer cap) and sink the boat. No, the reason that the strainer caps crack, in short time and very dependably, is that they are made by Johnson Pumps. They are consistently poor quality. I've had the misfortune to have owned several boats that have had Johnson pumps fitted; bilge, fresh water and deck wash. All have given me drama! Other owners have also reported similar issues, some even are inflicted with Johnson toilets.

My advise, in hindsight is to remove any Johnson Pump product, throw as far as possible and replace with Jabsco, Whale or Chinese no-name. Rant over.