It's been 1 year since I purchased the boat and had it hauled to its current home at Glines Farm and I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best location for the new water fresh water system. The original water pump was stuffed under the sink in the head compartment and must have been a bear to service and maintain. Additionally, the hot water side of the system was an on-demand propane system that was outdated and dangerous by today's standards (my understanding is that insurance is hard to come by with these types of systems). So that had to be replaced with a more modern hydronic system (heat exchanger powered by engine water hear or 110v AC).
Luckily for me, Velorum as I bought her was a clean slate; all the systems had been removed so I had the luxury of being able to imagine the best (IMHO) location for a new water system. The location of the tanks was the exception, the new 40 gallon tanks would be located under the port and starboard settees just as the original. For the rest of the system, my only criteria was that it be easily accessible and that I wouldn't have to contort into ridiculous positions if/when the system needed servicing.
There were a number of possible locations, but I ultimately chose to install the system underneath the port settee just forward of the navigation table and aft of one of the water tanks. This space is close to ideal because:
- Access is great. If I remove the settee cushion, there is a large panel that lifts off to give me full access to every component in the system. There is also a decent sized hatch below the settee cushion that would allow me to mount a valve to switch tanks.
- Proximity to the engine. With hydronic heating systems, hot water from the engine is circulated through a heat exchanger in the tank (I chose a 20 liter tank) to heat the fresh water. The closer to the engine you are the better the efficiency. This puts me within 6 feet of the engine. I could have located it aft of the engine in one of the lazarettes, but this would defeat the easy access rule I wanted.
Next up was designing the actual system. I'm using the term design fairly loosely here; I just needed all the components (tank valve, pump, filter, accumulator tank, water heater and exit runs) to fit in the space I had, so my design was nothing more than a rudimentary sketch on a sheet of paper. Beyond that, I just made it fit, paying attention to accessibility of each connection and component as I went along.
I glued a piece of plywood with 3M 5200 to the hull to mount the pump, filter, and accumulator tank in the compartment. Then I discovered the wonders of pex tubing and specifically Watts Aqualok pex connectors. They are all plastic (no corrosion) and make connecting 1/2" pex tubing together easily with no plumbing skills at all (I have none). Best of all, they can be disconnected without any special tools should something need reconfiguring.
For the installation, I began with the water tanks and worked my way downstream. It was a little tricky getting all the pex tubing in place and I had to drill a few holes in the bottom of the compartment for the pipe runs to exit.
I dry fit everything and made sure it would all be easy to access and maintain once fully installed. There were a few adjustments along the way when I realized that the 1.5" fuel fill hose had to run through the same compartment, but other than that everything fit nicely.
From there I moved onto the service lines that exited the compartment. Using blue for cold and red for hot should make troubleshooting in the future a bit easier. I kept the runs as straight as possible for each of the three service points (galley faucet, head faucet, and shower) and secured the pex tubing every 12" or so.
I teed the main hot and cold lines about 6 feet from where they exit the compartment where the pump, water heater and associated equipment was located. Going aft will be the service to the galley faucet, but I won't complete that until the engine has been reinstalled because the galley peninsula that houses the sink has to be removed for the installation and having all the sink and faucet equipment installed would make removal unwieldy.
From the tee going forward the line tees again for the shower service and continues straight for the galley sink service. Routing the shower service proved to be a difficult task, but I was able to find a route that didn't require cutting more holes in furniture.
Once the pex tubing was roughed in, I reassembled the head vanity and installed the sink and a new faucet. From there it was a simple matter of ordering the right Watts Aqualok fittings so the sink could be plumbed for hot/cold water and connect the drain to the seacock.
That left me with the shower. I ordered a Scanvik 16205 low profile shower mixer and a random handheld shower from Amazon. When they arrived I finished the pex routing inside the hanging locker in the shower compartment. I routed the tubing up along the bulkhead wall and over the top of the cabinet entry so I wouldn't loose any space in the hanging locker for towels or other items. I enlarged the hole where the original shower mixer was located and installed the mixer and service lines and then connected the hot/cold to the appropriate pex lines. Finally, I connected the handheld shower head line to the remaining service line on the mixer and installed the hanger bracket.
I won't be testing the system for leaks until I install the service to the galley once the engine is in (probably next spring), but I'm pretty certain I did a decent job connecting everything and having used pex connectors in the past in my house, they seem to be fairly fool proof (we'll see). While the project isn't quite done yet, I can safely say that the head and shower compartments are 100% finished.
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