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Water tank empty too soon


moiuk

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13 hours ago, moiuk said:

 

20200801_215938_exported_317799443432337852.jpg

 

 

Why is it that when I look at pictures of water pump installations on this forum nine times out of ten they've been incorrectly installed direct to plastic pipe. Pumps should be fitted with short lengths of flexible hose on the infeed & outlet to ensure that pump vibrations don't adversely affect the pipe joints over time.

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1 minute ago, blackrose said:

 

Why is it that when I look at pictures of water pump installations on this forum nine times out of ten they've been incorrectly installed direct to plastic pipe. Pumps should be fitted with short lengths of flexible hose on the infeed & outlet to ensure that pump vibrations don't adversely affect the pipe joints over time.

Totally agree with that.

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13 hours ago, Keeping Up said:

The vent on my water tank is identical to the one on my diesel tank; the builder said that the advantage of the flame arrested gauze is that it ensures no insects can get in. However a disadvantage is that on anything fast like the hose at a Thames lock, the air cannot escape quickly enough when filling so that it appears to be full (ie the inlet overflows) when it is actually less than half full. Could this be the OP's problem?

 

The other advantage is that a brass fitting won't rust inside. My integral water tank breather is just one of those 180 deg bent 12mm steel pipes welded onto the deck. It got completely blocked with rust one year causing a vacuum in the tank when I ran the pump and the only way to unblock it was to cut it off a couple of inches up from the deck with a slitting disc on an angle grinder and drill it through to the tank. I put it back together with a short piece of hose pipe which was quite a good fit, so now I can easily take it apart to unblock it.

 

If you want to enable easier filling with your brass breather you could always take it off and remove the gauze. 

Edited by blackrose
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1 hour ago, Flyboy said:

Looking at your picture it looks to me that the stop valve is a washered one and fitted the wrong way round. If this is so the washer jumper would be pulled down on to the seat when the pump is operating. Because the tank has not much head to keep the washer off of the seat as it would in a normal domestic instalation where you have plenty of pressure. As the tank level goes down the static head gets less and the tap jumper would get pulled down harder onto the seat stopping the tank emptying any further. Check that the arrow on the valve is pointing away from the tank. If you have a gate valve then ignor all this. In any case I would change the valve for a ball (full flow) one and mount it directly on the tank where it should have been in the first place. 

Excellent spot.:clapping:

The stop tap is a washered one and is back to front.

Needs turning round and while you are at it refit it so it is the first thing off the tank, not after that water gauge sensor, you will be glad you did one day.

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I reckon a lot of boats have inadequate water tank venting causing poor flow at the taps. My 2008 boat had only a 3mm hole drilled in the brass filler cap which caused panting of the stainless tank. The vent should have similar cross sectional area as the outlet imo which is what i did and it cured the problem completely.

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Depends on where the filler cap is, but mine is directly beneath the gas locker hatch, so there is no need to screw the cap right down. I usualy put a turn or so on it, to stop it falling off, but it isn't airtight by any means.

1 hour ago, blackrose said:

 

Why is it that when I look at pictures of water pump installations on this forum nine times out of ten they've been incorrectly installed direct to plastic pipe. Pumps should be fitted with short lengths of flexible hose on the infeed & outlet to ensure that pump vibrations don't adversely affect the pipe joints over time.

Agreed - and it reduces pump noise somewhat.

 

 

Not as much as standing the pump on a rubber mat, though.

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3 hours ago, blackrose said:

 

Why is it that when I look at pictures of water pump installations on this forum nine times out of ten they've been incorrectly installed direct to plastic pipe. Pumps should be fitted with short lengths of flexible hose on the infeed & outlet to ensure that pump vibrations don't adversely affect the pipe joints over time.

I was going to come to that after he sorted the tank, all the fittings, elbows, isolation valve etc, its a right pigs ear

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20 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I was going to come to that after he sorted the tank, all the fittings, elbows, isolation valve etc, its a right pigs ear

It all does need a rework. Such a mess.  Will fix the size issue first, and then get some time to make it all as it should be..

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31 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

What make of boat is it ?

 

Presumably all of the problems you are having date back to the original (poor) installation.

Its a Collingwood. Seems like much of the pipework in the picture has been modified since new.

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an update.

 

So today I re-measured the size of the tank by properly getting into every access hatch possible, and the tank is smaller than I originally calculated, and less than on the original spec sheet from the boat fitter.

 

I am guessing the spec sheet was done by Collingwood, but I have no way to be sure.  The result is that I seem to have a 600 litre tank where it was sold to me as a 1,000 litre tank.

 

The error on my part was that the bow thruster tube takes up far morespace than I had e pected, and wasn't until i got right down inside that I could see the tank stopped short of where I thought it went. Thus rather than being 1m wide, it is only 75cm wide.

 

Still have the same issue that it shows empty at 350 litres though, but a good number of suggestions here for me to try in  2 days time when it gets empty again. 

 

I will update again then.

Edited by moiuk
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3 hours ago, Machpoint005 said:

Not as much as standing the pump on a rubber mat, though.

True, but readers also shoudn't get too carried away over the quiet pump thing, eh?  Frequently, the first you know of a fresh water problem is hearing the pump kick in when it shouldn't. :)

 

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23 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I wouldn't bank on it, Collingwood is just Liverpool boats by another name - not the 'best' producer of quality (or even straight) boats.

 

I've seen a few fit-outs by other supposedly quality builders and professional fitters who've done exactly the same thing and plumbed the pump direct to plastic pipe. Collingwood or Liverpool boats don't have a monopoly on botches, short-cuts and balls-ups I'm afraid.

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8 minutes ago, blackrose said:

 

I've seen a few fit-outs by other supposedly quality builders and professional fitters who've done exactly the same thing and plumbed the pump direct to plastic pipe. Collingwood or Liverpool boats don't have a monopoly on botches, short-cuts and balls-ups I'm afraid.

Agreed, but a 'production line', and particularly 'turning the boat over' during building NB's is always going to generate more faults

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49 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

True, but readers also shoudn't get too carried away over the quiet pump thing, eh?  Frequently, the first you know of a fresh water problem is hearing the pump kick in when it shouldn't. :)

 

 

Agreed. There is a world of difference between "quiet" and "silent"!

 

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So an update..

 

The tank was empty again today, so I checked through the filler hole and indeed it was empty.  I filled it using a flowmeter and it reported the same volume of 345litres as it did the last time to fill it to the top.  So it looks as though the most obvious answer is the correct one, the tank is smaller than specified on collingwoods delivery spec sheet (which states it is a 910 litre tank)... very difficult to come to terms with as the first thing I checked when buying the boat was that it had a large water tank, and now it appears it's smaller than the tank i had on my narrowboat.. 345l seems far to small to install on a large widebeam, so difficult to believe, but the facts seem to be stronger than my disbelief.. 

 

So now, I am planning on installing additional tanks wherever there is space to get the capacity up for 7 days off grid living which we need.  I have 2 x 100 litre water butts in the bow deck, and am planning on buying 2 x 210litre plastic water tanks that will fit under the bed.  The water butts will simply top up (manually) the main tank when needed, but will be an issue in winter when it freezes, and also I have concerns about using butts for drinking water over the long term.

The under bed tanks I intend to have at the same level as the main  tank, and join the outlets all together before the water pump, and have the air vents run out to above the height of the main tank vent. Hopefully this will give me one extended larger tank, with a single fill point.

 

Any thoughts/comments/obvious flaws to my plan?

 

 

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2 minutes ago, moiuk said:

So an update..

 

The tank was empty again today, so I checked through the filler hole and indeed it was empty.  I filled it using a flowmeter and it reported the same volume of 345litres as it did the last time to fill it to the top.  So it looks as though the most obvious answer is the correct one, the tank is smaller than specified on collingwoods delivery spec sheet (which states it is a 910 litre tank)... very difficult to come to terms with as the first thing I checked when buying the boat was that it had a large water tank, and now it appears it's smaller than the tank i had on my narrowboat.. 345l seems far to small to install on a large widebeam, so difficult to believe, but the facts seem to be stronger than my disbelief.. 

 

So now, I am planning on installing additional tanks wherever there is space to get the capacity up for 7 days off grid living which we need.  I have 2 x 100 litre water butts in the bow deck, and am planning on buying 2 x 210litre plastic water tanks that will fit under the bed.  The water butts will simply top up (manually) the main tank when needed, but will be an issue in winter when it freezes, and also I have concerns about using butts for drinking water over the long term.

The under bed tanks I intend to have at the same level as the main  tank, and join the outlets all together before the water pump, and have the air vents run out to above the height of the main tank vent. Hopefully this will give me one extended larger tank, with a single fill point.

 

Any thoughts/comments/obvious flaws to my plan?

 

 

Are these "butts" fully sealed

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4 minutes ago, moiuk said:

So an update..

 

The tank was empty again today, so I checked through the filler hole and indeed it was empty.  I filled it using a flowmeter and it reported the same volume of 345litres as it did the last time to fill it to the top.  So it looks as though the most obvious answer is the correct one, the tank is smaller than specified on collingwoods delivery spec sheet (which states it is a 910 litre tank)... very difficult to come to terms with as the first thing I checked when buying the boat was that it had a large water tank, and now it appears it's smaller than the tank i had on my narrowboat.. 345l seems far to small to install on a large widebeam, so difficult to believe, but the facts seem to be stronger than my disbelief.. 

 

So now, I am planning on installing additional tanks wherever there is space to get the capacity up for 7 days off grid living which we need.  I have 2 x 100 litre water butts in the bow deck, and am planning on buying 2 x 210litre plastic water tanks that will fit under the bed.  The water butts will simply top up (manually) the main tank when needed, but will be an issue in winter when it freezes, and also I have concerns about using butts for drinking water over the long term.

The under bed tanks I intend to have at the same level as the main  tank, and join the outlets all together before the water pump, and have the air vents run out to above the height of the main tank vent. Hopefully this will give me one extended larger tank, with a single fill point.

 

Any thoughts/comments/obvious flaws to my plan?

 

 

External water tanks which will be subjected to warming to unhealthy levels in summer (let alone the bugs that might enter if not completely sealed) seem like a risky choice to me.

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14 minutes ago, moiuk said:

So an update..

 

The tank was empty again today, so I checked through the filler hole and indeed it was empty.  I filled it using a flowmeter and it reported the same volume of 345litres as it did the last time to fill it to the top.  So it looks as though the most obvious answer is the correct one, the tank is smaller than specified on collingwoods delivery spec sheet (which states it is a 910 litre tank)... very difficult to come to terms with as the first thing I checked when buying the boat was that it had a large water tank, and now it appears it's smaller than the tank i had on my narrowboat.. 345l seems far to small to install on a large widebeam, so difficult to believe, but the facts seem to be stronger than my disbelief.. 

 

So now, I am planning on installing additional tanks wherever there is space to get the capacity up for 7 days off grid living which we need.  I have 2 x 100 litre water butts in the bow deck, and am planning on buying 2 x 210litre plastic water tanks that will fit under the bed.  The water butts will simply top up (manually) the main tank when needed, but will be an issue in winter when it freezes, and also I have concerns about using butts for drinking water over the long term.

The under bed tanks I intend to have at the same level as the main  tank, and join the outlets all together before the water pump, and have the air vents run out to above the height of the main tank vent. Hopefully this will give me one extended larger tank, with a single fill point.

 

Any thoughts/comments/obvious flaws to my plan?

 

 

If the tank dimensions are correct but only 345 litres go in then is it possible that the tank has baffles fitted and that either the other sections are unvented (and thus airlocked) or the interconnections between the 3? sections were missed out at build? 345 litres is darned close to a third of what it should be!

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