Plumber near Daventry

[ditchcrawler]

7 minutes ago, RickS said:

Thanks Ditchcrawler. There are some rust patches around some of the windows and the paintwork on the roof is a bit tatty. Would these be most likely to be the point of entry (i suppose that's a bit of an obvious question)?

 

Rust will push window frames away from the steel

[Slim]

Going back to the water in your bilge. 1) When did you last suck water out..? 2)How much water.? 3). Same questions for the time before? 4) What kind of ballast do you have and do you know what if anything it's laying on? 

Going back to my 4th May posts you will see that I had water in my bilges at the same time. I know I've cured the leak (I've checked) . Having left the bilge dry acouple of days later I went home for a few days returning last week. Over the next 2 days I sucked more water out guess 2-3 litres. I've just this moment sucked another litre or so out . Its leaching out of my paving slab ballast. The slabs sit on 6mm wood laths. If your situation is the same is similar it's a pain not a problem. It's quite possible  that in your search you disturbed the leak and it's stopped. That's what happened to mine, fortunately I saw the leak before I disturbed it.

By the by, you said you were going to route the calorifier pressure valve outlet to a container.  Have you checked it.

 

[RickS]

1 hour ago, David Mack said:

Cruiser, semi trad or trad? Do you have a rear canopy? Cruiser and semi trad sterns almost always leak rainwater into the engine bilge if there isn't a well fitted canopy. On most such boats the rear cabin bulkhead goes down to the baseplate, so such water shouldn't find its way into the cabin bilge, but not all bulkheads are fully watertight, or there may be holes low down for pipes or cables through which water can flow. 

Similarly, front well decks usually drain overboard through scuppers, but there are exceptions.

If these are not the cause of the problem, then rainwater ingress is most likely through poorly sealed windows, portholes, mushroom vents, chimney collars, side doors, roof hatch. Have you checked all these?

Trad with a long back deck (counter?). Engine bilge is dry, now I have piped the calorifier PRV into a container, and has been for a while now. There is a bulkhead under the floor between the cabin and engine bilges (chap told me it's called a stank - not sure whether he's winding me up!)

Front well deck drains through holes at deck level and are clear.

 

A couple of of the portholes have rust patches around them - one in particular has quite a lot around it. Inside, at this porthole, the cabin side t&g seems to have lost contact with the wood bearer(s). Taking off the inner liner, it is about 1 cm away from where it seems it should be. The hull on the inside around this porthole shows rust, but everything this morning (after a night's heavy rain) was bone dry - puzzled

1 hour ago, David Mack said:

I assume the rusting is not so bad that the shell is actually perforated?

Appears to be just surface rust, but to be sure I probably need to take the portholes out? The possible exception is the one I mentioned in my previous reply to you

[RickS]

55 minutes ago, Slim said:

Going back to the water in your bilge. 1) When did you last suck water out..? 2)How much water.? 3). Same questions for the time before? 4) What kind of ballast do you have and do you know what if anything it's laying on? 

Going back to my 4th May posts you will see that I had water in my bilges at the same time. I know I've cured the leak (I've checked) . Having left the bilge dry acouple of days later I went home for a few days returning last week. Over the next 2 days I sucked more water out guess 2-3 litres. I've just this moment sucked another litre or so out . Its leaching out of my paving slab ballast. The slabs sit on 6mm wood laths. If your situation is the same is similar it's a pain not a problem. It's quite possible  that in your search you disturbed the leak and it's stopped. That's what happened to mine, fortunately I saw the leak before I disturbed it.

By the by, you said you were going to route the calorifier pressure valve outlet to a container.  Have you checked it.

 

Thanks Slim. I pumped about one and a half wet vacs full this morning. The level has, until today, remained fairly low with maybe a very slow build up that I assumed was water percolating through the ballast - paving slabs like yours - which I would pump out every couple of days or so. Figured it would take a while to all come through. This morning though, there was a noticeable increase in depth which made me think it might be rain, as there has been a lot of it the last couple of days.

 

Checked the prv - all draining fine into its container. 

[GUMPY]

3 hours ago, RickS said:

Checked the prv - all draining fine into its container. 

The PRV should not be passing any water at all unless you have a faulty system.

[TheBiscuits]

25 minutes ago, Loddon said:

The PRV should not be passing any water at all unless you have a faulty system.

 

Or no ( or a broken) expansion tank.

 

But doing that without plumbing it overboard is crazy.

 

@RickS does your water pump kick in at intervals when the taps aren't being used?

[Tony Brooks]

27 minutes ago, Loddon said:

The PRV should not be passing any water at all unless you have a faulty system.

 

If the system has not been fitted with an expansion vessel then it should pass some water during calorifier heating. You could claim that no expansion vessel is a fault but many older boats do not have one.

[Tracy D'arth]

Any relationship between water tank filling and water appearing in the bilge?

 

Have you checked all the pipework and drains?

 

Checked where the cold water leaves the water tank and the pipe from there to the pump inlet?

 

How old is this hull and when was it last out for blacking?

[RickS]

1 hour ago, Loddon said:

The PRV should not be passing any water at all unless you have a faulty system.

I thought the PRV would pass water if the calorifier got too hot. There is no expansion tank on the system at present, so not sure what's faulty about the PRV - not saying it's not, the system is a bit Heath-Robinson

45 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Or no ( or a broken) expansion tank.

 

But doing that without plumbing it overboard is crazy.

 

@RickS does your water pump kick in at intervals when the taps aren't being used?

Due to be piped overboard via a skin fitting when the boatyard can get to it - jobs are backed up at present.

Pump only kicks in (for about a second every half hour or so) when the immersion is turned off and the calorifier cools. When it has cooled the pump does not operate so assume the pressurised system is not at fault

Edited May 18, 2022 by RickS

[RickS]

26 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Any relationship between water tank filling and water appearing in the bilge?

 

Have you checked all the pipework and drains?

 

Checked where the cold water leaves the water tank and the pipe from there to the pump inlet?

 

How old is this hull and when was it last out for blacking?

I'll be complete honest and say that not every inch of the pipework has been checked - mainly because it's a pig to get to - but I have made the assumption about the pressurised system being OK. The outlets seem to be alright but need to get the lining off to be 100% sure - again, difficult behind sinks particularly.

I haven't checked the cold water tank between the tank and the pump - had a good grope round and doesn't feel wet, damp-ish but not wet. Getting too it is tricky but on the list. Doesn't seem to be any correlation between filling the tank and getting water in the bilge though.

Hull is 28 years old and was out for blacking last year.

[GUMPY]

51 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

If the system has not been fitted with an expansion vessel then it should pass some water during calorifier heating. You could claim that no expansion vessel is a fault but many older boats do not have one.

Only true if an NRV has been fitted between hot and cold systems. I ran my system without an expansion vessel or NRV and just an accumulator and no leaks from the PRV

11 minutes ago, RickS said:

I thought the PRV would pass water if the calorifier got too hot. There is no expansion tank on the system at present, so not sure what's faulty about the PRV - not saying it's not, the system is a bit Heath-Robinson

Due to be piped overboard via a skin fitting when the boatyard can get to it - jobs are backed up at present.

Pump only kicks in (for about a second every half hour or so) when the immersion is turned off and the calorifier cools. When it has cooled the pump does not operate so assume the pressurised system is not at fault

I'm not saying the PRV is at fault, however there is a fault somewhere in the system, it could be a design fault.

[Tracy D'arth]

1 minute ago, Loddon said:

Only true if an NRV has been fitted between hot and cold systems. I ran my system without an expansion vessel or NRV and just an accumulator and no leaks from the PRV

Same here, I never bother with an expansion vessel or non return valve on the calorifier cold feed. Simple is better.  But I do use a largish accumulator vessel.

 

5 minutes ago, RickS said:

I'll be complete honest and say that not every inch of the pipework has been checked - mainly because it's a pig to get to - but I have made the assumption about the pressurised system being OK. The outlets seem to be alright but need to get the lining off to be 100% sure - again, difficult behind sinks particularly.

I haven't checked the cold water tank between the tank and the pump - had a good grope round and doesn't feel wet, damp-ish but not wet. Getting too it is tricky but on the list. Doesn't seem to be any correlation between filling the tank and getting water in the bilge though.

Hull is 28 years old and was out for blacking last year.

 

 

Was the base plate inspected and blacked too?  Hate to worry you but 28 years and if never blacked it could be in a bit of a state by now. I guess it could be 10mm, who's shell is it?

[Tony Brooks]

I, too, did not bother with an NRV apart from one on the inlet side of the pump and used the accumulator as an expansion vessel but in this case there is an expansion vessel - the accumulator.

[Slim]

1 hour ago, RickS said:

haven't checked the cold water tank between the tank and the pump - had a good grope round and doesn't feel wet, damp-ish but not wet. 

But that's where my leak was and no clues with the pump kicking in for obvious reasons. 

[blackrose]

If you have an accumulator then the best thing to do is fit an isolator on the pipe to it. I have one on mine and it allows me to isolate the accumulator which makes it much easier to listen for leaks in the freshwater/domestic water system. If the pump doesn't run when taps are off then you can start looking for leaks elsewhere.

 

With the accumulator active it's very difficult to know when the pump is kicking in unnecessarily.

[Tracy D'arth]

4 minutes ago, blackrose said:

If you have an accumulator then the best thing to do is fit an isolator on the pipe to it. I have one on mine and it allows me to isolate the accumulator which makes it much easier to listen for leaks in the freshwater/domestic water system. If the pump doesn't run when taps are off then you can start looking for leaks elsewhere.

 

With the accumulator active it's very difficult to know when the pump is kicking in unnecessarily.

Why is it very difficult? The pump should only run when there is a tap turned on or the hot water is cooling down.

[blackrose]

19 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Why is it very difficult? The pump should only run when there is a tap turned on or the hot water is cooling down.

 

Ok perhaps I shouldn't have said "very difficult" but it's just easier to listen for a leak without an accumulator because you will hear a regular pump cycle which you won't necessarily with the accumulator, especially if it's a slow leak.

 

If you're aboard and using the taps the pump can kick in unexpectedly even without a leak due to cooling water as you say, but you won't get that regular tell tale pump cycle with an accumulator so you can't really tell if it's a leak or not. Isolating the accumulator just makes it more obvious. I know because when I isolate mine and it's much easier to tell.

Edited May 18, 2022 by blackrose

[RickS]

On 18/05/2022 at 17:58, Tracy D'arth said:

Same here, I never bother with an expansion vessel or non return valve on the calorifier cold feed. Simple is better.  But I do use a largish accumulator vessel.

 

 

 

Was the base plate inspected and blacked too?  Hate to worry you but 28 years and if never blacked it could be in a bit of a state by now. I guess it could be 10mm, who's shell is it?

The base plate was neither inspected nor blacked last year - I don't think the base plate has ever been blacked.

The hull survey that was done out of the water a year before I bought the boat, of which i have a copy, does not show any problems with baseplate.

I'm not saying that it couldn't have developed some between now and then, but I have to narrow things down.

To be honest, I'm at my wits end with this. After the torrential rain the other day, there was no real increase in the amount coming through to  the cabin bilge.

The colour of the water (I have to stress that it is a very small amount that sits there now) is a rusty brown colour so I'm assuming it is getting near the end of the water that is percolating through.

I just don't seem to be able to narrow down the cause - it may be more than one of course and very small amounts that accumulate. Also the fact that there is historic damage to the flooring above the bilge may be a red herring - any water will collect there and what may have caused this in the past may have been rectified. From what I have been able to find out, this seems unlikely knowing how the previous owner seems to have maintained it (no disrespect intended to said owner)