Bilge pumps

[Manxcat54]

What is the most used and reliable bilge pump, and how many would you install, a guy last week told me I should fit 3.

[Tonka]

1 minute ago, Manxcat54 said:

What is the most used and reliable bilge pump, and how many would you install, a guy last week told me I should fit 3.

Depends on the layout of the bilge.

[Lady M]

It probably depends on what type of back deck your boat has.  My trad style boat has one bilge pump and we take pride in keeping the engine room floor dry by means of a tub under the stern gland.

[truckcab79]

Assuming your water can drain to one low point, common sense says two. One to do the job and one as a back-up in case of failure.  Obviously three is therefore even better, but on that basis having twenty would be great.   
 

Two is a sensible compromise.  Especially  if your leave your boat for any length of time.  

[Manxcat54]

The triangular area under my stern does not have any holes by which water can pass, I would say it is 12cm deep, my mate said if that filled with water it would then run over and into the engine bay, therefore a 2nd pump in there, but as Lady M says just keep an eye on it and have a drip tray, my mate then said have a 3rd pump in the general boat area, maybe around the bathroom, just in case a pipe should leak?

[robtheplod]

We have a 'Rule' bilge pump.... seems to work ok?

[Tony Brooks]

26 minutes ago, Manxcat54 said:

my mate then said have a 3rd pump in the general boat area, maybe around the bathroom, just in case a pipe should leak?

 

Unless the bathroom is right at the back of the accommodation, then a bilge pump near the bathroom will do little or no good until things get bad. Most boats trim down by the stern, so any water under the accommodation will drain to the back bulkhead - that is unless it is an all-in-one bilge boat. If you are worried about pipe, window, or vent leaks make sure that you have an inspection hatch just in front of the rear bulkhead and fit a pump there, but no bilge pump will take all the water out, you need to finish by sponging or simmilar.

[MtB]

11 minutes ago, robtheplod said:

We have a 'Rule' bilge pump.... seems to work ok?

 

Ideally one should never need to find out. 

 

Does yours need to run periodically then? If it does, then there is something badly wrong.

 

[robtheplod]

5 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Ideally one should never need to find out. 

 

Does yours need to run periodically then? If it does, then there is something badly wrong.

 

when i remember i dunk it in a bucket...

[Manxcat54]

Yes bathroom is at the back, and I have made inspection covers, the Hull won't leak, it's other stuff, a month or so back I discovered an inch of water in the rear of the boat, which I am building, it came in from  a 6mm screw in the pump out brass cover, I couldn't believe a tiny hole on the tunnels allowing so much in over 15 hrs.

Gunnels 

[Tony Brooks]

Once you get the accommodation water tight, any bilge pump for that area will remain off for months or years. I would be reluctant to rely upon it running when needed. In my view, routine inspections of that area is far better because it gives early warning of problems starting to arise.

[LadyG]

9 hours ago, Lady M said:

It probably depends on what type of back deck your boat has.  My trad style boat has one bilge pump and we take pride in keeping the engine room floor dry by means of a tub under the stern gland.

My trad boat has a steel inset to stop drips from getting in to the main drip tray  so I just flick the bilge pump a bit every day to remove water, for some reason the switch is only on or off, not automatic. 

Edited June 21 by LadyG

[Tonka]

2 minutes ago, LadyG said:

My trad boat has a steel inset to stop drips from getting in to the main drip tray  so I just flick the bilge pump a bit every day to remove water, for some reason the switch is only on or off, not automatic. 

If my trad boat was like yours and had to have a bilge pump turned on every day I would be worried. For the first 25 years of its life it didn't have or need a bilge pump fitted. My previous trad narrowboat didn't have a bilge pump fitted when I sold it at 16 years old.

[truckcab79]

9 minutes ago, LadyG said:

My trad boat has a steel inset to stop drips from getting in to the main drip tray  so I just flick the bilge pump a bit every day to remove water, for some reason the switch is only on or off, not automatic. 

Either you have no float switch or you have one and it’s wired incorrectly. If you have a float switch (and you obviously should), then the switch should be on / off / on. One of the ons being auto. I have the opposite as it happens.  A float switch but when I went to wire it they’d sent the wrong on/off switch so I’ve only two positions but I made sure they were off and auto so I test it by flicking the float up each time I visit. 

[Tony Brooks]

15 minutes ago, truckcab79 said:

Either you have no float switch or you have one and it’s wired incorrectly. If you have a float switch (and you obviously should), then the switch should be on / off / on. One of the ons being auto. I have the opposite as it happens.  A float switch but when I went to wire it they’d sent the wrong on/off switch so I’ve only two positions but I made sure they were off and auto so I test it by flicking the float up each time I visit. 

 

There is no "obviously should" about it. It is a personal choice, and as I know my boat would go weeks without much build up of bilge water in the summer and even about six weeks of very wet weather on a cruiser stern without the bilge over topping the engine tray I would be far more concerned about an automatic bilge pump flattening the batteries as the automatic switches are known to be not very reliable. Rely upon an automatic switch and it is all too easy to "forget" to check the bilges regularly, so at the least you end up flooding the engine tray and facing a more difficult clean up.

 

Having a float switch is arguably the worst type of automatic switch reliability wise. Having an    automatic switch is personal preference, not "you obviously should" because it is far from obvious for many on a metal or GRP boats, wooden boats are a different proposition.

 

 

[TandC]

One bilge pump in the engine bay at the lowest point - on a auto and manual switch.   Washing up bowl under the stern gland for easy decanting of any drips from when we cruise.  Regular checks - and with our deckhouse on during the winter I can go months without any water getting in.  On occasion, with a lot of wind and rain, some gets in through the vents i think and I use the wet and dry hoover and some rag to get it dry again.   When cruising, the canvas cover isn't great but it's usually easiest to just wait til we get home to the mooring and wet-n-dry hoover any rain out the engine bay.   The bilge pump is very rarely used.  When we go on holiday away from the boat, I switch it to "Auto" just in case - you never know, it may buy some time if something drastic happened... 

 

Inside the boat, I don't bother with a bilge pump but instead have inspection holes on both sides, at the lowest points.  One is right next to the washing machine and is easy to check every time I do a wash, just helps to force the regular monitoring.  Get a very small amount due to condensation on the baseplate if we get a very cold winter which comes out with a sponge. 

 

I have a small 1" deep baking tray fitted under my water pump/plumbing area, which is all boxed in so not visible - if (when) it leaks, the drips gather in the tray first - and then in it i have a 9v leak detector fitted.  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Topvico-Flood-Sensor-Detector-Security/dp/B07311Z536/ref=asc_df_B07311Z536/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=696945808709&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14769145626776216202&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007175&hvtargid=pla-353322384856&psc=1&mcid=3d0e06832606338d82e4b8072d6e6b17&gad_source=1 

 

These are a cheap and cheerful way of giving you an audible alarm.  I have had it "beeeep" once in a few years, when a water pump had developed a leak.

 

It works great - there was barely any water in the tray, zero water had gone anywhere else so caused no problems, and I was alerted to make the pump change without any other problems. 

 

You can also stick one in the bilge at the lowest point and it'll alert you if you have any water.  Still no substitute for regularly checking for any problems. 

 

 

[blackrose]

I have 2 bilge pumps in the engine hole, one with an internal float switch and the other with a big external float switch. If one failed hopefully the other wouldn't. 

 

I also have a bilge pump at the back of the cabin just forward of the bulkhead between cabin and engine room. It's not really necessary but it's there just in case the 1275 litre water tank at the bow ever decided to empty itself into the boat. The idea being that the pump would get rid of most of that water before it caused too much damage. 

[Arthur Marshall]

I have a cruiser stern with a non-working self draining deck. There's always an inch or two of water in the bilge - it rains a lot round here. I've a Rule auto bilge pump and I don't trust it an inch. The auto part is treated purely as a backup for emergencies as on every previous pump it has failed to cut in when needed.

[JoeC]

On 21/06/2024 at 08:48, Lady M said:

It probably depends on what type of back deck your boat has.  My trad style boat has one bilge pump and we take pride in keeping the engine room floor dry by means of a tub under the stern gland.

I also have a tub under the stern gland to catch the water drips and use a wet n dry hoover to empty it.

[BilgePump]

1 hour ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I have a cruiser stern with a non-working self draining deck. There's always an inch or two of water in the bilge - it rains a lot round here. I've a Rule auto bilge pump and I don't trust it an inch. The auto part is treated purely as a backup for emergencies as on every previous pump it has failed to cut in when needed.

Our NB was a cruiser stern with steps to go down to the door on bulkhead into cabin. Most water that fell on the back deck either ended up going down the steps and a drain hole into the engine bilge or managed to get in round the plywood deck boards into the same. We only had a single non-auto bilge pump in the engine bay. Like you say, it rains a bit on the Macc and Peak Forest so the engine bay always had water in it when we went to the boat. Only occasionally would it be thoroughly dried out and cleaned for a bit of repaint. Even with this poor choice of back deck design and sometime more than a month between visits, the water was never high enough to be a threat to the engine. No bilge pumps in main cabin bilge but put in inspection hatches right at the back and one in the middle after we had a water pump pipe fail and needed to get out what we knew was down there. That was normally dry after that, except when a window seal failed and a tiny bit of water made its way into the bilge. A nappy under the rearmost hatch kept any moisture in check. I have a deep (and unfounded) distrust of auto-bilge pumps. On my little GRP cruiser, it's permanently wet from leaks and water removal nomally involves, milk carton, bucket and sponge.

[Alan de Enfield]

8 minutes ago, BilgePump said:

Our NB was a cruiser stern with steps to go down to the door on bulkhead into cabin. Most water that fell on the back deck either ended up going down the steps and a drain hole into the engine bilge or managed to get in round the plywood deck boards into the same. We only had a single non-auto bilge pump in the engine bay. Like you say, it rains a bit on the Macc and Peak Forest so the engine bay always had water in it when we went to the boat. Only occasionally would it be thoroughly dried out and cleaned for a bit of repaint. Even with this poor choice of back deck design and sometime more than a month between visits, the water was never high enough to be a threat to the engine. No bilge pumps in main cabin bilge but put in inspection hatches right at the back and one in the middle after we had a water pump pipe fail and needed to get out what we knew was down there. That was normally dry after that, except when a window seal failed and a tiny bit of water made its way into the bilge. A nappy under the rearmost hatch kept any moisture in check. I have a deep (and unfounded) distrust of auto-bilge pumps. On my little GRP cruiser, it's permanently wet from leaks and water removal nomally involves, milk carton, bucket and sponge.

 

 

We had a boat that we bought as 'sunk & recovered'.

It had the same arrangement (steps and drain hole to bilge as yours). It transpires that some leaves had blocked the drain hole at the bottom of the steps, the 'well' filled up until the water seeped in over the door step and slowly filled the cabin until the back-end sunk, with the water level ending up around 3/4 of the way up the engine covering the starter motor and the alternator,

 

Got everything dried out and replaced started her up and ran as sweet as a nut.

[Tony Brooks]

2 hours ago, BilgePump said:

Our NB was a cruiser stern with steps to go down to the door on bulkhead into cabin. Most water that fell on the back deck either ended up going down the steps and a drain hole into the engine bilge or managed to get in round the plywood deck boards into the same. We only had a single non-auto bilge pump in the engine bay. Like you say, it rains a bit on the Macc and Peak Forest so the engine bay always had water in it when we went to the boat. Only occasionally would it be thoroughly dried out and cleaned for a bit of repaint. Even with this poor choice of back deck design and sometime more than a month between visits, the water was never high enough to be a threat to the engine. No bilge pumps in main cabin bilge but put in inspection hatches right at the back and one in the middle after we had a water pump pipe fail and needed to get out what we knew was down there. That was normally dry after that, except when a window seal failed and a tiny bit of water made its way into the bilge. A nappy under the rearmost hatch kept any moisture in check. I have a deep (and unfounded) distrust of auto-bilge pumps. On my little GRP cruiser, it's permanently wet from leaks and water removal nomally involves, milk carton, bucket and sponge.

 

Exactly me position on JennyB and what I found re build up of water in bilge

[Mickba]

When my boat was surveyed he said the bilge should be plugged in, live and in auto mode.

 

So, when in such mode, how do you route the pipe in order for the water to be pumped out?

I see no fittings such as there are for the shower etc further along the boat.

[Tony Brooks]

1 minute ago, Mickba said:

When my boat was surveyed he said the bilge should be plugged in, live and in auto mode.

 

So, when in such mode, how do you route the pipe in order for the water to be pumped out?

I see no fittings such as there are for the shower etc further along the boat.

 

You drill a suitable hole in the hull and weld a pipe stub on the inside or fit a skin fitting with hose tail.

[Mickba]

2 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

You drill a suitable hole in the hull and weld a pipe stub on the inside or fit a skin fitting with hose tail.

 

That's what I was looking for.

Do most boats have them?