Water Pump - duty cycle

[Nemysys]

You may have seen my other post about not winterising the boat this year, next year I will be draining the water tanks.

 

How do you drain the water? I presume you turn the kitchen/bathroom tap on and let it empty. I haven't seen any other way or outlets to use.

 

I appreciate all pumps are different, but in general is it safe to empty a pair of water tanks this way without burning the pump out?

I guess normally it doesn't run for more than 10 mins at a time or so for the shower. (apart from when my wife gets in there)

 

Is the duty cycle for a water pump up to this?

Of course the obvious answer is to run the tanks down over a period of time, a bit here a bit there, but just curious.

 

Thanks

Edited February 22, 2012 by Nemysys

[ditchcrawler]

You may have seen my other post about not winterising the boat this year, next year I will be draining the water tanks.

 

How do you drain the water? I presume you turn the kitchen/bathroom tap on and let it empty. I haven't seen any other way or outlets to use.

 

I appreciate all pumps are different, but in general is it safe to empty a pair of water tanks this way without burning the pump out?

I guess normally it doesn't run for more than 10 mins at a time or so for the shower. (apart from when my wife gets in there)

 

Is the duty cycle for a water pump up to this?

Of course the obvious answer is to run the tanks down over a period of time, a bit here a bit there, but just curious.

 

Thanks

I normally leave the cold water storage tank about half full, which is basically how it is when we get back to the moorings. I have a T in the cold supply to the calofifier after the check valve then a valve followed by another T between the bath drain and the bath emptying pump.

I switch of the water pump and open all the taps. Close the gate valve on the cold water tank outlet. Remove the filter cover on the pump suction. Switch on the pump. This now blows all the water out of the tap runs. By closing and opening taps one at a time, not forgetting the shower and the toilet flush it will clear most or the pipes. Switch the pump off again. With the hot taps open I open the valve between the calorifier and the bath waste, Water from the calorifier now cums up the bath plug hole and air gets in via the open hot taps. Starting the drain pump gets rid of the water. I find that running the pump with the bath plug in sucks the colorifer empty faster than a gravity drain.

When that's all don I disconnect the fresh water pump and shake all the water out of it because if it freezes its about £80. The very last thing I do is pour a cup of very salty water down the bath plughole and give the pump a quick flick to suck it through the pump and hope it protects the pump and discharge pipe.

I will find out in a couple of weeks if it worked again.