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A damp feeling........


Matt&Jo

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Hi all, sorry for the click bait title lol

 

So i thought i would have a dry run this weekend on isolating everything ready for the cold snaps.....so i opened up my trap door into the bilge at the bow of the boat to isolate the water supply. No i have regularly checked the boat and its always been dry but i came accross the attached.....now its not deep no pooled water just damp/wet with dust......could this be condensation running down the tank skin? As i felt all unions i could reach and they were dry. I left the trap open to air it out but am a wee bit concerned i have a leak.........dont all boats tho lol.

 

 

20181104_162230.jpg

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28 minutes ago, Matt&Jo said:

Thanks rusty i hope thats all it is.....

It probably is, but keep an eye on it.Can you see condensation on the vertical surfaces in the engine room/fresh water tank?

 

Ours started getting "winter damp" again about two weeks ago fwiw.

Edited by rusty69
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A couple of years ago after moving the boat to Macclesfield, which is a lot higher up and colder than the Shroppie where it was before, I found the floor getting soggy at the front of the boat, lifted the boards and found about two inches of water.  All, it turned out, from condensation off the back of the water tank (which is the the other side of the bulkhead at pointy end of the boat) which i had omitted to insulate.  Since I did, no water.

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I had a similar problem. Not condensation though. All the pipe joints were perfectly dry, but the wetness was there, and was traced to pinhole leaks through the rusty bow tank bulkhead along the lower edge - out of sight under the floor

A temporary plug cured it, the keel-plate dried completely, but eventually more rusty pinholes kept occurring. In the end I installed a plastic liner tank - and have never had a problem with it since.

    l

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23 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

A couple of years ago after moving the boat to Macclesfield, which is a lot higher up and colder than the Shroppie where it was before, I found the floor getting soggy at the front of the boat, lifted the boards and found about two inches of water.  All, it turned out, from condensation off the back of the water tank (which is the the other side of the bulkhead at pointy end of the boat) which i had omitted to insulate.  Since I did, no water.

Two inches of water ?? was that at the front ? .... wouldn't that mean the back end was flooded?

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As its new to you the key for now is VERY close monitoring - was the boat immediately in use before you bought it or sitting - I'm asking mainly to see if you have just started reusing the water system and/or if you are bringing the body of the boat back up to (ambient) temperature esp as the last few nights have been very cold - are you now on full time??

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8 hours ago, Horace42 said:

Two inches of water ?? was that at the front ? .... wouldn't that mean the back end was flooded?

If it's not a free running bilge or the limber holes are blocked , then no probably not. 

Edited by rusty69
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15 hours ago, Matt&Jo said:

20181104_162230.jpg

 

 

Well two things strike me immediately about this photo, neither of which have been commented on so far.

 

1) The hose is clamped over a threaded outlet stud from the lever valve. How anyone can expect this to be watertight is beyond me as water will run along the spiral of the thread. Unless the clip is so tight the hose material is deformed so as to fully fill the depth of the thread, which it doesn't look like. 

 

2) There is a dollop of white goo splodged around the welded tank outlet socket, so I imagine this leaks too. Splodging dollops of goo on top of leaks rarely stops them in my experience. 

 

I'm not surprised there is 'dampness' in this area. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

  

 

2) There is a dollop of white goo splodged around the welded tank outlet socket, so I imagine this leaks too. Splodging dollops of goo on top of leaks rarely stops them in my experience. 

 

I'm not surprised there is 'dampness' in this area. 

 

 

I thought that was a blow of spray foam insulation, you can see a few splatters on the tank

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On 04/11/2018 at 23:24, Horace42 said:

Two inches of water ?? was that at the front ? .... wouldn't that mean the back end was flooded?

No, there are quite high bearers right across the baseplate and the water was nearly up to the top of them but not over.  So it was only the first yard or so of floor that had the water in, but it still took a fair bit of pumping and mopping to get it all out, especially under the bed.  The floorboards had rotted, which is how I noticed in the first place.  I left it open for a couple of months to air and to check and now have a couple of inspection holes in the floor just to check every so often that it's not recurring.  I was also worried about the tank rusting through as yours did, but so far it hasn't...

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3) the hex on the valve has been chewed by a pipe wrench or similar. On that basis, the nylon reinforced pipe doesn't look like it was the original pumbing. Someone has definitely done a bodge

Edited by Cheshire cat
to make it make sense
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1 minute ago, Matt&Jo said:

So what are my options here guys?

Determine whether it is actually a plumbing leak or condensation. Some kitchen towel supported beneath the pipe may give you an indication.

 

If you are sure it was dry in the past, seems likely to be condensation imo.

 

Follower the boilermans advice, fit an appropriate fitting to the threaded section at some point to reduce the possibility of leaking along the thread.

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Okay cool thanks all as soon as i can drain down the tank ill leave it be for a while. When i felt the fitting nothing was leaking or wet so i will check when i go up sunday.......just hope its a simple fix. We recently filled all 600ltrs of the tank too ? long ass showers it is......

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