Some boat projects.

I have been busy doing boat projects on my days off.  The Hydronic heater was giving us fits.  I had to replace the old Espar heater with a new one.  In the process, lots of air got into the system and was keeping the coolant from circulating.  I bled the system off and on for about 3 weeks.  It is finally working great.  Lots of heat on all but the coldest nights (low 20’s).  The heater itself is too small for the boat, but we intend to eleviate that issue soon.

I also replaced the fresh water pump and installed an accumulator tank.  My hope was for great flow and with the accumulator tank, the pump wouldn’t cycle as much.  The pump I installed was supposed to be really quiet too.  The old one sounding like it was crushing rocks.   None of that happened.  The pump cycled a lot.  We had less water flow and the pump itself sounded like it was grinding smaller rocks, but still crushing rocks.

I installed a great pump that Fisheries sells.  I think it is made of gold and platinum because it was not cheap.  After a few days of air spitting out of the water lines until pressure built up, I found a problem.  The pump came with a hard plastic inlet filter.  The problem with hard plastic and metal, is plastic always cracks and that is what happened.  The filter housing was cracked and was allowing the pump to suck air and cut down on it efficiency.  I removed the filter and the pump moves a lot of water.  It is amazingly quiet and delivers lots of water.  No more rock quarry!