Beneteau Plumbing - quality control

[wonkywinch]

Considering the French word for water features heavily in the makers name, you would have thought Beneteau would get it right. Our boat is 9 years old and I still find issues with her.

I'd never been happy with the water flow, the pump always seemed noisy and so I decided to fit a new Shurflow pump for improved pressure and lower noise. I had always wondered why there was a non return valve straight after the manifold before the pump filter on the suction side.

Since we already had an NRV in the correct place, ie cold water input to the calorifier, I decided to remove it as part of my refit. Once the job was done, the tap & shower ran really well, the pump was a fair bit quieter than the old one but on closer inspection, I found a load of blue plastic swarf in a mesh filter inside the NRV. My guess is this has been there since Beneteau drilled the (blue plastic) tanks when the boat was being built.

The old pump worked well but short of refitting it to see how it really performs vs the new one, I've put it up for sale. Here was the work.

Before:



New pump fitted together with recommended use of flexi hose to connect the pump.



Suggested boat water schematic found online:



NRV already fitted to calorifier input ..



Original NRV in inlet line removed and cleaned out -




I didn't think to remove and check the manifold NRV before going ahead with a new pump! What purpose it would ever serve in that location beat me.

Perfectly serviceable Jabsco pump up in the For Sale section - https://forums.ybw.com/threads/jabs...model-32600-7006-12-volt-30psi-2-1bar.622071/

 

[seeSimon]

I recently had cause to peer down one of those white handled 1/4 isolation cocks in your photo 1, and was horrified to see how much restriction they cause, even fully open. This wouod cause noise.
I Plan to change mine over winter.

Photo 2. That valve with the black lever looks like the pressure RV to me?

What do you think all that blue plastic junk is? I wonder how much of that you’ve inadvertently consumed?

I would agree that it seems odd to fit an NRV just downstream of the pump suction.

 

[Blueboatman]

Nice one

So, from Beneteau to C’est bien, l’eau

À bientôt

Rigid mounting to the hull and daft restrictions and endless hard elbows will always transfer augmented noise.

I have a pump like that ( at home) mounted on a ply board which is held ‘suspended’ by 4 pieces of bungee,(!) one per corner, to transfer rainwater around. It is now silent
The same pump on the boat required rubber mounts and the removal of a metal mounting plate in order to suppress the db.

 

[wonkywinch]

I recently had cause to peer down one of those white handled 1/4 isolation cocks in your photo 1, and was horrified to see how much restriction they cause, even fully open. This wouod cause noise.
I Plan to change mine over winter.

Photo 2. That valve with the black lever looks like the pressure RV to me?

What do you think all that blue plastic junk is? I wonder how much of that you’ve inadvertently consumed?

I would agree that it seems odd to fit an NRV just downstream of the pump suction.

The PRV has an arrow on it, so a combined NRV/PRV?

There was the pump mesh filter then we have a Grohe water filter tap at the sink so two more traps for any plastic that had got through the first NRV.

Still puzzled why Jabsco would have included the NRV unless it's also used where there is a "city water" hose connection on some boats downstream of the pump to prevent that back filling the tanks?

Edited to say pretty certain it's a combi NRV/PRV.