Mains water

Professor Longhair

Professor Longhair

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22 Dec 2012
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Island Paradise, QLD, Australia
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g'day

Ive been thinking of fitting mains pressure water direct to the boat. I've got a Beneteau 393 with a couple of fairly small fresh water tanks. I used to live on a house boat and it was connected to the mains at the marina, it was very convenient and saved on constant operation of the pressure pump.

what say the collective? the biggest risk I see is the higher pressure popping a join and flooding the bilges. When I'm away, obviously I'd de-pressurise the system.

tips, advice, ridicule invited
 
Professor Longhair said:
g'day

Ive been thinking of fitting mains pressure water direct to the boat. I've got a Beneteau 393 with a couple of fairly small fresh water tanks. I used to live on a house boat and it was connected to the mains at the marina, it was very convenient and saved on constant operation of the pressure pump.

what say the collective? the biggest risk I see is the higher pressure popping a join and flooding the bilges. When I'm away, obviously I'd de-pressurise the system.

tips, advice, ridicule invited
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You have your very own, personal, water tap :eek:
 
Not a chance I'd do this. If anything happened whilst you were away, the boat is sunk.

For the effort in occasionally filling the tank, I'd leave as is.

Either that, or buy a house boat :p
 
nathanlee said:
Not a chance I'd do this. If anything happened whilst you were away, the boat is sunk.

For the effort in occasionally filling the tank, I'd leave as is.

Either that, or buy a house boat :p
Click to expand...

No thanks, I'm done with houseboats. Sinking the boat is the worst case scenario that I fear, just looking to learn from the mistakes of others rather than from my own at this stage.

Shutting off and depressurising will prevent it sinking while I'm away, but perhaps you're right, not worth the risk.
 
Thats how my boat is set up when I and in dock but I never leave the water connected when I am away for longer than an hour or two.

You may need a pressure regulator if the water supply pressure is greater than 3 bar. I made up a pressure regulator that fits the supply tap so I only use it when needed.
 
maxi77 said:
If you did decide to try it you could fit a 'floodcheck' valve which shuts off the water if it runs too long, freezes or is not used for 24 hours.
http://www.floodcheck.co.uk/
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Connecting boats up to mains water seems to be more common in the US, and I believe there are purpose-build valves on the market there which act as both pressure reducer (to avoid bursting boat plumbing) and flood-preventer. Afraid I don't have a name for them though.

Pete
 
nathanlee said:
Not a chance I'd do this. If anything happened whilst you were away, the boat is sunk.

For the effort in occasionally filling the tank, I'd leave as is.

Either that, or buy a house boat :p
Click to expand...

Totally agree with Nathan, happened to me when I tried this, pipe burst, during the night, woke up in the morning, with three feet of water in the galley area, thank god for watertight bulkheads and high mounted/waterproof electrics! bilge pump couldnt keep up. Three feet of water in the galley area is about 2000 gallons! Took five hours to pump out!
Will never do that again!
 
Well, that's a tick in the negative column, glad you caught it in time. Maybe this could be managed with one of the excess flow gizmos mentioned earlier?
Like I said originally, I haven't decided what I'll do yet, Nathan has a point, it's not hard to fill the tanks semi regularly. I guess the main reason I'd like to do something is to be able to use pressure water without running the pump, catch 22.
 
A Beneteau tied up beside me in a small marina in Galicia last year and plugged in elect. & water. I though it looked dodgy at the time as it was a flooding risk. It might have been engineered to failsafe but I doubt it.

Anyway, I don't think it is very easy to make this completely safe as it is designed to allow water to flow into the boat on demand. So any small leak in the plumbing has the potential to sink the boat.

I also thought that this particular guy was being very anti-social by hogging the nearest water pipe for a couple of days. If everyone did this we'd have problems. I suppose a T-piece with another valve would get around that to some extent.
 
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I recommend using the boat system of tanks and pumps to keep the boat system up to snuff. I know of one boat that launched for the summer to find the water tanks and hoses were kaputt. He didn't notice the deteriation because he used a shore hose when laid up. "Use em or lose em" does not only apply to your dangly bits.
 
May also be worth looking in caravan shops. We had a permanent water connection but is was more a mains fed cistern that the caravan pump drew from, but I have heard of direct mains connections.
 
The boat next to us on the pontoon, with which we share our water access, is permanently plugged in to the tap. We're only down there at weekends, yet they create an almighty hoo-ha every time (once a month) we ask (nicely) if we can use the hose to fill our tanks.

Of direct relevance to your question - their boat is still afloat.
Of indirect relevance to your question - if you're sharing access to the water, then be aware that other people also pay for access to it as part of their marina fees.
 
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