On board plumbing.

[tom52]

Two questions please.
1) I cannot take my boat out of the water this year until February.
I have therefore drained my water tanks and calorifier as a precaution against frost.
If I use the boat and run the engine with a dry calorifier will it explode like a house boiler, or will the hot engine water just go around the loop and back to the engine heat exchanger without doing any harm ?
2) I have saildrive and the raw water intake is via the leg.
I fear that the flow is becoming restricted (by mussels growth perhaps?). A common problem I understand.
My heads intake seacock is conveniently adjacent to the engine. Could I add a Y
connector to this seacock and also use it for my engine raw water intake ? Perhaps with the addition of a stopcock into the heads line so it could be isolated if neccessary.

<hr width=100% size=1>

 

[HeadMistress]

Does the water in which you keep your boat freeze? If not, you may not need to do anything...because boat hulls--and whatever is in them below the waterline--take their temperature from the water...if the water is above freezing, so will any water in the thru-hulls and anything else that's low in the boat.

Even when the temperatures dip well below freezing overnight, there should be no cause for concern as long as the daytime temperatures rise well above freezing. It takes more than just a few hours for hull temperatures to drop enough for anything in the boat to freeze. The only time there MIGHT be a problem is in the event of a hard freeze--low 20s down to -0- F --that lasts 3 days or longer.

I kept my boats in the water year round. Although we did occasionally have some hard freezes that lasted a week, the water never froze...nor ever got below about 45 F...I never winterized, nor ever had problem. However, my boat was under cover--not in a shed, just a roof that kept the rain and snow off it. If yours is not, you will want to make regular trips to make sure the cockpit scuppers and other drains don't get blocked by leaves and debris.

<hr width=100% size=1>Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987

 

[david_bagshaw]

1 should be ok, certainly no xplosion, but heating coil only might lead to metal creep near the flanges, but unlikely realy.

<hr width=100% size=1>David
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.euroboating.net>http://www.euroboating.net</A>