The electric bilge pump on my Beneteau is

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chuzzlewit

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protected from solid debris by a filter like a smaller version of the filter on the sea water intake for engine cooling. There is no strum box but before the bilge water reaches the filter it goes through a Jabsco Pump Guard. This blocks with hairs(Shower water ends up in the bilges). I'm tempted to remove the Pump Guard.
Does it serve any useful purpose?
 
chuzzlewit said:
protected from solid debris by a filter like a smaller version of the filter on the sea water intake for engine cooling. There is no strum box but before the bilge water reaches the filter it goes through a Jabsco Pump Guard. This blocks with hairs(Shower water ends up in the bilges). I'm tempted to remove the Pump Guard.
Does it serve any useful purpose?
Click to expand...

if its an impeller type rather than a diaphragm it will get bound up with hair, best clear the filter not strip the pump
 
Safety issue

When one reads the classic stories of boats in trouble in heavy weather, they often mention bilge pumps rendered useless by a pulp of paper charts, books, labels from tins etc.

My Carter 30 had a shower which emptied into the bilge, and I must say I didn't like the arrangement.

I'd keep the bilge pump filter and try to fit a grp or plastic shower tray of some kind with a separate pump out; it could be a small electric job discharging via a seacock above the waterline, but don't put it so that it will fill someone's dinghy or cockpit when alongside ! :D
 
If it's filling up with hairs then it is doing a very useful job as it's stopping a blockage in the run from the pump to the outside. The more it's clogging the more useful it is as a filter.

In a similar situation but with a an 8 meter run on our new (to us) boat, the previous owner had left the pump guard in but removed the metal mesh as presumably it had clogged to often. The hours I spent getting access to and squeezing/pulling/coaxing the blockages along the pipe were not fun and needed a fair bit of cabin dismantling. In retrospect I would have tried to replace the pipe altogether as a quicker solution.

What I did do afterwards, though, was to put many gallons of water sprayed into the bilges and pumped then cleared the replaced filter, then pumped again (repeat until battery flattened) and have had much cleaner bilges and no filter clearing needed in a whole season since).
 
Hang on folks. My point is that there are TWO filters on the way to the bilge pump. The filter that I intend to leave has a basket with quite a fine mesh. The Jabsco Pump Guard doesn't have a mesh ; it's more like a separator in a fuel line. I'm not really sure how it works.
 
Penny dropped. Just Googled 'Jabsco Pump Guard 36200-0000'. It should contain a stainless steel filter mesh. The last owner must have removed it.
 
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