Water makers

jrudge

jrudge

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Just read a thread on live aboard forum about water makers and it peaked my interest ... Again!

Surprisingly a forum search and google of the forums revealed not much.

We have 1000 lt on board but a slow top up would be handy.

A google search shows a fair variety of 100 lph 12/24v auto units for about £5000. 100 lph is fine and 24v let's it run in the background and we have the gen on for 4 or 5 hrs a day to charge , cook , ac etc.

Does any one have any suggestions as to what is good and what is dreadful!
 
jrudge said:
Just read a thread on live aboard forum about water makers and it peaked my interest ... Again!

Surprisingly a forum search and google of the forums revealed not much.

We have 1000 lt on board but a slow top up would be handy.

A google search shows a fair variety of 100 lph 12/24v auto units for about £5000. 100 lph is fine and 24v let's it run in the background and we have the gen on for 4 or 5 hrs a day to charge , cook , ac etc.

Does any one have any suggestions as to what is good and what is dreadful!
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Are there really any decent 24v units? I haven't looked. I really don't see the point when you have a genset and a boat the size of yours; what's the point of sending 100+amps around the place at 24v with all the cable weight and fire risk etc of that?

You got remember that whatever it says on the label will never be achieved in your daily use. That's lab conditions with a bit salty water. In the uber salty Med you will get maybe 75% performance. My unit is nominal 280lph but I get 220. On previous boat I had 50% of that (std spec unit, so I doubled it on next boat) and found it a bit frustrating that to make enough water to replenish the usage by say 6-8 people I needed to run the thing 4 or 5 hours a day. Also I have to admit that my usage tends to be on the basis oops I forgot to run it earlier and now we're nearly empty, and in an emergency you don't want your tank filling more lowly than folks want to flush the loos

They're a bit noisy on our sized boats so you really want the thing to make a day's water during a day's underway time so that the engine noise drowns it, ie 2 hours, say, and that gets me back to wanting 220 litres/hour on our sized boats. OK 120 would be fine really, but 75 (which is what your 100 will give you) is getting a bit borderline-ish imho

All that said the thing works wonderfully well and I have no problem with it. It's a Horizon Reverse Osmosis/HRO Seafari 1800-2 I think, fwiw. There are about 5 or 6 brands that are the "good ones" that everyone rates and HRO is one of them. The water it makes really is very nice. If you do get a bigger one running on 230 v I'd recommend getting a remote panel to turn it on/off from inside the boat (not E/room) and a small VFD soft start unit so it doesn't "shock" the membrane on start up. Even then, think about where to locate it because you have to go to it and twiddle knobs often - it certainly isn't fit and forget
 
Agree with JFM. Get the unit that produces the most. Two years ago my high pressure pump failed, apparently doesnt like low amps, all i could find in Malta was a HP pump half the power so on the recommendation of the manufacturer we took out one of the membranes from the circuit. It dropped production more to a point where we really couldnt make water fast enough for the 6 guests on board. Boss not impressed but it was August and Italy had formally closed for the summer.

Also the noise, as JFM say its not fun. Ours is located by my cabin as far away from guests as possible but they can still just about hear it. Mind you we run a quiet ship. No generators after 2200 and not on before 0830. Crew have to wait for morning tea and coffee when at anchor ;-((

Do plenty of research as there is rubbish out there.
 
Echo tech seem to have reasonable web reviews.

http://www.echotecwatermakers.com/english/seawater_desalination_systems_commercial_vessels.htm

There seem to be several types of water maker. Simple and industrial and then up levels that save more energy.

The echo tech is at the simple end, which in this case seems to mean you use a lot of power to run it.


I was quoted £15k inc vat ( with 10% offered - so £13500) fitted for a HRO Horizon Seafari Versatile 900-2 GPD which is 140 lph. Online they are some US$11,000 + shipping and VAT. So the installed price will not be a million miles outside of £13.5k i was offered.
 
jrudge said:
Echo tech seem to have reasonable web reviews.

http://www.echotecwatermakers.com/english/seawater_desalination_systems_commercial_vessels.htm

There seem to be several types of water maker. Simple and industrial and then up levels that save more energy.

The echo tech is at the simple end, which in this case seems to mean you use a lot of power to run it.


I was quoted £15k inc vat ( with 10% offered - so £13500) fitted for a HRO Horizon Seafari Versatile 900-2 GPD which is 140 lph. Online they are some US$11,000 + shipping and VAT. So the installed price will not be a million miles outside of £13.5k i was offered.
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I don't know Echotech. The list of vessels installed on their website worries me - a pile of jalopies basically, not good credentials imho. Their units also seem to have fewer filters than my HRO, and the intake filters they do have seem smaller/nastier. My HRO all have restriction meters on them, for example, and I have carbon filters on the product water to make it tasteless

For sure get one that has a decent Med dealer service network (which HRO does) because you will need it servicing, and there are consumables ie filter elements. Would be a false economy getting an unknown one. That HRO you mention is very nice and is what I had on my last boat. The 900-2 means it has 2 tubes 900mm long that contain the membranes. I had the 1800-1 version, but basically the same. I now have the 1800-2, which is double the output and probably a bigger motor. The one you have been quoted is a very pukka high end unit though and will be a great installation. As I say add the soft start box to the motor if available

Also the HRO has auto backflush (as do other decent units). The thing automatically back flushes the membranes with fresh water every week. It has self diagnosis so if it decides to shut down it tells you why and is usually something simple to fix

As I said, you will see 110lph from that HRO unit not 140 in the salty Med, so you need to run it say 3 hours/day when cruising and not using marinas for the 4 of you, and more with guests. Of course you'll be running that many genset hours anyway (for galley and airco) so the thing will nicely load up your genset which is all good.

The thing needs an intake seacock and I do not know if the quoted price includes a haul out. 3/4 or 1 inch BSP iirc.

Scuse the OCD ness but I would want to agree with installer where everything will go so as not to mess up your nice e/room. The thing dumps waste water so you might also care where that discharge goes (not that you'll run it in a marina of course, so neighbour noise wont be an issue). There might be manifolded underwater dump on Sq65 (there's one each side on Sq78), sort of seachest concept, and if there is it would be nice to tap into that manifold because you then have silent discharge and no extra hole drilled in your hull

As an anecdote, the maintence guy who looks after mine and is a serious RO specialist assures me that it is ok to run the thing in the marina. He says that despite the WC waste dumped in the marina and the oil, the product water is perfect and fully drinkable. The filters are so fine they trap things like e-coli. I don't fancy it and have never run mine in any marina, but it's good to know that the RO process produces clean water from toilet waste basically!
 
jfm said:
Haha! I have a 24 socket in galley and one of these, to make tea underway without starting the genset :))) Slower than a 2kw proper mains kettle but boils 2 cups of tea worth in 10 mins or something like that
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/24V-300W-...005&rk=1&rkt=6&mehot=pp&sd=351141260855&rt=nc
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...or for a few £'s you can have your media inverter (assuming you specced one) linked into the 240v loop and boil a kettle at any time without the genny, or charge phones, or blowdry your hair ;)

Re watermakers, like JFM I've gone for the HRO (in my case the SFC 1400) which produces 220l/h so will half fill the tank in just over a couple of hours (subject to how salty the water is). Did quite a bit of research and HRO and Seafresh seemed to me to be the best, near commercial-grade, installations. Came in at around £14k + VAT but that's FL's 'extras' list price, so possibly sub £10k in the real world!!
 
MedMilo said:
...or for a few £'s you can have your media inverter (assuming you specced one) linked into the 240v loop and boil a kettle at any time without the genny, or charge phones, or blowdry your hair ;)

Re watermakers, like JFM I've gone for the HRO (in my case the SFC 1400) which produces 220l/h so will half fill the tank in just over a couple of hours (subject to how salty the water is). Did quite a bit of research and HRO and Seafresh seemed to me to be the best, near commercial-grade, installations. Came in at around £14k + VAT but that's FL's 'extras' list price, so possibly sub £10k in the real world!!
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I have an inverter but i have it feeding the media gear and dedicated 230v sockets (a couple in each cabin and the saloon fe) rather than to the general 230v ring mains. OK for charging phones, obviously. I asked Fairline not to put an inverter 230v socket in the galley thinking that folks (not me - I'm not very galley-ish) would keep plugging the kettle or hot things into it and pulling 100amps from the batteries. On reflection I probably did the wrong thing there! Indeed I'm planning on taking the inverter loop to the dishwasher because I often seem to be running a genset underway just to run that. Job #163 on my boat todo list :)

The SFC 1400-2 is a nice machine - same as mine basically. You'll like it! As I say the water there is salty so you'll probably get 180 litres/hour, though i'll be interested to compare notes on that when you get it running. The HP pump is a big beast and you will find it a bit noisy, so you need to remember to make water underway rather than wait till you run out in the evening @ quiet anchorage (as I tend to do!)
 
I installed a Desallator Duo Voltage 24VDC/220 VAC 100 liter/hour in my NTM boat. I wanted the dual voltage to avoid running the genset as I also have large solar capacity. Dessalator is the brand installed on Amels and they are well reputed. The boat is still in refit so its not been tried in anger..

:-) GL
 
jfm said:
I have an inverter but i have it feeding the media gear and dedicated 230v sockets (a couple in each cabin and the saloon fe) rather than to the general 230v ring mains. OK for charging phones, obviously. I asked Fairline not to put an inverter 230v socket in the galley thinking that folks (not me - I'm not very galley-ish) would keep plugging the kettle or hot things into it and pulling 100amps from the batteries. On reflection I probably did the wrong thing there! Indeed I'm planning on taking the inverter loop to the dishwasher because I often seem to be running a genset underway just to run that. Job #163 on my boat todo list :)
The SFC 1400-2 is a nice machine - same as mine basically. You'll like it! As I say the water there is salty so you'll probably get 180 litres/hour, though i'll be interested to compare notes on that when you get it running. The HP pump is a big beast and you will find it a bit noisy, so you need to remember to make water underway rather than wait till you run out in the evening @ quiet anchorage (as I tend to do!)
Click to expand...

Slight thread drift here but just to say that I installed 8 x 220ah Mastervolt Gel batteries (instead of the usual 4 domestics) plus 2.5kw (5kw peak) inverter upgrade (plus upgraded chargers and alternators!) so have 1600ah over and above the starter battery bank etc. I know that's a lot of extra weight (the extra 4 batts weigh c60kgs each, so almost another Williams in the ER!) but the set-up obviously allows pretty constant all day long 240v as long as not too much hot stuff is required. The genny then charges everything back up for two or three hours each evening so it works pretty well. I had a similar set up on the 58

Will let you know how I get on with the watermaker - agree that it'll be best to make water underway.
 
MedMilo said:
Slight thread drift here but just to say that I installed 8 x 220ah Mastervolt Gel batteries (instead of the usual 4 domestics) plus 2.5kw (5kw peak) inverter upgrade (plus upgraded chargers and alternators!) so have 1600ah over and above the starter battery bank etc. I know that's a lot of extra weight (the extra 4 batts weigh c60kgs each, so almost another Williams in the ER!) but the set-up obviously allows pretty constant all day long 240v as long as not too much hot stuff is required. The genny then charges everything back up for two or three hours each evening so it works pretty well. I had a similar set up on the 58

Will let you know how I get on with the watermaker - agree that it'll be best to make water underway.
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Very nice spec Milo - actually I thought hard about that and decided not to, to save the weight(!) though I'm not sure I made the right choice there! One observation on yours: you need imho 3x 100am Mastervolt chargers ganged in parallel. Maybe even 4. If you don't spec that as well as the batteries (maybe you have specced it, sorry), You'll have nothing like the charge rate that you want for avoiding high genset run time, and you'll be feeding charge to the batteries much slower than their max acceptance rate. I would guess the standard spec on your boat is a pair of 80amp chargers; you need much more than that imho
 
JFM do you have a separate product/rinse tank for the auto flush and do you 'pickle' the membrane over the winter?
 
Asm said:
JFM do you have a separate product/rinse tank for the auto flush and do you 'pickle' the membrane over the winter?
Click to expand...
No, none of that. The thing just automatically backflushes with the boat's domestic water supply, weekly. I don't winterise/pickle because the boat is in commission, including the w/maker, for the whole year
I'm v happy to hear differing advice on this. I'm a bit of a newbie to w/makers and don't have the bandwith to read up massively on them
 
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