Watermaker flushing

[Sea Change]

Quick question- we just ran our watermaker for the first time as a test, and now we won't run it again for a few days so I want to flush it with product water.
I want to do this using the intake for the pickling solution (there is a connection to the boat's tanks, but that has a leaking filter and the tanks still have chlorinated water in them).
If I am understanding the instructions correctly, I should just run it with the pressure dialed right back. Is that correct?
It's an Echotec, if that's important.
Thanks

 

[richardh10]

This is possibly not the answer to your question but.......
I never flush the system between uses, and just pull off a bucketful at the start of each session. I found the flushing and pickling process to be a right faff with barely enough pressure to get the water/mixture through. The only drawback of the echotec as far as I can see.

 

[Sea Change]

This is possibly not the answer to your question but.......
I never flush the system between uses, and just pull off a bucketful at the start of each session. I found the flushing and pickling process to be a right faff with barely enough pressure to get the water/mixture through. The only drawback of the echotec as far as I can see.

What do you do with that bucketful?

 

[richardh10]

Chuck it back in the sea

 

[Ray Purchase]

Quick question- we just ran our watermaker for the first time as a test, and now we won't run it again for a few days so I want to flush it with product water.
I want to do this using the intake for the pickling solution (there is a connection to the boat's tanks, but that has a leaking filter and the tanks still have chlorinated water in them).
If I am understanding the instructions correctly, I should just run it with the pressure dialed right back. Is that correct?
It's an Echotec, if that's important.
Thanks

We found Daryl very helpful from Echotec, drop him an email if he's still around. Between uses we used to flush with fresh water every three days.

 

[Neeves]

Use any water that might be questionable to drink but has reduced salt to clean, dishes, veg, fish, shower - its a waste to throw it back in the sea. We would always collect the start up water, when we ran daily, for some form of cleaning - its low salt and never did us any harm.

Ours was a Spectra unit and flushing from the pickling intake was fine.

We would not pickle if we were using the unit regularly and if we had lots of fresh for any reason, would simply run it for a few minutes - no pressure. If you flush with fresh water under pressure the throughput will increase as there is no salt to remove.

Jonathan

 

[noelex]

We flush ours after every use, timed so the PPM of the brine water discharge is less than 800 ppm.

This may be overkill, although this is recommended in the manual. Our previous watermaker produced all our water (around 70,000 L ) with no issues other than filter changes and one low-pressure feed pump.

 

[john_morris_uk]

If you’re still in the lagoon at SXM, I’d be flushing it with fresh water asap. We and others we know never run water makers using lagoon water. I’m sure it’ll be okay, but you may need to look at the filters very carefully.

 

[Sea Change]

If you’re still in the lagoon at SXM, I’d be flushing it with fresh water asap. We and others we know never run water makers using lagoon water. I’m sure it’ll be okay, but you may need to look at the filters very carefully.

We're in the lagoon, which is why I'm not just running it normally, every three days.
I've now run 15l of product water through it, using the intake designed for pickling (because, as I described, the connection to the tanks isn't in use yet), using the high pressure pump without the pressure turned up. After a while the product sample outlet began to run, and the brine outlet was giving me about 250 tds.
I think I'm in the clear now for ~10 days.
I've been a bit confused about it because this is all new to me and the instructions assume that you are either going to pickle the watermaker, or flush it from the tanks, whereas I was doing something in-between.

 

[john_morris_uk]

That sort of makes sense. Although our current watermaker has a ‘flush’ button that draws water from the tanks through a carbon filter for a timed period. It’s also an energy recovery one so we only have one pump.

I’ve used several different ones which had the system where you ‘dial up the pressure’ to make product etc’ but it’s a while ago. Lots of the new models are all automatic.

 

[Sea Change]

That sort of makes sense. Although our current watermaker has a ‘flush’ button that draws water from the tanks through a carbon filter for a timed period.

We have the plumbing set up for that bit without the timer. One of the pre filter housings was cracked and leaking, so I had to borrow the carbon filter housing to make the system operational. I'll need to replace that.
I also want to make sure we don't have too much residual chlorine in the tanks. I understand the the carbon filter is there to remove it but having used one to treat the drinking water on our previous boat, I know that they aren't magic and some chlorine will still get through of the dosage is high enough.

It’s also an energy recovery one so we only have one pump.

This one just came with the boat, if buying new I might have chosen an energy recovery type. Although the new power system on this boat is really surprising me and we have never failed to get back to 100% every day despite the patchy weather.