But, the shower sump on our boat was dead and to make matters worse, it was mounted under the center hallway just aft of the step to the v-berth. After removing the hatch in that hallway (or companion way in nautical terms), it was necessary to lie down and reach back under the flooring to disconnect it. When we say reach back, we mean being just able to touch the mounting screws and hose clamps.We got the old sump out and bought a new Rule shower sump, basically the same plastic box with an 8 GPH pump and a much improved solid-state float switch. It looks like this.
We don't understand what ever moved the people who designed this boat to bury what are basically owner-serviceable parts in such an a difficult spot, but they did.
The problem with connecting the new shower sump to the old hoses was that that they just barely reached the new sump and putting hose clamps on them took hours, many hours, in fact. The two hoses - shower water in and pumped water out didn't fit the new sump easily. We applied our trusty heat gun the the hoses and eventually got them on and locked down with hose clamps.
The photo below shows our working area. The shower sump was installed in the compartment between the stringers that are at upper left. There is a light in that area in the photo.
This project was supposed to take an afternoon. It ended up taking two complete weekend days. I guess should have guessed that nothing on a Silverton rehab ever takes a few hours.
On a less important subject, we were concerned that the overhead light fixtures in the salon and the v-berth tripped the circuit breaker when all were left on for any extended period. The reason is that each fixture (and there are four in our boat) contained two automobile tail light bulbs. Each fixture got hot and drew a lot of battery current.
On the advice of good friends who have a lot of experience in this area, we consulted superbrightleds.com. We found a bulb that fit the Silverton's fixture, shown here.. We bought four # 1156CW18-T cool white LED bulbs at at eye-popping $17.95 each. Considering that these LEDs will probably never need replacement and draw a tiny fraction of the current required by the auto bulbs, maybe they are a good deal.
The photo below shows one of the lights in the salon using the old automotive bulbs
And after installing the LED bulbs
Looks OK to us.
One other note while we're on the subject of LED lights. We, like a lot of other boaters, would love to change all the navigation lights from incandescent to LED. We recently poked around looking at Ancor marine LED bulbs to see if we could find an LED replacement for the 0.97-amp festoon style bulb that we currently use as a stern light. No luck and the LED bulbs that Ancor lists are marked "Not for navigation use."
The rule is 2-mile visibility for masthead (steaming), navigation and stern lights and I guess that at this point, LEDs just aren't bright enough or don't have adequate Coast Guard approval. I'm sure this will change eventually but for now, we're sticking with the incandescent bulbs for navigation.
hooray for hot showers! New lights look good, very bright. Could they operate with fewer than four in each fixture?
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