Time to get this plumbing project back on track

The cold and snowy weather has kept us from working on replacing the water heater and the water lines. Saturday, we headed off to do some much-needed errands, the first of which was to visit Defender Marine in Waterford and get the new water heater.

Before we left, we downloaded the manual for the water heater we had selected and found that the manufacturer recommended installing a magnesium anode in place of the supplied drain faucet. Defender had that too, so we shelled out $22.95 for it. The water heater itself is a Seaward Model F-600, 6-gallon capacity, which is the same size as our old heater. That cost $274.99. We also needed a check valve for the cold water input line and Defender had a simple Shurflo check valve that will do nicely for $15.99.  $333.91 later we left with all of our stuff.

This water heater is actually round but is enclosed in this galvanized rectangular steel box. We think we'll prime and paint the box before we install it.

The two 1/2" nipples shown at the bottom of the water heater are for heating the water underway by routing engine coolant through. We had these on our old water heater and never connected them.  After completely re-plumbing the cooling systems on both engines a couple of years ago and rebuilding the heat exchangers with excellent results, we'll just cap those nipples and call it a day.

Besides, even after a seven hour cruise with our old water heater, we always had hot water. Better to leave well enough alone, as far as we're concerned.

Sunday: Getting the remainder of what we need

By this winter's standards, Sunday was an almost tropical day: no coat and we didn't even turn the electric heater on. First step was to buy the 1/2-inch reinforced water hose. We measured first and it looked like approximately 24 feet for the hot and cold water lines so we bought a 50 ft. box of Trident hose from the boat yard at $1.50 per foot.  

When we take the old hoses and fittings out, we may be able to re-purpose some of the hose clamps but just to make sure, we bought a box of a dozen Number 4 stainless hose clamps. We probably own 200 or more stainless hose clamps (but none this small) and we never knew they were numbered by size. One more thing we learned doing a winter project.

 The "T" and "L" fittings we had ordered were there so we packed up our stuff and waded through the mud/snow and took it all back to the boat.

The first part of the hose installation will be from the engine space to the storage area that is below and just aft of the lower steering station. We took everything out of that storage space and removed the access panel. That's where we will pull the hot and cold water lines up.

We'll have to drill two 3/4-inch holes next to that opening for the two water hoses, then route them to the right towards the galley. Sounds easy but it will probably be a pain in the butt.

We opened the box the Tident water hose came in and found that the hose was tightly coiled and a stiff as hell. We'll never be able to fish even a 12 ft. section of it that far without relaxing that hose. We brought the home were we will stretch it out this week in room temperature so we can work with it.

We spent some quality time down behind the engines to identify all the hoses and how they are routed. It should look a lot neater once we finish this.

We documented our Saturday "day off" going to Defender with some video. Once we left there, we visited our summer marina and ran into our dockmate  Bob Caise, who kept is boat in the water this year. He was clearing snow from his boat. Norwich looks wintery but still one of our favorite places.

The end of the video is our usual shot of the Connecticut River. Still lots of ice, but it is rapidly breaking up.

The snow is making us a little nuts

Here it is February 15 and we haven't accomplished much in the way of boat work. If you know us, you're probably as sick of the snow as we are, but we just have to bitch a little.

This is how bad it is: We often fire up our little Acer boat computer and just look at the charts. Today we turned it on so it could suck up the never-ending Windows 7 updates (there were 17) and charge its battery. A couple of weeks ago, we spent a cocktail hour planning a route from Norwich (where we dock in the summer) to New London Ledge Light. We'll probably never use it but at least it had something to do with our boat.

Act Three Boating factoid Number 1: It is 15.3 miles from the turning basin in Norwich to New London Ledge Light and that trip requires 33 course changes if you stay in the channel all the way, which we do. Is this stuff fascinating or what?

The old boarding step is finally finished. We stripped the steps completely, treated them with CPES and put seven coats of Sikkens on the tops of the steps and three on the undersides. We also polished up the aluminum frame and replaced the rubber feet.  It's ready to go back to the boat when we can get to the boat, whenever that is.

We also refinished the cutting board that fits into the top of our electric stove.  Frances uses it mainly to hold her dish-drying rack and we noticed that it had picked up some discoloration that may have been mold. That's also ready to go back aboard.

The next refinishing project can be seen on the right in the photo above. It's our fold-up table that we use a lot for dining in the cockpit. It is really beginning to show wear from being left out in the sun and sometimes rain so Frances is going to take charge of bringing it back to life.

On Saturday, we had to spend some time on home maintenance rather than dive into the boat's plumbing project. Our 1970s era Ariens Snowblower broke its drive belt cleaning up after the last snow storm and from the forecast, we knew we were going to need to get it going again. We went to Lowes for some other stuff we needed and took the opportunity to look through their somewhat disorganized selection of drive belts. After comparing about 25 of their 1/2" belts, we found one that was an exact replacement for the one we needed. Another hour installing it (difficult to do with gloves on) and the old Ariens was ready to go. Just in time, it seems.

Finally figured it out...

We haven't been able to devote much time to the boat over the past two weekends because of the cold or work-related obligations. We weren't looking forward to this weekend because it is still cold. As you can see from the photo above, at the turn in the Connecticut river between Middletown and Portland, the river is completely frozen, although south of here, it is partially open.

We understand that earlier this week, the Coast Guard cutter "Bollard" came through to open the channel and they were moving right along. When they churned through the ice at that speed, it created a wake of ice across the river that snapped off five of the boatyard's pilings. They are $1,100 each, installed. Expensive week for Portland Riverside. No word from the Coast Guard about compensation.

It was 24 degree in the sun when we got to Portland and inside the boat it was an indicated 24 degrees, although it felt one hell of a lot colder inside that metal shed. In fact, it was too cold for us to get any real work done even with our electric heater on. But we weren't too cold to think.

What we are trying to accomplish

Our goal is to replace the hot and cold water lines from where they enter the boat on the port side, forward to the galley and then to the sink and toilet in the head. Part of that effort is to also replace the old hot water heater, which we have already removed.

We've been stuck on how to access the hot and cold water hoses and even more precisely, how do we free them up so that we can use the old hoses to drag in new ones? We've disconnected them at both ends but they run under the salon floor in an area that is completely inaccessible to us and they won't move when we pull on them from the engine space or from the galley.

If you step though that sliding door, you will be standing on a hatch. Today, we took that hatch up to see if we could get at the water hoses. Here they are, way out of reach, between those dusty old passive vent hoses.

That metal thing in the photo is a lifting eye for the 220 gallon aluminum fuel tank. The clearance between the top of the tank and the underside of the salon sole is about eight inches. Yes, in case you're wondering, the brain trust at Silverton Engineering put the tank in and then glassed the salon liner in over it. 

As we were standing there looking down into that hatch opening, we thought of something. The fuel tank isn't right up against the hull on the port and starboard sides. There's a foot or more of clearance. There's no way to get at that space on the port side, but the starboard side has access from both the engine space and from a storage space located under the lower helm. That's were we ran the new control cables last winter. We spent lots of time fishing speaker wires, antenna lines and other stuff right down that space. So, why do we have to use the old hose routing?  Why not re-route the new water hoses through that space on the starboard side?

If we knew how to insert a light bub icon, we'd put it right here.

We closed the hatch and opened the hatch under the lower steering station. Nice big space. There's even a plywood panel that you can remove to access the area next to the fuel tank. From there, the new water hoses can make a turn, pass through a hole we'll have drill to for them and then, they are behind the fridge. Lots of room back there and once the hoses make one more turn, they are under the galley sink. Perfect. We'll just cut off the ends of the old water hoses and let them stay down there where the sun doesn't shine.

The run from the galley sink to the head is trivial. Only one bulkhead and we can get to that from under the vanity. God knows, we spent lots of time there when we installed the new toilet and holding tank a couple of years ago.

OK, now we know what we are going to do. If the weather moderates a little, maybe we can get started next weekend.  If you think we're a little odd enjoying this stuff so much, well, that's the way we are.

Before we left, we shot some video of the yard. Nothing exciting here but it does help us revive our old editing skills.

On Sunday, we looked up the various plastic water fittings we'd need to begin this job. Looks like the easiest way is to use 1/2" ID Polyester reinforced PVC tubing that is meant for this purpose and reacts well to our heat gun. We can make nice neat turns with 1/2" OD nylon elbows and split the cold water lines were necessary with nylon Ts. All this stuff is fairly cheap and I can order it through the boat yard and save a little more money.

We'll also need a 1/2" check valve for use at the cold water inlet of the new water heater. The one we took off the old water heater wasn't in very good shape. We found an exact replacement in the Port Supply catalog so we'll order a new this week.

While we're messing around with the plumbing under the galley sink, we also gained good access to AC unit, which has always worked fine. We did notice that the fins that cover the heat exchanger were completely covered by accumulated dust. We vacuumed all of that off so maybe the AC will cycle less often next summer.

While we were in there, we also gained access to the AC drain. Silverton's solution (or whoever installed this AC unit) was to drain the AC condensate into the bilge. During the really warm months (with Frances living on the boat), the AC produces enough water to cause the bilge pump to come on perhaps as often as once or twice a week (or maybe more).

Silverton's solution on newer boats is to route the condensate to the shower sump. Nice idea, but the shower sump on our boat is a long way forward and decidedly difficult to run anything to. We've seen some venturi fittings that can be put in the AC cooling water discharge line to suck the water out of the drain pan. We'll have to think about this issue and see how difficult it is to get to the discharge line.

Nothing is easy on a boat.

We hate working on weekends but...

... sometimes we just have to.

We do public relations work for Sportech, Inc, the company that operates the 15 OTB (off tack betting) locations in Connecticut. This weekend, they opened their newest venue, this one in Windsor Locks, Conn. We shot some video of what the new facility looked like. In fact, we did that on Friday and on Sunday so with editing time, there was no time for the boat.

$3.5 million builds a pretty impressive restaurant.

On Sunday, Frances cooked up a new kind of pancake, made with corn meal and corn. The prep area was really inviting.

and the result was perfect. Pancakes with tomato, onion and other toppings. We experimented with a couple of others and, they were delicious.

Next weekend we go back to boat plumbing.

When its 18 degrees on our back porch...

... It's time to watch some of last summer's videos.

This particular weekend (July 20) we were at Greenport, NY. We always try to arrive before Friday and leave after Sunday so we're not part of the boating carnival that happens when everyone arrives or leaves at once on a weekend.

This was Monday morning on a cloudy but not unpleasant day. Our new friend, Larry, (35 ft. Mainship with dead batteries)  helped us with the lines. Larry and his wife were fine. They had someone drive out from the city and get them some new batteries.

The fireboat at the end of the dock in the video is a former NYFD boat and right now, it's a restoration project.

Anyway, time to enjoy the water for a few minutes. I know Bill sounds a little harsh about Frances being on deck while underway, but that's only for her safety.

A little too cold for boat work

We did get to the boat on Saturday but inside that metal shed it was about 29 degrees by the thermometer in our galley. We stayed for about 90 minutes while the batteries charged but with the heavy coat we had on, we couldn't even get our arms inside the galley cabinets to see if we could disconnect the old water lines. We finally gave up. It would have been warmer if we had gone skiing.

During the past week, we did find a replacement faucet that had the same general design as the old leaky one. The "marine" faucets were ridiculously expensive and the ones we saw at Home Depot and Lowes were just too ugly. Frances remembered seeing one very much like our old one at Wal Mart last summer. We stopped at our nearest Wally World and found five of the faucets in their tiny plumbing department. One of the five was still sealed in the original box so we grabbed that one and paid $46.00 for it. Turns it, it looks pretty good and fits as it's supposed to so that item gets checked off the list.

Once home, we decided to test a new video camera by making a video. It's just Bill working on our boarding ladder steps so it will be of marginal interest, and that's being kind.

We shoot video as part of our business and recently had to upgrade our equipment to High Definition to satisfy the TV and cable stations. We sold our Sony ENG camera to a church in Berlin, Conn. and invested in a new and, it turns out, much more capable Sony HD camera. We just needed to test it and get some experience using it since it is very different from the last generation of Sony broadcast cams. Here it is set up in Whirlpool Studios or more accurately, in front of our washing machine.

Turned out that the color was very nice even under fluorescent light (that this camera adjusts for automatically) and Bill got to wear a wireless microphone just like the TV people do. Aside from his remarkably bad posture, everything worked just as it should. We'll edit it and insert it here just for the hell of it.



On Sunday, we had business deadlines to deal with so we worked most of the day.

Frances loves birds and as we've posted before, we found the perfect bird feeder. We set up a cam and photographed some of our local birds feeding on a cold, snowy afternoon. Turn up the sound so you can hear our background music.

We know. It isn't about boats, but we still like to watch the birds and have Frances identify each one.

Taking a day off from boat plumbing

Before heading down to the boat on Saturday, we stopped at the Home Depot in Glastonbury, Conn. and found the place not very busy. We were steered to the plumbing department manager who turned out to be a nice guy. We asked a lot of questions about PEX but his answers were limited to the brand of PEX that Home Depot carries: SharkBite. Nice stuff, but the fittings are expensive and there are some downsides, it seems, to using SharkBite PEX in our boat application. At least they seem like downsides for us, who aren't plumbers by any means.

To make the visit even more informative, the plumbing guy at Home Depot asked us why we were even considering PEX when we could use ordinary marine water hose. Good question and one that we will consider before we go much farther with this project. We'll talk to Rob, our expert about this.

After Home Depot, we went to the boat and began to figure out how we were going to drag new hose (PEX or not) from the engine space, though a bulkhead into the area under the cabin sole and then into the galley.

Under the sink in the galley, we can't seem to reach the "T" that taps hot and cold water for the galley faucet. We removed the stove and that gave us a little more access. We stuck a camera at arms length back behind the galley sink and that showed an unopened box of spaghetti right in our field of view. Frances must have tossed it back there sometime last season or the season before and it landed beyond the shelf under the sink. We were just able to reach it and remove it after which another picture showed that the "T" fittings we need to access are underneath an air conditioning hose.

Bad photo, but you get he idea. We're going to have to pick up that AC hose (which we can't reach right now) to pull up the hot and cold water "T" fittings.

Next we opened the engine hatches and crawled down between the engines to make a sketch of the path that both the boat's cold water and the hot water take from the boat's water tank, the city water connection and the hot water heater.

Our "schematic" isn't very pretty, but it does show how the old water hoses are connected. It does omit one more connection and that is a "T" in the cold water line in the head that goes to the marine toilet, but that's all new and we aren't going to change it.

Taking a day off

On Sunday, we spent the day at the New Britain Museum. We promised ourselves that this winter, with fewer boat projects, we'd take some time and do fun things.

The New Britain Museum is one of our favorites. We wanted to see the "Aloha" exhibit of Hawaiian art. It seems that the museum's first director, Sandy Lowe, was Hawaiian and his exuberant personality instilled lots of interest in Hawaii among the wealthy families of New Britain in the 1920s through the 1950s.

As a pleasant bonus, we also saw the extensive exhibit of Maurice Sendak's many drawings and children's books. We all remember "Where the Wild Things Are" but we learned that this was only one of the 63 books he wrote or illustrated.

On the way out, Frances adopted her "Wild Things" pose.

It was truly a day well spent.