Water Heater Exchange & Electrical rewiring

[Jordan]

So on our last sail, the motion of the ocean was too much for the poor Raritan water heater, and it finally succumbed to the rust around the bottom of it. I went ahead and got it ripped out. I pulled up the platform it sits on (that bolts through the bulkhead forward). The visibility is incredible.



Cleaning it all up, now that I have access, prior to installing the Kuuma water heater, I'm going to be rewiring the 12 volt system. I'm going to use a 4 AWG feeder to reduce the number of wires going back and forth, and organize and label them.

You will notice that I have the hose to the thru hull disconnected in that picture. That is due to the placement of the heater. I was initially going to just get a 90 degree elbow at Lowes, but I looked a bit closer at the thru hull, and decided I'm going to at the very least reseat it, until I found 90 degree 1-1/2" fittings for under $5.



Not too huge of a deal, until you look at the dry fit of the water heater.



Once the electrical is up and out of the way, I'm going to use the area on the main bulkhead starboard of the tabbed in coolant box for a whole house water filter. From there, it hits a manifold that splits off to the cold water and the hot water feed. Since I am kind of in wiring mode, I am going to wire up the 120VAC heating element to a timer switch kind of like this one, since I don't want to leave it on on accident. Might use the inverter controller that I removed (causing the hole in that bulkhead you see).

I have to say, no day job, and just boat jobs keeps me pretty damn busy, but I'm liking it.

[jpendoley]

good to see you are making progress and getting some travel in. No day job and still pretty damn busy describes the cruising lifestyle pretty well.  Funny thing is, I lose track of time while working on the boat and  watch the clock when in the corporate jungle. Like your idea of reducing wiring runs with 4 gauge hops. A block port and starboard would do wonders for reducing clutter.
Jim
S/V WalkAbout

[P69]

Jordan,

I replaced the four plastic deck thru hulls with a combination of standard bronze thru hull and these TPC-1500 right angle tail pieces

http://www.fawcettboat.com/pc_product_detail.asp?key=77C3F102F5E2459DAE899860319D878A

They are not very good, don't use these.
The primary problem is with the gasket. These fittings use some kind of rubber gasket to seal against the thru hull and when you tighten the nut of the tail piece enough to get good compression on the gasket, it deforms the gasket.  The gaskets that ship with these harden up after a couple of years and leak.  The other problem associated with tightening these is that often the gasket will slip off the mating surface of the thru hull, unless you grind it flat, but that ground surface has to be perfectly flat for the gasket to seal.

I removed the two after deck scupper through hulls (by water heater), sealed up the holes, and cut a channel in the toe rail for water to flow overboard.  I still have these for the two forward  deck thru hulls (by port and stbd settee) and will keep them until I find something better.

The 90 degree angle works out pretty well and one can rotate the tail piece for good alignment, but the design for sealing it is not very good.

[Jordan]

For the through hulls, I stuck with plastic and trimmed the hose so there wasn't a lot of pressure on it, and used dow corning 795 (I have not had good luck with 4200 packaging) to seal it.

It's these that I got. Installed one yesterday. I like it. Also, we decided that the dinghy we have will not work (which I highly suggested, but the boss needed convincing - turns out that having her actually use it highlights the issues I had been talking about since we first got it). I'll do another post about that right now actually.

[Jordan]

Oops. I started working backwards, from the panel, moving back towards the battery. Thought I was just about finished, just got to go back to the positive out on the isolator, right?

Can anyone guess who just pulled out the new battery and battery box in order to leave no single wire unknown? Kind of zoning today, so I might actually get it done today, but we'll see.

[S/V Deo Volente]

I replaced the deck drains a few years ago with these https://www.jmsonline.net/thru-hull-90-deg-1-1-2.htm/ Conbraco 90 degree bronze thru hulls. I do wish there was room for a seacock.