Jabsco's diaphragm pumps certainly work but are, as you say, pricey to
maintain. I removed the Jabsco diaphragm pump that ran the fresh water
system (high current draw, noisy, high maintenance) and replaced it with
a Shurflow "smart" pump (high initial cost, less noise, low current
draw, low maintenance costs). But I'll leave the Jabsco bilge pump in
place, despite the maintenance costs, because I think they deliver the
most flow I can hope for. Assuming we're dealing with some sort of
on-going small leak (aside: short of a USCG de-watering pump, *no* pump
you can buy off the shelf will cope with, for example, water from a
broken through-hull; have wood plugs handy to deal with that issue),
current draw is less of an issue because there's always the engine to
keep the battery up and there's a manual pump, too.

Keep in mind that often what really poses a problem for bilge pumps is
the hose and discharge through a too-small through-hull. A straight
shot to the pump or at least one with few or no corners, only smooth,
sweeping radius turns and large diameter hose is best. The same applies
to the discharge line, too.

Cheers,
   RIck Emerson

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Received on Tue Aug 15 05:25:00 2006