Water under floor, normal?

[sunodyssey32]

Hello everyone brand new member here,

My dad and I bought a 2003 sun odyssey 32 as you might have guessed by my username. Everything has been great with the boat and the handling is amazing coming from a macgregor 26m but, we recently lifted the floors from the inside and we found water in every hole and where the bilge pump is, we turned on the bilge pump and it went away and we heard it drop into the water outside. The water came back in a couple of minutes, not as much but a significant amount. I took the risk of tasting it and it was not salt water. Now my question is, is this normal to have that much water under the floor at all times or is there something possibly wrong with our plumbing?

Thanks in advance

Ps: can't seem to get the eno galley kitchen to turn on, I turned the gas on and the electric valve as well and I can't seem to get a flame to stick from the lighter any advice is greatly appreciated.

[vasko]

defiantly not normal to have  fresh water in the bilges - there are soo many places that it can come from ... worst is cracked freshwater tank...

[tilo]

Are you saying you don't keep the bilge pump turned on? That is the one thing that I NEVER TURN OFF (well, that and the fridge. Who wants warm beer?). 

I get some fresh water in the bilge from refrigerator condensation, but not in the quantities you mention. You don't say where you're located. In a moist climate and cold water you could be getting condensation in the hull. 

As for the galley, it takes surprisingly long for the pilot light to bleed the air from the gas lines. Patience!

And lastly, congats on the new boat!

[sunodyssey32]

Jan 6, 2019 22:06:13 GMT tilo said:

Are you saying you don't keep the bilge pump turned on? That is the one thing that I NEVER TURN OFF (well, that and the fridge. Who wants warm beer?). 

I get some fresh water in the bilge from refrigerator condensation, but not in the quantities you mention. You don't say where you're located. In a moist climate and cold water you could be getting condensation in the hull. 

As for the galley, it takes surprisingly long for the pilot light to bleed the air from the gas lines. Patience!

And lastly, congats on the new boat!

Thanks, I'm in miami, i dont keep the bilge on since I'm in a mooring and I can't keep connected to shore power all the time, i still have to figure out where the water is coming from. About the galley, how long are we talking about? Should I keep pressing the burner knob?

[hoppy]

your fridge box will have a drain hole in the bottom and it drains into the bilge. That is one very normal reason for fresh water there.

When you turn off the bilge pump there is normally some water flowing back into the bilge. The amount depends on where the non return valve is and whether it is functioning ok.

[rene460]

Hi SunOdyssey32,

Congratulations on on the new boat.  And welcome to the forum, it’s a great place to be.  A treasure trove of timeless information, much applicable across many different models, lies waiting in the older posts, just waiting for you to spend some pleasant evenings trawling through while you watch the tele.

We also spent many years on a trailerable and have now moved to a keel boat.  There are few Macgregors on our waterway, so I have seen the boat you mean.  You have a great adventure ahead.

Regarding the water, the good news is that it’s fresh water.  You can’t leak enough fresh water to sink your boat unless you have a lot of really heavy rain!  As others have mentioned, the fridge drain (we keep the plug in ours) or your water system are the most likely sources.

Not mentioned so far, but has been mentioned in many previous threads, is the pressure valve on the hot water system if you have one.   Whether the heat comes from the engine coolant or your shore power when plugged in.  A tissue or sheet of newspaper under the drain outlet will soon identify if it is either of those.

If it is a leak in your water system on the discharge side of the pump, it will be betrayed by the odd short operation of the water pump as it tries to maintain the pressure lost due to the leak when you are not using water.  Tracing the water pipes and some tissues are again your friends.  We found the connection to the transom shower was the source of a small leak we had.

On the inlet side of the pump, the pre-filter has been a common theme over the years I have been on the forum.  Difficult to detect as it tends to spurt a little when the pump starts or stops and not in between.  When the pump is running, the inlet side is under low pressure so tends to leak air in rather than water out, then the pump stops and a little pulse of water leaks out.  We put a dry chamois cloth, better than tissues in some ways under the pump and it often showed that wet patch under the filter.  I tried a new o-ring under the cover, and Vaseline as thread sealant, but it was only fixed when I bought the new filter.  The cover does not seem to be available separately.

And rain water has a habit of leaking in around some improperly sealed bolt, and running by some devious course to the bilge, not leaving a trace of where it came in.  Many have used a dusting of talcum powder to show the trail.

Once the bilge pump removes most of the water, you will have to sponge out the run back to get it all dry to aid your detective work.  But to answer your initial question, not normal, and our bilge is normally totally dry.

It can be tricky to find but usually very inexpensive to fix.  And please come back and tell us what you find.

rene460

[martini70]

Hello
I had a leak on my bilgepump in my 34.2, so when I was pumping out from bilge, it dripped  a lot of water back from the pump.

[so32foot]

I bought my SO 32 new in 2004. And I had many reasons found for leaking fresh and salt water.

Salt water:

mainly from the Volvo shaft seal: I was told by engineers to replace the seal, but it didn't help. After 5 years I discovered that the stainless throughhull of the shaft was leaking because it wasn't fitted well. I refitted it.

the checkvalve of the electrical bilge didn't work because of dirt: I've put a ball valve in between.

Fresh water:

In the first years I discovered several leakages from deck hardware. Mostly easy to solve.

further the overflow of the fridge was combined with the pressure overflow of the boiler. I discovered this in 2015 and seperated them. the fridge isn't leaking at all. the boiler's  pressure valve was leaking heavely and I renewed it by a cheap valve used in central heating systems.

since 2015 my bilge is 100% dry.

[wayneb]

Depending on how much water leaked back into the bilge after you ran the pump. The first place I would check is the one way check valve in the bilge pump or in the hose. if this leaks, the water that is left in the outlet hose will run back into the bilge. However this is not how the water got here in the first place.

How freshwater gets into bilge is:

freshwater plumbing leak,

hot water tank leak,

freshwater tank leak,

or leak in the deck after a storm.

there are other place depending what you have installed, eg ice box.

 Regards

[mikebz]

It's possible that there is a historic accumulation of fresh water somewhere which flows back into the bilge area where the pump is after you have pumped out.

We had a freshwater leak on our SO32 which turned out to be the transom shower - the tap was very slightly open which allowed a dribble of water to run back down the hose and drip into the area under the engine, from where it eventually found its way into the main bilge.  The giveaway that we had a leak was that the pressure pump would run every now and then even when we had used no water.  I took half of the inside of the aft cabin apart trying to find that 'leak'...

[alenka]

Process of elimination.

Its fresh so its either rain water getting into your boat or leaking from the fresh water system.

First job put the plugs into the fridge. You are wasting energy cooling your bilges.

If it is coolant it will look like diesel but without the smell.  If you think it might be coolant check the feed to the hot water tank as well as around the engine. Does the coolant level drop?  It should remain about half full on the header tank after the engine has cooled down.
If this can be discounted.

I would first turn off the pressurised water system.

Drain all the boat of water using a battery powered pump/syphon rather than the bilge.  Does it return?

No. Its probably rain water.

Yes. Drain again and empty the water tanks. Does water return?

No. Then it is probably a leak on the water system. I had a leak from the shower/tap that would only show when the tap was placed back in its position next to the sink. All you can do is go around every part of your system looking for a lose connection, a split pipe etc.

Yes. It is head scratching time!

Good Luck

[mikebz]

The very first thing I would do is leave the pressurised water system on for a while and see if the pump runs every now and then - if it does then there is a leak from the downstream of the pump (or the pump itself).

[rc sail]

Lots of good suggestions on your issues. As to your stove, and as previously suggested, it can take some time for
gas to reach the stove burner ( I have experienced upto a minute for burner to light). You should be able to hear air/gas and than smell the gas from burner with the control knob indented for lighting. Perhaps also use a match or lighter in event the stove ignighter is not working.
For your water in bildge I would start with bildge pump flow back from pump and hoses. Run the pump until bildge is dry.
Wait 20-30 minutes and if water returns sponge out bilges. I am suspecting you have the bildge water flowing back into
bildge once pump shuts off.. good luck

[dda]

Hi,

I have a slightly older SO32.2 which I had for just over a year and I'm still chasing some deck/window leaks. 
First look for any sign of water ingress around any of the window fittings.
It is also possible to get access to the join between the cabin moulding and the hull interior lining. There is a ledge inside which will be damp if you have any deck fitting leaks.
Run a hose over the deck for 30 mins and see what you can find!

[ChrisH]

The leak detection has been covered above with drying it out and using paper towel in the various sections to identify.

As to the ENO problem, if this is a pre fancy battery operated version (thought it might still be the same) the trick is to place a wee bit of tinfoil in the knob recess which works as a fix and is well documented on this and other sailing forums. I had that problem on our 1999 342. Solved it for about 8 years then last year I changed the thermocouple which was easy.

[sunodyssey32]

what exactly do you mean by knob recess? the kitchen stove knob? thanks for your reply

[rdubs]

Jan 7, 2019 20:13:30 GMT wayneb said:

The first place I would check is the one way check valve in the bilge pump or in the hose. if this leaks, the water that is left in the outlet hose will run back into the bilge. 

This is critical.  If you can't see a trickle or trace of water coming into the bilge, the first thing I would do is suck out the water from the bilge well using a small hand siphon pump.  Simply running the bilge pump will just push the water into the discharge hose, which will slowly leak back.  The only way to measure the true rate of a bilge filling up is to pump the bilge out with a small siphon hand pump (not the permanently-installed bilge hand pump).  Try turning off the bilge pump for a day or so to let all the water in the discharge hose drain back in, then pump all that out.  If the bilge fills up after that, then it's new water being introduced to the bilge, not the old water leaking back from the check valve.

[zofiasailing]

We are a ‘dry boat’ - except for the bottled wine of course.

When our bilge pump kept activating we discovered that the pipe at the base of the sump was no longer touching the bottom. It then didn’t take much water to drop back to cause the floatswitch to activate the pump again. Pushing the pipe down helped.

We get overflow from our HWS in our sump and find it’s better to sponge it dry as it won‘t 100% empty relying on the pump alone. The sponge-out extends the intervals between bilge pump going off - usually after extended periods of motoring.


We like to keep all bilge compartments dry and clean. It makes tracing any potential ‘new leaks’ (Read:potential problems) easier.


Good luck and enjoy your new boat!

Eva and Brian
SV Zofia

[Bengt]

Hi,

I had problem with water from the long line coming back into the bilge.

In my 43 DS the line is very long. I installed a time relay so when the bilge pump starts it will go for about 10 seconds after the float switch go off.