freshwater pumps that don't work

[SVHarmonie]

Originally Posted by antoha

i know this is an old thread, but i hope people mights still not be completely disinterested in water pumps.

i have a par 36950-1000 belt driven pump that people seem to like. i hate it. it requires a rebuild every single year. it never primes well, and the "dampener" kit always looks like half of it sucked itself in when i replace them. it's very old now (don't know how many users had it before), but i've owned it for 10 years and it's been a pain every season. finally the lower body cracked, i found a "new old stock" on ebay for $150, and it doesn't work out of the box - maybe it already needs a rebuild, even before first use.

i have a deep bilge water tank (so the lift for self priming has to be about 5 feet, there's nothing i can do about this), and i don't have room for anything big (so even the bigger cousin of the 36950 wouldn't fit, let alone a paragon jr, even if i had the 2K on a pump). plus of course it's installed in such a tight place (again, constraints that come with the old boat) that doing a 10 min rebuild takes 2 hrs to get it in and out. i don't have an accumulation tank, but i guess i could try to find space for it.

any recommendations?
thank you!
anton

Anton,

Try the Marco brand of pumps, made in Italy. They are very small, compact gear pumps and available in whatever flow rate and pressure output you need. The are quiet, and robust. I have been using them for years, and recommending them. I have never heard a complaint.

Mechanically, they are a lot simpler than the more typical water pressure pump. They are the best out there.

[Hartleyg]

Our vessel was equipped with a Flojet 02840100A 4.5 gpm pump and accumulator tank when it was fitted out in 2001. The accumulator gave up in 2019 and we replaced the entire assembly, but the 18-year old pump still works fine (we kept it as a spare). It will pull water and prime from the bottom of the tank about 4.5' below the pump, though it takes a bit of time if the tank is very low.

You do want to keep debris out of any "wobble" pump, as it takes very little to clog the valves - we have a fine-screen filter ahead of ours and it removes the grit & fuzz you get when you fill at marinas We also have a debris + carbon filter after the pump, but that's primarily to remove the chlorine taste.


Hartley

[SVHarmonie]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

I'd try one of the Shurflo-type multi-diaphragm pumps. There should be something of that style that'll fit where the big belt driven Par/Jabsco was and can lift water 5 feet. Plus, they're significantly cheaper, so it's no big deal to buy a second one once you figure out what works and have a spare on hand.

In my experience, you NEED to buy two, to keep one working for more than a few months in everyday use.

[NYSail]

My boat (2 heads/kitchen/transom shower/2 electric toilets) had the original shur flo 4gpm 12 years old.. Was still working but I replaced (now spare) with a Johnson 5 gpm that is now 3 years With no problems so far.

Good luck...
Greg

[antoha]

I looked up Marco pumps, look sexy. Jamestown seems to be the only distributor around here. They only sell models with ptfe gears, not bronze. How long do you expect these to last, and where do you source parts?

Thanks again!

[fivecapes]

Originally Posted by antoha

I looked up Marco pumps, look sexy. Jamestown seems to be the only distributor around here. They only sell models with ptfe gears, not bronze. How long do you expect these to last, and where do you source parts?

Thanks again!

They ship worldwide

https://marco-pumps.shop/spares-and-.../?currency=USD

[themediadoctor]

Whatever you do do NOT buy a Jabsco Vflo variable speed pump. I ended up with one (old pump quit while in corona quarantine in Panama, dock mate had a brand-new Jabsco Vflo5 in the box he was willing to part with). We were DAMN glad to get that pump as none of the marine stores were allowed to be open. SO ... changed out the pump (incumbent was a Jabsco ParMax 4). It worked great ... for two days. Then it started misbehaving in the same ways that 90% of the people who have this pump have described. In short, it has a very sophisticated computer brain, and by sophisticated I mean poorly designed POS. The theory is that the computer will control the speed of the pump. So if you’re just trickling water, it runs very slowly. Here’s the problem: If there’s the tiniest leak ANYWHERE in your boat, the pump will keep running, very slowly, until it overheats and shuts down. We just recently bought this boat — and at 30 years old and 63 feet, there’s damn sure some little leaks here and there. Which caused the pump to overheat and shut down like 8-10 times a day. The “fix” is to power cycle the pump. Then you can use it to wash a tomato or two before it shuts down again. Showers are a crap shoot: Can I get the shampoo out of my hair before it shuts down and I have to go power cycle it? SOLUTION: Long term I will replace this with a “dumb” pump. Short term, I bypassed the computer. It’s actually not that hard. All of the wiring passes through the base, which contains the computer. It comes out the rear and the two power wires, black (-) and red (+), go into the motor housing. To give it a lobotomy and convert it to a dumb pump, you (1) cut the black and red wires at the rear of the pump, leaving enough wire on each side to reconnect it if you ever forget how painful it was when it was working “properly”, (2) remove the plastic cover that conceals the pressure switch on the front of the pump — WARNING, mine came with the chrome plastic cover; the small Phillips head screw in there is NOT the pressure adjustment (even tho that’s EXACTLY where the pressure adjustment is on Jabsco’s other pumps) it’s actually the thing that holds the cover on the switch, so unscrew that and take the cover off, (3) remove the black and white wires from the terminals of the pressure switch, (4) Attach the black (-) wire to the negative terminal of wherever your pump is wired to, (5) make up a wire about 8” long with a spade terminal that will fit on the prong of the pressure switch on one end, (6) connect the other end of that wire to the red (+) wire on the back of the pump motor, (7) make up a another wire long enough to reach from the pressure switch to the positive terminal of whatever powers your pump with another spade lug on one end, (8) I put a breaker between the pressure switch and the positive power (+), (9) now connect the two spade lugs to the two prongs on the pressure switch — doesn’t really matter which lug goes where, but I followed the wiring of my original pump and put the (+) in on the right lug and (+) out to the motor on the left lug. Power up and it should run until it hits the high pressure limit in the lines, then shut down completely, cooling off before it’s called on again. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Jabsco KNOWS about this problem — has known about it for YEARS, and keeps selling these sadistically defective piles of crap for $300. Unbelievable.

[themediadoctor]

Oh, and one more thing, before anyone helps me by pointing out that you can’t use the Vflo with an accumulator tank, I don’t have an accumulator tank OR a hot water tank in the plumbing circuit. It’s just pumping from the water tank directly into the PEX that distributes to the fixtures.

[desdestiny]

mediadoctor
Does this mean you do not have a pressure switch in the pump output circuit?
Des

[Mike Banks]

I found the identical pump to the ParMax 4 at a hardware witha generic brand for around eighty bucks--it was some made in China deal--and probably has the same shitty bearings that the ParMax had before I replaced them with stainless pre-packed and sealed for underwater use Japanese bearings, at a cost of about another forty bucks. My Par Max then went on running QUIETLY (that was a first) and efficiently for another five years of constant live-aboard use with no problems--but I did have an inlet side filter so no crap got into the pump.

[mako]

It's almost funny, the love or hate relationships that people have with their pressure pumps. In my big boat I had an older Jabsco diaphragm style, feeding a large domestic accumulator tank (don't recall the exact size, but about 10 gallons or larger).

What a piece of cra*p! I hated that thing. Then switched across to just a dumb simple 120VAC hardware store pump. Fabulous! My 3kW inverter had no problem running it. And for those worried about inverter reliability, go for the old fashioned transformer styles which weight 50+lbs, not the trim little electronic ones. Old skool.

[two-rocks]

My Marco pump will not prime from 1” .... how do you expect it to prime from 5’ ?

I like the pump, but it is not a quiet as the variable speed pump it replaced. The old variable speed was silent on any flow other than full. The Marco, not so much.

[themediadoctor]

Originally Posted by desdestiny

mediadoctor
Does this mean you do not have a pressure switch in the pump output circuit?
Des

The pressure switch is still in the circuit. In its factory configuration, the pressure switch feeds power from the positive side of the boat electric circuit to the pump’s computer (located in the base of the unit). What I did was detach the wires that connect the pressure switch to the computer. Then I attached a wire directly from the positive side of the boat electric circuit to one side of the pressure switch, and a second wire directly from the other side of the pressure switch to the positive connection of the pump’s motor. This took the computer out of the circuit and put the on-off control in the hands of the pressure switch alone.

[antoha]

Update: I bought a Marco pump from Germany (the company is called Two Captains, I believe this is the site recommended above), they were great to deal with. Took a while to ship with all the COVID related shipping restrictions, installed last weekend, and it worked out if the box - primed itself after I connected the hoses. I don’t think it’s louder than the old PAR/ITT, and if I don’t have to rebuild it twice a year - I’m much happier than before. Will see how it works long term, they have some warranty (don’t remember exactly, given the shipping costs it’s probably cheaper to buy another), and how it lifts from the bottom of the tank.
Anton

[belizesailor]

The pump motor and pump heads on most common fresh water pumps rarely fail. The most common failure is the pressure switch. To make matters worse these pressure switches are built in to the pump head and are not designed to be serviceble. You can of course replace the pressure switch if you are somewhere you can reasonably get one...Im usually not.

Ive done several things to address this issue:

Spares. Carry a spare pump head/pressure switch.

Micro Switch. Some pressure switches use a common type of micro switch. This is the bit that fails because it is cheap non-waterproof switch.They are pennies a piece on line. I keep a few of those as spares.

External Pressure Switch (Low Tech). Good old external pump pressure switches are reliable, adjustable, fully serviceable, inexpensive, and available at hardware stores world wide. By pass the damn internal pressure switch and install one of these. Problem solved for many years.

External Pressure Switch (Hi Tech). Between boats and off grid/rural houses, Ive dealt with a LOT of water pump/pressure switch issues. I finally built my own external pump controller to deal with a variety of commom problems. It is based on an ESP32 chip, coded in C++, uses solid state relays for switching, can control up to 4 pumps per module, all operational parameters are fully configurable including advanced hysterisis logic, configurable cut in/cut out pressues, configurable pump protection features including long run time shut down; low pressure shut down; over temp shut down... If anyone is interested I can post more info on a new thread, just request here.