Best Material for Water Tanks

[w32honu]

Interested to survey everyone's thoughts on the best material for water tanks................

Stainless Steel or Welded Plastic???

Cost?

Toxicity?

Maintainability?

Etc???

Feel free to toss in any experiences...........good or bad.

[sailorboy1]

plastic gets my vote

[boatman61]

Plastic.... its easier to weld than steel... and the equipment costs peanuts to DIY...

[Mark Johnson]

In general, plastics leach into the water... even the PVC pipe that feeds neighborhoods.

Roto-molded polyethylene, however, seems to be as benign as any material out there! I have never heard of a toxicity problem. I'd go with that even over SS, which has problems of it's own.

Mark

[Wand]

Originally Posted by Mark Johnson

In general, plastics leach into the water... even the PVC pipe that feeds neighborhoods. Roto-molded polyethylene, however, seems to be as benign as any material out there! I have never heard of a toxicity problem. I'd go with that even over SS, which has problems of it's own.

I'm with the polyethylene, to which I'd guess the others nominating 'plastic' were also referring. It's lighter and miles cheaper and a cinch to re-plumb if relocating; no contest for mine.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by At sea

I'm with the polyethylene, to which I'd guess the others nominating 'plastic' were also referring. It's lighter and miles cheaper and a cinch to re-plumb if relocating; no contest for mine.

Cheers mate... I often make the mistake of assumption... 'I know it so it must be common..."
But its dead easy to weld....

[Wand]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Cheers mate... I often make the mistake of assumption... 'I know it so it must be common..."
But its dead easy to weld....

Same with 'plastic' boats. That's what I call them (the implicit derogative humours me ), though production boat owners like to go to the trouble of using the long-hand "glass fibre reinforced plastic".

[MARC D]

I have SS tanks on my boat and opened the ports a few weeks ago to clean them. SS is very easy to clean perfectly. I also added a fitting for the outlet of a watermaker and the material allows for a very solid installation.

Marc
s/v Mirliflore

[S/V Alchemy]

I am getting rid of two 100 gallon SS tanks because they are oblong and mounted under the side decks with no access/inspection ports. Loading with water actually makes my ridiculous heavy boat somewhat tender, because they are in the wrong place. They also, to my concern, seem unbaffled, which I discovered in eight foot waves and 32 knots in Lake Ontario when I was doing a rare "oceanic" sail test. BOOM, they went, BOOM!

So out they are coming and in with four 50 gallon HDPE tanks, which will be trapezoid to fit the chine of the hull and separated into "city water", "watermaker water" and "rainwater for dishes and washing/bathing". Plumbing them for both foot pump and electric pressure should be easy, and they are just small enough for me to shift into place without mechanical aid.

Me, I like my SS fuel tanks. Water, not so much. Plastic is king.