Aluminium water tanks?

[simonhantler]

What’s your opinion (oh-o) on aluminium water tanks. Issues with corrosion, water quality, Alzheimer’s, coat inside of tanks?

[more]

Originally Posted by simonhantler

What’s your opinion (oh-o) on aluminium water tanks. Issues with corrosion, water quality, Alzheimer’s, coat inside of tanks?

on the boat best metal,wood is called glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) one side Gelcoat another side topcoat.end story.

[coopec43]

Answer: An excellent question that raises several key points regarding standards compliance.

First, categorically the ABYC Standard that addresses potable water systems (ABYC H-23) recommends that aluminum not be used for potable water tanks. The standard talks about not using any materials for tank construction that might impart an undesirable taste, odor, or color to the water. The fact is that most tap water used here in the US today has to go through some form of chemical treatment to ensure that the water is safe to drink at all times. Unfortunately, one of the chemicals commonly used is chlorine, which can be corrosive to aluminum after long exposure. As the aluminum corrodes, it releases aluminum oxide, which turns into a white powder that frankly falls directly into the undesirable category when it comes to drinking water. I’m not an MD, so I can’t explain what the medical implications might be here, but I can tell you that the water in that tank will not taste too good after a while. Today the preferred choice for potable water tankage on boats is clearly centered around either FDA-approved plastics or 300-series stainless steel.

https://www.boats.com/reviews/alumin...s-safe-to-use/



I doubt that Fiberglass would be approved unless it was coated with one approved for potable water. The Australian Standard for potable water is AS/NZS 4020.

Crommelin Water based bitumen is approved coating for drinking water but there would be USA equivalents.

PRO 100 WP: Waterproofing: Crommelin

[coopec43]

Plastic, Steel, Fiberglass and Concrete Tanks - Bushmans

www.bushmantanks.com.au › blog › plastic-steel-fiberg...

Fibreglass tanks (or GFRP Glass Fibre Reinforced Plastic) are available to store water. These tanks must be manufactured with a food-grade coating on their interior surface. The coating is cured before the tanks are offered for sale. One advantage of Fibreglass is that it is very stiff or rigid.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by simonhantler

What’s your opinion (oh-o) on aluminium water tanks. Issues with corrosion, water quality, Alzheimer’s, coat inside of tanks?

WE had one. Took it out and put it in the garden with hose in it. Had more holes than a tea bag Scrapped and replaced with a flexible tank, boat sold. That was 14 yrs ago, flexible tank is still in place according to the owner.

Pete

[a64pilot]

As long as you never allow any chlorine to get into it, it’s fine.
My boat is 33 yrs old with an aluminum tank, any dock water gets filtered slowly through a carbon block filter.

Having said that I’d prefer a good thick plastic tank, but aluminum if you keep chlorine away from it is fine.

Quite a few boats are made from aluminum, and as a rule they are expensive not cheap boats, and don’t seem to corrode and sink, if aluminum were a poor material I wouldn’t expect to see so many high end boats made from it.

[double u]

had Aluminium tanks on our alloy boat: plenty localized calcareous deposits, wart-like, corrosion under each of them. 1st hole when boat was ~11 years old. on the tank that we used (other mostly untouched "reserve")

[s/v Jedi]

I would want a fiberglass or stainless steel tank. I lovethe water from our stainless KleanCanteen bottles so I bet stainless is best but we do with fiberglass which was undoubtedly coated on the inside with unknown product (but ABS inspected and approved) which does fine without any weird taste or color as well.

[rslifkin]

Aluminum works fine, although chlorine will corrode it. So overly chlorinated dock water is a problem and you shouldn't ever bleach the tank.

My aluminum water tank is now 35 years old and still no signs of leakage. However, I do get some deposits in the strainer before the pump, so I'm sure there's some corrosion going on in there. I just dread the day I have to do anything about it, as my best estimate is that getting the water tank out involves removing the 2 fuel tanks (half of the water tank is under them).

[Manateeman]

We have an aluminum boat and we coated the interior of the tanks to prevent any corrosion. To do it correctly takes multiple steps and is expensive and requires large access plates. Fine if you have a big aluminum boat but plastic tanks are available in literally hundreds of shapes and sizes. Our emergency water tanks are plastic. I think nalgene.
Happy trails to you
Mark and his “we only drink beer” manatees

[Cheechako]

Aluminum is not good for water. I had a tank with only aluminum access ports . When I opened those ports there was this thick ugly grey slime on the aluminum that looked like some kind of aluminum oxide goo. I blasted and painted the inside of those ports, not sure how long that lasted because I sold the boat.

[RaymondR]

My extant boat has a large aluminium water tank.

since I'm a single hander who previously had a boat with small water tanks I Had fallen into a frugal use state of mind and tended to a very parsimonious fresh water user. In order to keep the water from going bad in the alloy tank I have now had to overcome the frugal habits and instead of bathing out of a bucket have been obliged to start taking long hot fresh water showers to keep the stored water from going bad.

Not sure if that's an up or a down side to the fresh water use issue. Socially it would probably be considered up.

[more]

Originally Posted by coopec43

[I][B]


I doubt that Fiberglass would be approved unless it was coated with one approved for potable water. The Australian Standard for potable water is AS/NZS 4020.

Crommelin Water based bitumen is approved coating for drinking water but there would be USA equivalents.

https://www.draytontank.co.uk/potable-water-tanks.htm
https://www.amiblu.com/wp-content/up...ater-Tanks.pdf

National Storage Tank is pleased to represent the #1 FRP Water Tank in the world. First introduced in the early 1970’s these uniquely manufactured systems provided numerous advantages over other water storage systems including: Increased system

No corrosion, Non-Toxic
No coating needed, Mirror-smooth surface to prevent bacterial growth
Tank design life operation in excess of 40 years, with FRP Panel material with an anticipated end of life of 100+ years.
No maintenance required outside of regular inspections
Leak-free by design, easily installed, easy to expand
The opaque gray color is designed to eliminate light entering the tank and preventing Algae growth
Fast and easy cleaning
https://www.nationalstoragetank.com/...p-water-tanks/
but aslo australia use GRP https://tankswest.com.au/fibre-reinf...rinking-water/
2 second search

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by more

No corrosion, Non-Toxic
No coating needed, Mirror-smooth surface to prevent bacterial growth
Tank design life operation in excess of 40 years, with FRP Panel material with an anticipated end of life of 100+ years.
No maintenance required outside of regular inspections
Leak-free by design, easily installed, easy to expand

Do you have these tanks in your boat? can we see a photo? if not, why did you recommend them?

They don't seem to have inspection hatches in the smaller tanks, will this be a problem on a yacht?

Pete