Mac faucets

[Miquel]

Yesterday evening I was doing some repairs in our Culzean, when I realized I may still have some water in the tank. So I tried through the 2 faucets (toilet & kitchen). There was indeed some water left even if it was not too much, so the freezing would not have created any problem. My surprise was when I realized they were both leaking a lot through the lever that makes them work . The worst of all is that before the beginning of the season, I had changed both for new ones, and they were working perfectly.
Does anyone had the same problem? Any recommendation in fixing it without having to change the faucets every beginning of season?
Fair winds,
Miquel
Culzean

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Maybe the water in the pump froze and damaged them into leaking?

I love my pressure water system, best mod I have on the boat I think. In the galley, I use a real residential grade kitchen water faucet with pull out spray head. In the head, I have a washdown hose that can reach anywhere in the boat which is terrific for washing the sand out of the cockpit or washing the portapotti down. Having traded a pretty luxurious cruising boat for my Mac, I just couldn't ever get used to those rinky dink stock little pump faucets so the first thing I did was put in a pressure system. I still have one of the pumps in the head sink which I can use as an emergency backup I suppose...but have not ever used it. I didn't go as far as putting in hot water which my previous boat had though.

[vatalon]

Dimitri,
Did you stay with the stock storage tanks or did you upgrade? Would like to see pictures of the wash-down mod in the head.

[Duane Dunn, Allegro]

Junk them.

We went pressure at the galley and a better hand pump in the head.

Our pressure system is a super simple retrofit. It's a demand pump and a faucet with built in switch from Shurflo Works great with our hard 5 gallon tanks.

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Vatalon,

I've been meaning to post my water system in the mods section but have still not found the time. I will do it one of these days though.

The tank is a 26 gallon bladder that I got for about 50 bucks off of Marisafe. Like many others here, I put it under the forward dinette seat. I can still store light stuff on top of it and around it (lifejackets, small light items, etc.) but I've been contemplating moving it under the cooler compartment to make more storage space. It won't fill all the way there though. Having that much water is nice on a boat. The washdown hose has a dial adapter so that it can do after-beach shower's, spray down cockpit messes, etc. Cold, but better than nothing. I can flush my motor with it too as I mentioned previously.

It really is a fairly simple system. The tank goes into the 2.8gpm pump which is under the dinette table compartment, about a foot further aft is a small accumulator to make the water as steady as a house supply. The output goes to a T connector, one side going to the galley faucet, and the other side going under the head floor to the cabinet under the head sink. At that point, I have another Y connector with shut off valves. One side of the Y goes to the 50 foot coil hose which has a regular spray nozzle with dial settings on it. I did the Y in case I wanted to hook up the head faucet to the pressure system too, although so far, we never use the head sink (other than storage) and I don't know if I trust my youngest kids in there with pressurized water...they could still run through 26 gallons in several minutes if they leave it running and no one else figures it out soon enough.

[norbert]

miquel, i have exactly the same problem on my factory handpump faucet on the galley. when pumping the water comes out at the the lever or at the base of the pump housing. i did not yet analyze where the problem is.

i use the hand faucet rarely because i have a electric water-on-demand system with switch faucets similar to duanne's. i have 2 of this faucets (galley and head) with one pump and a 25 gallons flexible tank in the bow. the factory handpump is still in the galley, it is connected to a plastic hose which goes thru the bilge to the transom and simply hangs down in the water there. this way i have a sea water pump !

the leaking water runs down in the sink, and as mentioned above, i do not use it very often. so i did not repair it until now, but it is on my to-do list for next spring. miquel, if you ever detect the reason for leaking, let me know!

[Don T]

Hello:
I had leaks from two places. I found that the shaft for the lever is sealed with an O-ring. The shaft works it's way out a little with use and begins to leak. I keep the O-ring lubed with silicone grease and press in lightly while pumping. It also leaked at the bottom of the nozzle where it meets the base. For this I removed the nozzle and cut a groove in the hole so I could put a snap ring in there to hold the tube down and keep a good seal with it's O-ring. I keep this unit in the head as a backup to my pump sys. It's a good thing too cuz last July the pump quit up in Canada and we had to use it.