High Water Bilge Alarm

kordo

The first pic shows the factory installed location of the high water alarm on my Rinker.  I have never thought this was a good location because there would be so much water in the bilge when the alarm sounded that it would almost be too late to do anything.  The bilge pump would not be working or overwhelmed and the batteries would be submerged in short order.  So I moved the alarm to a location as shown on the second pic.  It will sound as soon as there is about an inch or two of water in the bilge.  Just a suggestion.  

aero3113

I’ve been wanting to move mine also. My neighbors 290 Searay has a second pump that’s connected to the high water float. I thought that’s a great set up. If you main pump fails, the high water pump with bail you out and let you know what’s going on. 

YYZRC

@kordo what’s the wiring/fuse holder that’s dangling at the transom just above the bilge pump?

kordo

Makes sense but there will still be a lot of water in your boat using the original location of the alarm.  At 8.345 lbs per gallon depending on which boat you have, there will be a lot of excess weight in the boat.  If you assume the engine room is 10' by 6' and the depth of water using the original location is 1', you could have 60 cubic feet of water sloshing around.  One gallon of water takes up .13 cubic feet so you could have 461 gallons of water in your engine room.  At 8.345 lbs per gallon, you could have 3,847 lbs of extra weight plus the possible negative impact on your batteries and engines.  Not a good scenario.  

aero3113

@kordo , I definitely wouldn’t keep the original location.

Grahamu

With  3847 lbs extra weight it should become very noticeable at your waterline but I agree the high water float is too high.