Cold as ICE

Its 4 degrees outside (the nautical term is $%&*** cold!) At the marina, we're all thinking about fresh water. We need it liquid, but that's not what it wants. Several boats on the marina have had problems with freshwater plumbing  freezing, breaking, or both.  

Because our fresh water hoses are all daisy chained, if your hose freezes up, it means everyone down-pipe from you is frozen too.

Sunken fresh water hose (red)

Above, here you can see my fresh water hose (taped in red), which is connected to the main water line about 7 feet under the sea (where its a quite a bit warmer than the surface).

This morning a neighbor had his inbound freshwater hose freeze, breaking the valve, just inside his boat in an unheated space.

So far we've been very lucky.  I did have a drain pipe freeze briefly, but that's not as serious as in-bound plumbing icing up.  I'm especially concerned because much of the piping is old copper instead of the fancy new Pex stuff which is easier to deal with.

In order to make the best defense against the freeze, I've taken the advice of my neighbors, and Rick. I'm using precious current to heat under the galley sink (2 amps), under the sink in Celia's bathroom (2 amps), plus a major boost to the heat in the engine room, where most of the plumbing resides (12 amps!).  One bit of luck - because our boat is old-fashioned, it actually has a naturally short run of unheated space at the intake valve.

-- Chris

Ice off my port stern.