Water heater inlet hose popping off

[Joyride]

Water heater hose popped off today and send all my freshwater into the bilge while we were underway today.  We motored about 3 hrs so I'm sure the water in the tank was good and hot.  It's happened before and I figured it was a loose clamp so I made sure it was good and tight.  I'm thinking maybe too Michael pressure in the tank or something?  Anybody ever have this happen?

[karista]

Exact same thing happened to me twice. The problem was the nylon barb elbows for the in and out water connections had deformed and thus the water hoses did not hold and popped off while underway, emptying my tank into the bilge. I replaced them both with brass elbows and problem was solved!

[Ron Hill]

Joy : Replace the inlet and outlet elbows with new nylon or brass fittings.

A thought

[mainesail]

Water heater hose popped off today and send all my freshwater into the bilge while we were underway today.  We motored about 3 hrs so I'm sure the water in the tank was good and hot.  It's happened before and I figured it was a loose clamp so I made sure it was good and tight.  I'm thinking maybe too Michael pressure in the tank or something?  Anybody ever have this happen?

Has nothing to do with the clamp really. The issue is the hose Catalina uses is simply not rated for those temps. The hoses used on our particular boat were rated at 140F. When the tank gets hot, and exceeds the rating of the hose, the hose softens and it just pops off the hose adapter.

To fix this I did what the factory should have done. I hard plumbed in a thermostatic mixing valve & then plumbed the tank to use short runs of SS flexible hoses which then transitioned to PEX. For winterizing the two ends of the SS hoses are simply connected together to bypass the water heater..

For water heaters connected to engines the ABYC now requires a means of tempering the hot water to safe levels. Catalina was not doing this when we purchased our boat brand new in 2005 and even as of the last Catalina I was on at a boat show this ABYC requirement was still being ignored.

[Roc]

Hi Mainesail,
Any possibility of posting pictures of your mixing valve and ss hose bypass?  From what I gather, the mixing valve is at the hot water output, where cold water is mixed to bring temperatures to safe levels?
thanks!

[KWKloeber]

To fix this I did what the factory should have done. I hard plumbed in a thermostatic mixing valve & then plumbed the tank to use short runs of SS flexible hoses which then transitioned to PEX. For winterizing the two ends of the SS hoses are simply connected together to bypass the water heater..

VERY interesting.  Not knowing there was a problem, when I replaced my WH I oriented the inzet/outzet differently than OEM, and wanted to move the supply and return lines to a better location/access.  Instead of hose, I used sharkbite fittings on the WH, with 1/2" copper/sweat fittings to the location I desired, terminated in male/female garden hose (w/ matching on the flex hoses.)  As you say, it's a snap to disconnect and reconnect them to loop around the WH to winterize.  No muss no fussing with a manifold and excess valves to bypass the WH!!

-ken

[mainesail]

Hi Mainesail,
Any possibility of posting pictures of your mixing valve and ss hose bypass?  From what I gather, the mixing valve is at the hot water output, where cold water is mixed to bring temperatures to safe levels?
thanks!

Don't have any photos of the 310 that are good enough to make out but this is our current water heater. I usually use a Watts 1170, Honywell AM-1 Series, Cash Acme or other decent quality mixing valves. The IsoTemp heaters come standard with one, they all should.....

[KWKloeber]

Rod

I take it that those are NPT ends, and are not s/s washing machine hoses (garden hose ends)?

Ken