Reducing water pressure

Wayne · April 17, 2011, 07:14:23 PM

Does anyone have an easy way to reduce water pressure throughout the boat, other than installing a pressure regulator of some sort? I'm assuming that the pressure pump has a factory pre set?
I'm thinking that less pressure = less flow = the supply lasting longer . . .

Stu Jackson · April 17, 2011, 08:53:21 PM

Not much pressure actually involved in our two faucets setups that any available PRV on the market could deal with.

Two solutions come to mind: only open the faucets part way (downside: the pump cycles instead of just running); buy a Scanvik water wand. I have one, it works fine for long term "being away from water refill" but we just find it's not so necessary in the "cruising" we do, since we can always find water at least once a week. I always use the larger aft tank, so when it runs out I know we have 28 gallons of backup in the starboard tank. I never leave the tanks connected.

Mike and Joanne Stimmler · April 18, 2011, 07:52:12 AM

Wayne,
If you really want to be a miser, you could fill up one gallon water bottles from your sink faucet and just use those as needed.

Stu,
Whats a water wand?

Stu Jackson · April 18, 2011, 10:43:05 AM

1. What we do is fill up three gallon jugs and use them for coffee and cooking, the sink (boat tank) water for everything else. That water doesn't come out of the boat's tanks, but from our dock hose (after we wash the boat and make sure it's fresh).

2. Mike, it's a plastic wand that crews into the downspout of the faucet, a stick about 6 inches long. You turn on the faucet and no water comes out until you push gently on the stick. I just quickly checked Scanvik's and West Marine's websites, didn't find it, but you could probably Google it and find it. May be out of production. It's a great water saving gizmo.

3. [added 2/1/15] Another, new idea: http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,8217.0.html

lazybone · April 19, 2011, 09:31:47 AM

11 bucks here.

http://e3living.com/instant-water-saver

Wayne · April 19, 2011, 04:42:17 PM

Thanks. Looks like a great little device . . .

Ron Hill · April 19, 2011, 05:56:59 PM

Wayne : Go to Home Depot and they have a $6 restrictor that has a small lever to increase or decrease the flow.
All kinds of water restricting gadgets out there.

To answer your question - yes the pump pressure is factory set.

Peggie Hall · April 20, 2011, 01:38:41 PM

The water pump on most boats in the 28-40' range is 2.8 gpm. If you really want to knock your water pressure down to a trickle, you could go with a 1.6 or even smaller.

mainesail · April 20, 2011, 04:59:20 PM

We added a Brita filter on the galley faucet and run it on filter mode most of the time. It REALLY saves water and filters it too. We also have a massive whole house filtering system and between this and the Brita our water has tested as good as home and we use less due to the slight restrictions in the main filter and the Brita on-faucet filter..