Day 70-73, 26/17/22 - 29/17/22 Fresh water plumbing. 20 hours

 Fresh water plumping replacement

Do not try to do better if it works!

Short story, My boat 40 years old and all hoses are original. All of them Are hardened and start cracking. I do not want to wait until they bust. I made decision to replace old PVC hoses with PEX-A tubing. 

 

Why PEX-A? It is pretty simple  "crimping" process. Connection are possible in pretty in hard to access places due to you can expand pipe in comfortable place and then install it. Beside price I would point other reasons: fittings are expensive but not so high as Shark bite, no metal collars (vs PEX-B) - no corrosion, expansion tool is not very expensive.

It is easy to say - replace tubing. 

In mind I imagine simple process - take off clamps,  connect PEX tube to old hose with some insert plug  and duct tape, and then pull new tube using old hose as guide. Simple enough. Right? Sounds like couple hours to do.

In reality I spent 4 days to pull hoses and put PEX tubing. 

What's happened? All hoses are zip-tied  with screw secured zip-ties in between hull and inner liner inside non-accessible and very hard to get it places. 

How I figured this out?  First, I was not able to pull hoses from compartments, Second - I used bore-scope and visually confirmed that hoses secured with zip-ties.

Why Irwin Boats made it? Good question... to simplify assembly process, likely all plumbing work was done on inner liner before it was engaged with hull and these zip-ties hold hoses on place in the moment of  inner liner installation. MANUFACTURER did not think that somebody will replace or repair fresh water hoses.

Where problems are?

Trap #1, hose from Front tank to port side tank, Fixed under toilet, in 5 inches under toilet from place where it is coming out in to built-in cabinet, if you try to access there from front cabin locker, my hand was too short and too big to get there. To take zip-tie I had to make the hole 2x2 in. in the floor next to toilet to get access there. I know it is crazy, but I do not think 40 years old heater hose is good enough for drinking water. 

Trap #2, back of starboard settee , way from head to galley. Hoses zip-tied in 3 places with no access to that cavity.  Visually I confirmed there is one "bulkhead"  on the middle of the settee and original hoses are going through it, but ON MY BOAT there also is about an inch gap between it and hull, so i can push tubing from nav desk side and fish them in the head. So,  here I cut old hoses pushed them in to free original holes under nav desk, then pushed-fished PEX tubing. 

Trap #3, Route from galley to Water heater in engine room. Hoses foamed in polyurethane foam under the ice chest. They foamed in some high-density shit.  I found the best way to make a new path for the tubing in between ice chest and engine room compartment, enlarge exit hole and put pipes just over old hoses and left them alone. Fortunately, ON MY BOAT there were two kinds of foam there, mainly it was low density isolation foam relatively  easy to dig in and I got through it with wooden stick, and only 3-4 inches of high-density form close to aft corner I had to drill out.

So far I made it! 

I spent 4 days and also it will take maybe a day to close and finish back hole under toilet and replace foam. 

It was a lot of work, but I think this work will be payed off  with confidence in water system.

 In galley cabinet

In galley, I added 0.75L water accumulator. Pulled hoses from floor, put ball valves instead of garden hose splitter switching water intake between foot and electrical pumps.

Under head sink.

In head cabinet. Added independent output for shower head. I added electric valves and ball valves in shower brunch. Idea under it - electric valves will be controlled by foot switch to be able to conserve water and on-off shower for the time when water is needed only. Other add-on is hot water "primer". It is electric valved connection from hot water pipe back to fresh water tank. It will be activated for several seconds before start use hot water to drain cooled water from hot water pipes and get hot water in faucet instantly.