As the keeper of the maintenance list now that Tim refuses to look at it, I'm doing a pretty dismal job. After closing out the house I really found it hard to get too interested in more honey-do stuff. But after a pretty easy morning of finishing up the fitting of the wind vane tower, we were feeling rather guilty about not doing anything so we decided to tackle the holding tank monitoring system install.
We decided on a SCAD single tank monitoring system because it has an external sensor that can go on our plastic holding tank without having to drill any holes or fit any fittings. It's a clean, simple system and we like clean and simple. Unfortunately, Tartan doesn't always agree and continually tries to make access as difficult as possible for things like wires. It took us 4 hours and a completely torn apart interior, but we got it done and we're pretty happy with it. I did hold my nose and open the access panel on the top of the tank so I could see if the Empty on the panel agreed with my eyes. This holding tank was actually a water tank at one point that someone converted to a holding tank, so the pumpout fitting is about 2" short of the bottom and there is always some sludge there. It means that for us our 24 gallon tank actually only holds about 18 gallons so we will have to watch it pretty carefully in the early days of cruising till we see how it goes. At least now we'll have a monitor instead of having to disassemble the V-berth to get at the access panel to take a look-see. |
| Nothing like having your mattress on your dining table... |
6 comments:
My 18 year old granddaughter helped me take out some 32 year old black water hoses and was hanging upside down cutting a hose ( that we thought was empty ) when she say's phew it's leaking.
She stayed right there and finished cutting the hose. :)
I am really proud of her.
Bill Kelleher
Holy cow she's going to make someone a great boat bride :)
Does she do bottom paint???
I am not sure i she ever ot into the bottom paint, but she has washed and waxed.
She is starting collage right now, chemical forensics.
Bill Kelleher
I have ben interested in these units, but was concerned that the sensor would not stick permanently to our polypropylene holding tank. What is your tank made from, and do you have a reading on how well the adhesive worked?
Also, once you get cruising for real, the continuous boat movement will go a long way to re-suspending that layer of sludge...
bob
Bob,
These are designed specifically for the plastic tanks. You can't use them on metal. You have to clean the side of the tank with isopropyl alcohol and a scotchbrite pad. My experience in mounting the sensor is that you better have it in the right place the first time because it's not coming off to move it. I even drew placement lines on the side of the tank with a sharpie before I started.
Deb
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