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Rick Morel

On Wed, 08 Jul 2009 06:34:15 -0400, wrote:

What watermaker do you have on board? How often does it
require maintenance? How much water does it provide daily? What powers
it?

I know you didn't ask me the question, but I think it's one that needs
answering.

I've had a PUR 40E 1.5 GPH in the past and now have a PUR 80E 3.4 GPH.
The 40E ran about 4 to 5 hours every day for most of 2-1/2 years. The
current 80E has just been run for several week-long periods. It takes
about 1-1/2 hours to 2-1/2 hours of daily running, the latter on
"wsshing and shower days". Note that half to one gallon is used to
flush after running.

There's a "silty water" setup, not the mega-buck "kit", which is just
an extra filter housing. We've made water in clean and dirty, and very
dirty water. Filter elements are not a big expense, they are simply
washed out when necessary and will last over a year.

Maintenance: Very little. Put some silicone grease on the pump shaft
when it starts squeaking, clean the pre-filters as above when needed -
month or more in clean water, weekly in silty water. Make half to one
gallon in a jug, as above, and run it though to flush when shutting
down. Run it every day, or at least every three days max, otherwise
pickle it. Pickling is easy, dump 2 caps of biocide into 2 qts of
water and run it through, then forget about it until you use it again.
To start up after pickling, run it for 20 minutes, test, and fill the
tanks.

We use one tank one day, the other the next. The day before tank is
topped off. This way if something happens to the watermaker, we've
still got one full tank of good water.

Power is 12V. Call it 16 Amp Hours per daily run, or about 2.4 Amp
Hours per gallon of water, put back by the solar.

The only downside to a watermaker is they're very overpriced.

Rick