Ahoy All, Being one of the "dumbth" sort I have lots of PVC in my engine room, mostly in main engine seawater cooling circuits. There is a 2" sched 80 PVC seawater suction line from the strainer to the seawater pump about 5" below the stbd exhaust elbows (V-6 engine) (running at about 350 deg F). Been there for about 30 years and 40K miles, so far.
Also I use some old 1/2" garden hose for a diesel fuel transfer line and polybutyl for fresh water plumbing with no problems (aside from the forseen fitting failures on the polybutyl in the galley). I just replaced a short section of vinyl hose in the fuel suction line between tanks and electric priming pump (put there to check for bubbles) because I am doing work to that system and the hose is no longer transparent. While the old vynal hose is hardened with age, it is not damaged or weak. I put a spring inside it so it wouldn't collapse when the fuel got warm. None of the above have ever failed. Did get a hole in a fairly new (preventative replacement) main engine fresh water coolant hose elbow. It was thinner and softer than the old one but I lucked out with my "used but good" bag with the old elbows which are back on the engine and doing just fine. Lesson - use your judgment, not simply time passed, when considering preventative replacement. Most memorable failure was the 304 stainless spiral clamp on the genset seawater pump discharge hose which parted and let the hose come half off. It was on enough to keep the genset from shutting itself down, and off enough to spray seawater all over the ER making a fine mess. I replaced all ER hose clamps with 316. Norm S/V Bandersnatch Lying Julington Creek FL See, this might be the problem: scientists call it "filter bias". I _have_ seen PVC fail, at least four times that I recall off the top. No violent explosions, but one flooded kitchen, one broken sink drain (a gf was rooting around under the sink and bumped the piping), one case of plain dumbth (PVC pipe run through the engine compartment - have some nice heat to cook off the volatiles!) which sprayed coolant everywhere, and one installation where, as far as I can tell, the pipe had been torqued and left under strain. _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://liveaboardonline.com/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardonline.com/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
