[C320-list] Hot water tank woes

[allan.field at comcast.net]

Chris - One other thing I forgot to mention.  If you have to remove the tank, you will need to have a pice of stratight pipe to join the 2 hoses coming from the engine to the heater.  If you put hose clamps on the end of each hose over the pipe, you can run the eingine with the tank out of the boat - my tank was out for about 3 weeks and I still went out during that period. - Allan

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Robert E. Sloat" <resloat at comcast.net> 

> I had a similar problem with the pressure relief valve the first time this 
> season I used the AC mode to fire up the hot water heater. It turned out 
> the 
> pressure relief valve was leaking a few ounces/hour of water into the bottle 
> that I stick the pressure relief valve hose into to monitor it. The pressure 
> relief valve does not leak when the engine is used to heat water. 
> 
> My fix was to leave the water pump on and release and reseat the pressure 
> relief valve about 10 times. This apparently helped seal the relief valve 
> surfaces to 
> mate better. After this, there 
> has been no leaking from the pressure relief valve with 5 straight days of 
> AC water heating. 
> 
> I also rotated the lever that releases the relief valve when releasing the 
> relief valve thinking that this may also rotate the seal connected to the 
> valve stem. I don't know if this is the case after checking the pressure 
> relief valve on my hot water heater at home. 
> 
> To get to the pressure relief valve and rotate it I had to lay down on the 
> cabin floor and work my arm up to the pressure relief valve. 
> 
> I have a 2002 C320 Hull 894 with the Seaward hot water heater. 
> 
> Bob Sloat 
> Savannah 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Chris Holt" 
> To: "c320" 
> Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2007 3:31 PM 
> Subject: [C320-list] Hot water tank woes 
> 
> 
> I just came back from a 4 day vacation on the boat and we had a bit of 
> trouble with the hot water tank. With 4 girls (wife and three kids) hot 
> water is a must. 
> There were a couple of strange things that happened but to save on typing 
> and you reading I'll talk about the main one. On the third day we were on a 
> dock in Kennebunkport, ME and we turned on the AC water heater. After 
> taking showers we forgot to shut it off and went for a walk in town. When I 
> got back I could hear the water pump running and figured we must have run 
> out of water and I didn't hear it before leaving. When I flipped the tank 
> over the system pressurized and then the pump would kick on about every 30 
> seconds for a short burst. After thinking about this I remembered we didn't 
> shut off the water heater. When I checked under the sink it was very hot 
> under there and sure enough there was water in there. 
> 
> First question: Isn't there a thermostat in there that should not allow the 
> water to get that hot? 
> 
> In any case, I'm assuming the water was too hot and the pressure relief 
> valve keep shooting out water to let off steam. 
> So I ran the hot water for awhile to cool the water down in the tank and 
> sure enough the water pump stopped kicking on. 
> Now, when we left Kennebunkport and got to our destination I heard the water 
> pump doing the same thing. The engine now caused the water to get too hot. 
> 
> 2nd question: If the answer to the first question is yes does the thermostat 
> work for engine heating and AC heating? 
> 3rd question: Because of this incident do you think my pressure release 
> valve is no longer good? It seemed I had to cool the water down quite a lot 
> in the tank before it stopped causing the pump to turn on. 
> 
> Thanks, 
> 
> Chris 
> #447 
> 
>