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hi everyone jeff cote here with

boatingtechtalk.com

so we've got a question about a water

maker

shannon asks this year we managed to get

out on our 47 pilot house it's a 47 foot

pilot house about maybe 15 meters we are

semi-retired and stayed out for most of

july and august sounds awesome

we noticed that many marinas had water

restrictions and we were limited to the

amount we could fill up our fresh water

tanks

even when we stopped for diesel

we would like to install the water maker

but don't know where to start any advice

all right water maker i installed the

water maker on my boat this year so

good timing

okay so water makers

water makers there's a lot of variables

to consider uh one of the most important

ones are going to be um besides space

and by the way space is an issue so

let's not pretend that water makers well

there is but they're not like this small

like they could be this big and they can

be modular but still installing a water

maker is not a trivial thing there's

rarely a place on our boats when there's

like a huge swath of unused area that's

just ready to be dropped a water maker

in place certainly easier to do when

we're commissioning a boat from scratch

or at the beginning but most of us don't

have like just this endless real estate

in a locker somewhere or in a lazarette

or in the engine room where we have

endless space so the first thing to

consider is

where the hell are we going to mount

that at water maker

so you're going to have to be a little

bit crafty there and you're going to

have to think there are two choices

generally is either you can buy a frame

unit which makes the install easier or

you can buy a modular unit which is

broken up in different pieces and you

have to interconnect those pieces

somewhere

throughout the boat right

so for example on my boat i have a

sailboat and so guess of course i don't

have a huge space so my choice was a

modular one and

the water maker on my boat is literally

installed in multiple little cavities to

make use of all the available space that

i have on my boat so

first thing is going to be framed or

modular so keep that in the back of your

mind the next

question to kind of think about is do

you have an ac generator in your boat

i.e

can you create alternating current and

generally you're not going to do this

via an inverter do you want do you have

a generator on your boat and if you do

then you should consider an ac powered

water maker

most water makers on most boats

are ac powered of course there's an

exception we commonly deploy spectra and

they can be dc powered like on my boat i

went with spectra because i don't have a

generator and so my decision doesn't

apply to everyone here right it's just

this made sense on my boat i needed a

modular water maker and i needed dc

powered water maker so my choices were

narrowed down and i went with spectra

now if you have a generator on board

your boat and a 47 foot boat is likely

going to have a generator then you would

consider an ac power generator and the

reason why you would consider that is

because

a generator that gener not a water maker

that's powered by a generator can give

you higher output in terms of gallons

per day so most water makers are going

to actually look at if you ran that

water maker and this is theoretical of

course for 24 hours how many gallons per

day would you have where are you going

to have for example 600 gallons per day

900 gallons per day 1200 and i know it

sounds extreme and it's what i always do

is bring it back divide by 24 and say

okay well if you're going to run your

water maker for three hours how much

water you're going to do or how much

water are you going to make in an hour

and then you can start extrapolating

your head okay well i could tolerate

running my generator for three hours to

make water

so that's something to factor the other

one is also the size of your tanks

there's no point in having a water maker

that is so huge where your tank is so

tiny because the water maker is going to

fill it up in 10 minutes or 15 minutes

and then it's probably not going to make

a lot of sense but there is a sweet spot

by the way and a lot of times the

smaller water makers are not a lot

less money you would think it is but

they're not

so

make sure you look at the a wide range

you might be like a lot of our clients

really focus on cost but for a couple

ex like i'm talking in 10 percent more

incremental costs you might be looking

at a water maker that is 50 more output

than the other one you're looking at so

sometimes the reason why we sell smaller

water makers is not because the client

is doing it from a cost perspective

they're doing it from a space

perspective that's the only space they

can fit that water maker

so you're not going to have as much cost

savings as you might think by going with

a small water maker especially if it's

ac powered so take that into

consideration

the other thing too to think about when

you're doing a water maker

beyond service of course and having

available spare parts

is also

if you're going to have a remote panel

because water maker generally is not

installed in a convenient location

right to you it might be convenient for

the water but not for actually operating

the device and so consider what kind of

remote panel you're going to have

and then the other layer to that is well

how much automation do you want to have

on your water maker

some of us are geeky some of us don't

mind actually having a water maker that

involves a lot more of us and it's a

trade-off right the more you do on a

water maker and you're skilled the less

likely you're going to have problems

because you're the ones figuring them

out

right you're doing it on your own and

the other end of the spectrum is fully

automatic fully everything and it's

convenient you can you know like on my

boat i went for the fully automatic

because sometimes when the water maker

is running

i might not be on board or i might not

want to pay attention to it so i'll send

my water maker and i can say okay i want

you to fill the tank or i want you to

run for an hour or i want you to make

let's say 30 gallons so i can literally

set three different objectives well i

mean you choose one but i have a choice

of three like fill the tank do x amount

of water or run for x amount of time so

that gives me convenience and the

machine does it on its own because i

went with a fully automatic model now of

course that's going to increase the

price so as a boater what you're doing

is you're trading off

are you saying i want to save costs be

more part of the process probably a lot

more reliable to be part of the process

because humans if you do it well

you're going to be good at it but if you

also like myself i was like you know

what i can't spend that much time i'm

already working on other systems on my

boat and so this is one that i want

abstraction and so i went with automatic

there's different features from

different water makers some some offer

different and i don't want to get in the

pros and cons of each one but there are

features that are offered by some brands

and not others so you might want to read

a little bit into the details

and then lastly ask around um you know

it pays to ask voters what are they

doing your neighbors um

voters that you trust what have they

done why did they make that decision

because understanding why they did

something enables all of us to make a

better decision for our own boats so

great question and thanks for asking

i want to thank you for watching this

video don't forget to subscribe if you

want to get more of this cool content

and also check out our website if you've

got questions that are unanswered we've

actually taken the time to answer quite

a few questions and you might be

surprised to find the answer right there

on our website so thanks again

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