This was actually really good I'm new to boating had no idea what this pump was for i have two on mine i was like what the hell is that for but thanks for explaining thanks man
Not a boat guy, don't have one, and probably never will. But I heard about bilge pumps elsewhere and decided to see how they worked. You gave a awesome explanation and kept it interesting! Thanks for the vid.
I love the way that you explained this! I time and again fix boats where people ignore their bilge and it breaks their boat or it sinks at their marina. You have such a pleasant demeanor very refreshing to see on here
Let me know if this video was helpful for you! Make sure you don't have a bad day at the boat ramp by following my boat ramp checklist! ruclips.net/video/BtcNR2d2EAM/видео.html
It’s awesome to see someone else that owns a Renken bow rider. We own a 1984 19’6” bow rider and it still has the original Seadrive unit on it. We’ve had it since 2011 and it has been the absolute best boat. Solid and smooth ride. I never have had any faith in bilge pumps since my dads boat sank from a malfunctioning float switch. Thanks for sharing. Stay safe. 🇺🇸
My first boat was an '85 Renken that I bought new. It was a 17' bowlder, had a 120 hp OMC stern drive and it was a great little boat to ski behind. Good times.
@Wayne The Boat Guy So much people don't realise when owning a boat. Bilge water from bad weather waves etc. And must be sucked out. I often use my wet and dry vacuum to suck out the water completely. My setup is bilge pump in the middle of the boat manual switched. Then a float switch and bilge at the engine on auto switched or manual. I always leave mine on auto incase of build up of rain water. In the warm weather the water evaporates. When i bilge the middle it throws the water at the end of the boat. Then the bilge pump with float switch throws it into the water. I'm currently upgrading to 1100gph bilge pumps the quicker the better. But great video also I'm still learning about boats👍
All of my boats have always had some water in the bilge when they're sitting in the marina. Mine only get dry when I have them at an angle on the trailer and the drain plug is removed.
After buying my first bass tracker I forgot to put the drain plug in tight enough.. I checked the gas/battery compartment maybe 15 min after launching & noticed my batteries were almost half submerged in water. I quickly got to a bank and screwed the plug in tightly & ran the bilge pump. Thank goodness the pump was fully functional and I happened to check the compartment when I did 😅
Float switches have a bit of "hysteresis"... meaning there's a space between the point where it turns on and the point where it turns off. When the pump turned off you were standing midships, but both times when it turned on you'd moved aft to show us the bilge. That cause the boat to tilt back some and the water to flow back to the bilge, making it deeper there and turning on the switch. It's working correctly... though the occasion you describe where it failed to turn off it wasn't. There's a couple of typical causes of that... if the switch is mounted lower than the pump (or if the boat is listing) the switch can be genuinley on but the pump's out of the water. Also if you can something (eg: leaves, stray bits of floatation foam, etc) caught in the switch it can jam it on. Or the switch could of course be faulty. Should always have the switch mounted at the same height as the pump's base.
Thank you for the great video. As a new boater, my second season owning a boat, i was shocked when it came on and started pumping out water out of the blue.
Sitting on my boat, grateful to have found your video. Exactly what I needed, but not far enough:/ Last season, my bilge would not shut off. I replace my RuleAmatic40A with new, same model. Now, problem is, it is not kicking on, automatically. I can hear it when I flip dashboard switch. Most that comes out, is a trickle. I wondered if a hose was pinched or wires were impeding float. I'd like to check for clog in screen? But I don't know how to get to screen ..or whatever. I don't want to muscle it off. And the hole to work in to unscrew bilge is tiny. Plus I'm at the dock!
Only full flotation, self-bailing boats should be without a bilge pump or device. Two are preferred at different levels. Only the bilge pump is wired direct to the batteries. Some hulls have no bilge but are not self bailing - but a few are both.🌟 The bilge is actually filled completely with flotation. and the decks are self-bailing ✴Booyah! Transom and stringers can be f-glass. Pump #1 does the bottom. #2 is higher and is a high volume pump. Search -full flotation self bailing boats and you should find my choice for bay, inlet and ocean. Manua/off/auto on both. Thanks again Wayne! 🛥⛵
I've often wondered why water was being expelled from boats. I thought a certain amount of water is taken in on purpose to act as ballast. Then the pump removes it as load, speed or weather changes to maintain a set level in the water.
Only if the pump is running a lot. Having the circuit 'ready' just allows the pump switch to work. It's like having a breaker 'on' in your house before you switch on the light switch.
@@WayneTheBoatGuy So my switch panel is 3 way and has a light indicating which setting its on. red for manual mode, green for auto. is that enough draw to drain battery?
I have that same switch from walmart and it wont come on unless I shake it, it will go off though, it has a ball inside it and when the water goes up slowly it wont kick on, I use it for my cellar, so in a boat, when you get in the boat it rocks the water which will make it come on, but when it sits in a cellar with no movement it wont come on.
Just checking out your channel and I was gonna comment to help the algorithm at first when I heard you mention ringing the bell. I didnt see an option to ring the bell though. I've seen this once before but I'm not sure if that's bc of youtube or if theres a setting you can change so people can ring it. Just thought I'd mention to it ya
Welcome aboard! - Yeah the way the bell works is kinda weird - You only see the bell icon if you've subscribed to a RUclips channel. Once you subscribe, the bell icon is there next to the word "Subscribed". It allows you to choose whether or not you receive notifications when that channel posts new content. Thank you so much for watching a commenting - hope you're a bell ringer too!
@@WayneTheBoatGuy yupp thank you for posting. I don't own a boat but I go fishing on a friends occasionally and I enjoy learning the small things. It's good knowledge to have. And it said the bell is disabled for kids content which I think has something to do with advertising and stuff like that
@@WayneTheBoatGuy support.google.com/youtube/answer/9632097?nohelpkit=1&hl=en. This is the link for the page I got sent to when I clicked "learn more" on the thing that popped up once I try to ring the bell
Tried to figure out why bc I have all notifications turned on to quite a few channels and thought it was weird that some channels bell werent working. I think it has something to do with the amount of subs a channel a has (which is silly IMO) Sorry replying so many times. I enjoy supporting smaller channels trying to build their audience if their content is something I'm interested in. Hope to see your channel grow in the future n looking forward to future posts as well
My boat has an automatic pump , forgot to put the plug in once and it kicked on thankfully . I am not sure why water enters into the boat from the drain holes?
I bought an old boat with a bilge pump that is only operated by a switch.. The boat will always stay covered, so theoretically no water will get down there right? Do I even need the pump? Only asking because I noticed the hose going out of the boat is brittle and cracked- and I don't know if it's a waste of time to make it work.
It isn’t a waste of time to get it working. If the boat takes on water from a wave, a rain storm or a leak, it’s there to pump it out. If you were to leave it in the water, then an automatic switch would be beneficial. It might be the difference between your boat sinking and not sinking if you were to get a leak out on the water. Thanks for watching!!
Is it okay to have that large of a hole in the deck? My boat didn't come with a bilge pump so I am currently working on installing one, but was having issues with how the piping and wiring should be routed. My boat is about the same size as yours and I was worried about cutting another hole in the deck to route everything.
The previous owner had replaced the deck floor and he used thicker wood than original. Obviously you don't want too large of a hole, but since mine was under that weird angled back splash panel, nobody is walking under there and it made a nice opening to work with.
Many boats sitting in a marina have a little water in the bilge because the pump doesn't suck out every drop. Both of my boats have had a little water in them when they're at the marina. BUT you never want water that's above the top of the pump because that means the pump isn't doing it's job. You also don't want water sitting in there when you're on the hard because then there's water sitting in your boat for no reason which could freeze etc. So when you're on land, you pull the drain plug.
Only if it doesn't shut off automatically. These have a float switch that turns them on and off depending on the level of the water. Sometimes the float switch sticks and the pump keeps running and will eventually drain the battery. But it takes a loooong time. My float switch broke and it was running for a whole day once before someone let me know and didn't run my batteries down.
@@Andrew-mr2dw jet skis usually have a vacuum driven bilge pump as part of the jet drive. I added one to mine, but you need to take into account the small hull space available, and the limited electrical capacity of a jet ski battery. Because they only have a small hull I fitted the smallest pump they had on amazon.
Wayne, I have a similar setup with my bilge pump, (auto and manual switch). My auto float works, but my manual switch does not. Would you know what to look for to diagnose the issue?
I would probably try to disconnect the wires at the manual switch to see if you can start the pump by touching the wires together. If so, it's the switch. If not, then it's probably a short in the wires to the switch.
All of the sudden my bilge pump turns on and won’t turn off as soon as I add power to the boat can anybody give me any advice on how to fix this problem
HaHa, yes look at the marina water after it pumps out for a tiny sheen...then call the USCG and fess up. Fines can be huge. They will ask you how much oil you pumped into the water. A few drops of dish soap and the sheen is gone. You will find that just about everything is illegal about boat life. I have seen big diesel boats leaving a sheen and sooting up the entire marina.
This was actually really good I'm new to boating had no idea what this pump was for i have two on mine i was like what the hell is that for but thanks for explaining thanks man
Awesome - thanks and good luck!!!
Not a boat guy, don't have one, and probably never will. But I heard about bilge pumps elsewhere and decided to see how they worked. You gave a awesome explanation and kept it interesting! Thanks for the vid.
Thank you for the kind words!
Literally why I'm here.
I love the way that you explained this! I time and again fix boats where people ignore their bilge and it breaks their boat or it sinks at their marina. You have such a pleasant demeanor very refreshing to see on here
Thank you so much!!
Let me know if this video was helpful for you!
Make sure you don't have a bad day at the boat ramp by following my boat ramp checklist! ruclips.net/video/BtcNR2d2EAM/видео.html
Hi Wayne, we are going on water. Your videos are awesome and very informative. They help us amateur boaters a lot.
Glad to help!
It’s awesome to see someone else that owns a Renken bow rider. We own a 1984 19’6” bow rider and it still has the original Seadrive unit on it. We’ve had it since 2011 and it has been the absolute best boat. Solid and smooth ride.
I never have had any faith in bilge pumps since my dads boat sank from a malfunctioning float switch.
Thanks for sharing. Stay safe.
🇺🇸
The high failure rate It's why I check mine often - especially after a good rain!
My first boat was an '85 Renken that I bought new. It was a 17' bowlder, had a 120 hp OMC stern drive and it was a great little boat to ski behind. Good times.
@Wayne The Boat Guy So much people don't realise when owning a boat. Bilge water from bad weather waves etc. And must be sucked out. I often use my wet and dry vacuum to suck out the water completely. My setup is bilge pump in the middle of the boat manual switched. Then a float switch and bilge at the engine on auto switched or manual. I always leave mine on auto incase of build up of rain water. In the warm weather the water evaporates. When i bilge the middle it throws the water at the end of the boat. Then the bilge pump with float switch throws it into the water. I'm currently upgrading to 1100gph bilge pumps the quicker the better. But great video also I'm still learning about boats👍
All of my boats have always had some water in the bilge when they're sitting in the marina. Mine only get dry when I have them at an angle on the trailer and the drain plug is removed.
I really enjoy all your videos as a 1st time boater ❤
Glad you like them!
Thanks!! Have only owned pontoons in the past....latest boat is not! So this gives me the highlights of what it does. Thank you for your post/channel!
Glad to help!
Really good, thanks. Have heard the term Bilge for years. Finally looked it up. Quite simple really.
Thanks for the help
After buying my first bass tracker I forgot to put the drain plug in tight enough.. I checked the gas/battery compartment maybe 15 min after launching & noticed my batteries were almost half submerged in water. I quickly got to a bank and screwed the plug in tightly & ran the bilge pump. Thank goodness the pump was fully functional and I happened to check the compartment when I did 😅
wow - that's one of those things we hope we only do once!
Float switches have a bit of "hysteresis"... meaning there's a space between the point where it turns on and the point where it turns off. When the pump turned off you were standing midships, but both times when it turned on you'd moved aft to show us the bilge. That cause the boat to tilt back some and the water to flow back to the bilge, making it deeper there and turning on the switch. It's working correctly... though the occasion you describe where it failed to turn off it wasn't. There's a couple of typical causes of that... if the switch is mounted lower than the pump (or if the boat is listing) the switch can be genuinley on but the pump's out of the water. Also if you can something (eg: leaves, stray bits of floatation foam, etc) caught in the switch it can jam it on. Or the switch could of course be faulty. Should always have the switch mounted at the same height as the pump's base.
Thank you for the great video. As a new boater, my second season owning a boat, i was shocked when it came on and started pumping out water out of the blue.
Thank you! Yeah it's very surprising the first few times it happens!
Thanks! Just what I was l looking for. My boat has been in the water 2 months unattended.
Hope all goes well!
Awesome video! Looking forward to seeing more of your content!
Luke Maurer Thank you it means a lot!
Excellent video, thank you for taking the time to post this
Great content. Love your videos. Keep up the good work.
Thanks my man appreciate it the knowledge I’m a newby
Cool video Ty ,
Simple but informative.... awesome
Glad you liked it!
Great vid. Thank you sir.
What a decent boat
Good to have backup pump
THANK YOU Dave Tesekkürler Greeting from Fethiye Turjey Sate sailing
Great explanation !
Thank you!
Very nice and detailed video. Thank you
Sitting on my boat, grateful to have found your video. Exactly what I needed, but not far enough:/ Last season, my bilge would not shut off. I replace my RuleAmatic40A with new, same model. Now, problem is, it is not kicking on, automatically. I can hear it when I flip dashboard switch. Most that comes out, is a trickle. I wondered if a hose was pinched or wires were impeding float. I'd like to check for clog in screen? But I don't know how to get to screen ..or whatever. I don't want to muscle it off. And the hole to work in to unscrew bilge is tiny. Plus I'm at the dock!
Thank you for clearly explaining
Only full flotation, self-bailing boats should be without a bilge pump or device. Two are preferred at different levels. Only the bilge pump is wired direct to the batteries. Some hulls have no bilge but are not self bailing - but a few are both.🌟 The bilge is actually filled completely with flotation. and the decks are self-bailing ✴Booyah! Transom and stringers can be f-glass. Pump #1 does the bottom. #2 is higher and is a high volume pump. Search -full flotation self bailing boats and you should find my choice for bay, inlet and ocean.
Manua/off/auto on both. Thanks again Wayne!
🛥⛵
Hint - begins with M and ends with skiff.
Thanks Wayne
Great channel an information thank you
That was very helpful
Very educational. Thanks. Subscribed.
Thanks and welcome aboard lol!
Thank you, great video, and great information.
Simply outstanding! Thank you sir!👍👍👍
You're very welcome!
I always have 2 bilge pumps and at lease 2 batteries .and 1 of of the batteries in located forward not in the rear .
Redundancy is good! Is the second battery up front for better weight distribution?
I've often wondered why water was being expelled from boats. I thought a certain amount of water is taken in on purpose to act as ballast. Then the pump removes it as load, speed or weather changes to maintain a set level in the water.
Thank you
You're very welcome!
Great info - thanks
Thanks for the information
My pleasure!!
Great video!
Thank you!!
In my boat there is a whole with the inspection cap. There is water in it.
What does it mean? I gotta pump it out and what else?
Thanks for this video i bought my first bass boat and my bilge pump is not working. Yikes. This is not good.
Check for a blown fuse!
How do you understand what size of bIlge pump need for your boat?
Just bought a Pontoon Boat and this video was helpful. Quick question can you turn the bilge pump on out of the water?
Yes, you can test it to hear if the motor works, but don't run it for long if it's dry.
will the automatic switch being on draw enough power to drain your battery?
Only if the pump is running a lot. Having the circuit 'ready' just allows the pump switch to work. It's like having a breaker 'on' in your house before you switch on the light switch.
@@WayneTheBoatGuy So my switch panel is 3 way and has a light indicating which setting its on. red for manual mode, green for auto. is that enough draw to drain battery?
awesome
thanks!
I have that same switch from walmart and it wont come on unless I shake it, it will go off though, it has a ball inside it and when the water goes up slowly it wont kick on, I use it for my cellar, so in a boat, when you get in the boat it rocks the water which will make it come on, but when it sits in a cellar with no movement it wont come on.
Yeah they seem a little less reliable when things are very still!
Did you just cut the flooring out in the rear to have an access point?
The previous owner may have when he replaced the floors.
Just checking out your channel and I was gonna comment to help the algorithm at first when I heard you mention ringing the bell. I didnt see an option to ring the bell though. I've seen this once before but I'm not sure if that's bc of youtube or if theres a setting you can change so people can ring it. Just thought I'd mention to it ya
Welcome aboard! - Yeah the way the bell works is kinda weird - You only see the bell icon if you've subscribed to a RUclips channel. Once you subscribe, the bell icon is there next to the word "Subscribed". It allows you to choose whether or not you receive notifications when that channel posts new content. Thank you so much for watching a commenting - hope you're a bell ringer too!
@@WayneTheBoatGuy yupp thank you for posting. I don't own a boat but I go fishing on a friends occasionally and I enjoy learning the small things. It's good knowledge to have.
And it said the bell is disabled for kids content which I think has something to do with advertising and stuff like that
@@WayneTheBoatGuy support.google.com/youtube/answer/9632097?nohelpkit=1&hl=en.
This is the link for the page I got sent to when I clicked "learn more" on the thing that popped up once I try to ring the bell
Tried to figure out why bc I have all notifications turned on to quite a few channels and thought it was weird that some channels bell werent working. I think it has something to do with the amount of subs a channel a has (which is silly IMO)
Sorry replying so many times. I enjoy supporting smaller channels trying to build their audience if their content is something I'm interested in. Hope to see your channel grow in the future n looking forward to future posts as well
My boat has an automatic pump , forgot to put the plug in once and it kicked on thankfully . I am not sure why water enters into the boat from the drain holes?
Enters from the drain holes on the floor where water normally drains , do I need to plug those holes as well?
What kind of boat do you have? Water shouldn't be coming in from anywhere unless it is waves washing in that flow right back out
I bought an old boat with a bilge pump that is only operated by a switch.. The boat will always stay covered, so theoretically no water will get down there right? Do I even need the pump? Only asking because I noticed the hose going out of the boat is brittle and cracked- and I don't know if it's a waste of time to make it work.
It isn’t a waste of time to get it working. If the boat takes on water from a wave, a rain storm or a leak, it’s there to pump it out. If you were to leave it in the water, then an automatic switch would be beneficial. It might be the difference between your boat sinking and not sinking if you were to get a leak out on the water. Thanks for watching!!
Get water out of the boat. Cheap insurance. Automatic bilge pump is the only way to go. Hook it to a separate battery
Is it okay to have that large of a hole in the deck? My boat didn't come with a bilge pump so I am currently working on installing one, but was having issues with how the piping and wiring should be routed. My boat is about the same size as yours and I was worried about cutting another hole in the deck to route everything.
The previous owner had replaced the deck floor and he used thicker wood than original. Obviously you don't want too large of a hole, but since mine was under that weird angled back splash panel, nobody is walking under there and it made a nice opening to work with.
I always here people say check if there’s water in your bilge pump and apparently if there is water in it it’s bad can u explain
Many boats sitting in a marina have a little water in the bilge because the pump doesn't suck out every drop. Both of my boats have had a little water in them when they're at the marina. BUT you never want water that's above the top of the pump because that means the pump isn't doing it's job. You also don't want water sitting in there when you're on the hard because then there's water sitting in your boat for no reason which could freeze etc. So when you're on land, you pull the drain plug.
It kicked off when you got up?
It kicked off when the water level was finally low enough.
Grease your float switch pin.
Oooo - That sounds like a good tip! Thanks!!
Won't the pump eventually drain your boat's battery?
Only if it doesn't shut off automatically. These have a float switch that turns them on and off depending on the level of the water. Sometimes the float switch sticks and the pump keeps running and will eventually drain the battery. But it takes a loooong time. My float switch broke and it was running for a whole day once before someone let me know and didn't run my batteries down.
What’s a good brand of pumps for a jet ski and gph as well
I'm sorry, I'm not too experienced with jet skis - I'm not even sure a jet ski has a bilge pump.
Jet skis do not have bilge pumps want to install one just in case
@@Andrew-mr2dw jet skis usually have a vacuum driven bilge pump as part of the jet drive. I added one to mine, but you need to take into account the small hull space available, and the limited electrical capacity of a jet ski battery. Because they only have a small hull I fitted the smallest pump they had on amazon.
0:54 The boat was taking a leak. Its not polite to watch. :D
Buy a Rule switch. You have a Rule pump in there which is well over 20 years old. Stay with the #1 brand
Wayne,
I have a similar setup with my bilge pump, (auto and manual switch). My auto float works, but my manual switch does not. Would you know what to look for to diagnose the issue?
I would probably try to disconnect the wires at the manual switch to see if you can start the pump by touching the wires together. If so, it's the switch. If not, then it's probably a short in the wires to the switch.
All of the sudden my bilge pump turns on and won’t turn off as soon as I add power to the boat can anybody give me any advice on how to fix this problem
It's probably the float switch sticking. Sometimes there's something binding it up, other times it needs to be replaced.
💪😎🇺🇲
420 likes. Alriight
Oh great nobody will like this video anymore to keep the number - lol
📽💕
HaHa, yes look at the marina water after it pumps out for a tiny sheen...then call the USCG and fess up. Fines can be huge.
They will ask you how much oil you pumped into the water. A few drops of dish soap and the sheen is gone. You will find that just about everything is illegal about boat life. I have seen big diesel boats leaving a sheen and sooting up the entire marina.
I have even heard if your bilge pump runs at all, some people will assume your pumping oil out of your bilge, even if there is no visible sheen.
Those Flapper float Switches are Unreliable! I prefer Water Witch brand over this type! Not endorsed by anyone!