Plumbing

I went off on a sailing trip last week so this post will cover two short weeks work I began last week by fully securing the aft and outboard backrests in the saloon seating area they had up to now only been secured by a couple of screws, these backrests hinge down to reveal further stowage spaces behind and once this was done I cleared out all the stuff from the galley and heads under sink lockers.

Saloon backrests

Once the galley and heads under sink areas were clear I made a start on the hot and cold water plumbing I am using 15mm FloFit PE-X flexible plastic pipe, with push on fittings, a 25 metre coil from Screwfix is £16.89 much cheaper than Hep2O although unlike Hep2O it does not come off the coil straight, but it can be partially straightened, however at the price I can live with that. Another plus point the FloFit pipe is made by FloPlast in the UK in fact it is only just up the road in Sittingbourne. So far I have run the hot and cold pipework from the calorifier through to the galley and connected the taps and then on into the heads which is about as far as I can progress for the moment as I still need to source the mixer tap/shower unit.

Calorifier and domestic water pump

As can be seen in the above photograph the pipe is difficult to fully straighten. 

Pipework to heads

Pipework to galley mixer tap

The galley taps are connected but one of this weekends homework jobs is to make up a means of securing the vertical pipework to the bulkhead. I now have the materials that I require to connect the calorifier to the engine cooling system I just need to finish painting a plywood plate to support the calorifier as it has fixings for three screws and at the moment it sits on two parallel bearers I could only utilise two fixings I have cut a square plywood plate which will be screwed to the existing bearers and then all three fixings will be utilised. The other remaining issues are to install an expansion vessel to the domestic water system and decide on some water tanks, I think that I shall go for a pair of flexible tanks installed under the quarter berth just need to find something that will fit the available space.