36' Marine Trader Eurupa water tubing needs replacement and intro

[billfromport]

Hello All

I just joined this site having just bought the above boat. A fix me upper.We are out of Newburyport Mass. MY name is Bill and my partrner in crime is Barbara.

We just brought the boat up from Cape cod. It ran well and all the mechainical systems except the fresh water system are working.

We tried turning on the water system today and we have a lot of leaks in the copper water tubing to the point I would like to replace all of it.

Has anyone done this with marine hoses or plastic tubing?. The water tanks, the pump and water heater appear to be in good shape.

I know now in homes they are using flexible plastic tubing. Has anyone tried repllacing the copper with plastic or flex hoses? Any input would be apprecisted

I'm not crazy about doing copper

Bill

aka Billfromport

 

[Greg S]

The marine manufacturer Whale has a line of commonly used hot and cold plastic, domestic waterline and fittings. Very easy to install because of the re-useable push on fittings. No clamps to fiddle with.

 

[Sailor of Fortune]

check out PEX tubing and associated fittings. Very common, almost made for boating irregular piping runs. Common observation/recommendation is don't scrimp on the crimp tool.

Love Newburyport!

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Welcome aboard and congratulations.

 

[billfromport]

Hi Greg

Thanks for the reply. I think PEX is the way to go from what you told me.

I like the west coast of Florida. This is a project boat. I just replaced the Y valve today.

thank for the reply! Cold and rain up here today.

Bill T

 

[stubones99]

Just remember to keep PEX out of sunlight since UV makes it brittle if it gets flexed will crack easily. On the other hand, one compression tool is all you'll need to do the whole boat.

 

[billfromport]

thanks again.

I lot of info. Can I just go to Lowes or home depot for the tubing and fitting.

Any recomendation on a good brand of crimping tool?

 

[Comodave]

I used Seateck to replumb a 46' trawler that we used to own. Great stuff. Comes in colors to indicate hot or cold. No crimping tools needed just a pex cutting tool to make square cuts. You can disassemble the fittings after use if you want to make a change.

 

[Lou_tribal]

I rebuilt the whole plumber on my boat last year and used PEX. Can only say good things about it. Cheap to buy, easy to cut, easy to assemble, strong.
Only advice I would give you is think about your installation carefully before starting. Think about having a main manifold with pipe going straight from the manifold to the final destination without any fitting on the way. It will be more robust as you will have less point of failure (fittings), and you will be able to cut any of the flows from the manifold in the event you need it without cutting water in the whole boat. Depending on your plumbing layout it will be easy or not.

L.

 

[sealion2288]

The Trawler Beach House: 30-Year-Old Boat Plumbing Replacement

 

[Fotoman]

PEX was my choice when I did the same thing a few years ago. Very easy to install and cheap. I think I did the whole system for about $75. The crimping tool is a bit expensive so if you can borrow it from someone or rent it for a day you will save even more.

 

[billfromport]

Hello all

I've used the PEX with shark bite stainless clamps and the crimping tool available from Home Depotand. The job was really easy. I spent more time removing the copper pipe and than assembling the PEX

 

[Xsbank]

I used Pex too. Think about the location of the crimps, the crimper has long handles!