Our boat came with two electric bilge one manual bilge pumps. The small electric pump is located at the bottom of the bilge and the larger electric pump (a Rule 3700) was located higher in the bilge near the middle of the boat in front of the old water tank. We decided to revamp the pumps to better suit our needs.
Small Bilge Pump
We left the small pump in place at the bottom of the bilge under the engine. It sits in the deepest part of the bilge and runs periodically especially when we run the engine (thank you stuffing box), and in the winter mostly. It had a float switch, which we changed to an electric moisture sensing switch made by Water Witch.
Large Bilge Pump
We moved the large bilge pump from near the middle of the boat to just above the small pump, and mounted it on a bracket. We also added the same moisture sensing switch to this pump as well.
Pump Switches
We changed the bilge pump switches to Contoura switches which have an LED light which indicates they are in auto mode; they can also be switched to run manually. We relocated the switches from under the companionway steps to the electrical panel at the nav station. Additionally, we installed a bilge pump cycle counter (also made by Water Witch) for the small pump. It counts the number of times the pump runs and with this gizmo we can monitor how much our stuffing box is leaking, or any other leaks that are making their way into the bilge.
High Water Alarm
After the pumps were installed, we added a high water alarm and mounted that next to the companionway steps. After it was installed and we tested it out we determined we couldn’t hear the alarm if we were outside and engine was running or it was really windy. To fix this problem, we installed an audible and visual alarm in the engine gauge panel in the cockpit.
Here are the videos we made to document how we did it all.
