The purpose of sea strainers
So what is a sea strainer you may ask? On a boat, many appliances are water-cooled rather than air cooled. Think of your house air conditioner or your refrigerator. They have coils either outside your house or on the back of the fridge, to dissipate the hot air that they generate. On a boat, we can’t do that as easy. Water is sucked in from outside the ship, circulated around cooling coils and pumped back overboard.
Why Maintain a sea strainer
As water circulates, it captures in some foreign objects. This can be some small sea life or just algae growing in the systems and being pulled in from the suction. A sea strainer sits in line between the input location of water and the circulation pump. The purpose is to keep that foreign objects from going through the pump or clog any lines and preventing the cooling circulation from happening.
How to maintain a sea strainer
- Turn off the device that is using the water cooling. Example, Air conditioner, refrigerator, motor, etc.
- Close the Seacock that prevents water from coming in the boat when the lines are open.
- loosen the sea strainer canister (some models this is on the top others it is on the bottom) depending on your model. See below for a good strainer and replacement screens for common ones)
- Remove the strainer basket and clean with hot water and a brush
- Clean the inside of the screen canister. I like to use a small round toilet brush dedicated to this task.
- Put the screen back in the housing and loosely put on the canister cover
- Open the seacock part way, and be ready to close the strainer housing tightly as water starts to come out. This is to remove air from the system and is an important step.
- Open the seacock all the way and turn on the device.
- Validate that you have water discharging the boat in the proper location.
- If there is not water discharging from the boat, turn off the device and investigate a possible air lock in the system
Keeping air out of sea strainer
I like to install a valved Tee inline between the sea strainer and the pump. This allows me to validate I have good water flow coming in if I am troubleshooting. (Sometimes debris can get sucked into the opening, think plastic bag or something). I also use this for cleaning out the system. If you close the seacock and apply a hose to that value and pressure you can blow water through the system and force some of the growth in the lines out the discharge.
Cleaning the system
The valve and hose method can also be used to hook a 6-foot hose to it, hold it higher than the rest of the system and pour a cleaning solution into the hose allowing gravity to flow it into all the lines. I do this with a 15% muriatic acid mixture from time to time to remove algae from the inside of the copper circulation tubes. If too much builds up on these it blocks some of the heat transition from the inner to outer coils and doesn’t allow the unit to transfer heat as well.
See how we do it in Video Form
This week Swab does a little Spelunking in the bilge and learns about how to do boat maintenance. Check out the Video to see my guest host in boat work.
Below are tools and products we used in this episode
If you like this episode, by all means, please do share it with your friends that would benefit from it and don’t forget to subscribe for new episodes every Friday. We have done a couple of videos specifically on which materials to use for different glass materials as well. See it here.
See our “How to” Playlist Here
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Tools and supplies
Tools and supplies we use regularly can be found here:
- Jet Band Saw
- Sanding Tape 120 Grit – 1 inch wide
- Sanding Tape for Spindles (220 Grit)
- Small Sanding Cord for Spindles (150 Grit)
- Screwdriver with nut ends
- Pry Bar Set
- Oscillating Multi-tool (about $35)
- The Best small wood cutting blades
- Great “plunge cutter”
- ABSOLUTE Best metal cutting blade (for cutting bolts, etc.)
- Safety Glasses
- xActo Blade Knife
- Ryobi Variable Speed Jigsaw
Video and Camera Equiptment we use
Video equipment used is: Canon Vixia G40
Our Lifestyle Cruising and living aboard.
See how we go about living aboard and sailing with kids (Grandkids 4 and 12 years of age). We are in the middle of a huge sailboat refit. Our Boat is designed by Bill Garden and built in Taiwan. See how to become a liveaboard whether you stay in a marina or are a cruiser. #boatlife #saillife #SVDreamchaser
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