We’ve found the engine room bilge pump setup to be annoying. There is a float switch on one side of the bilge and the pump is on the other side. In the photo the float switch is towards to port and the pump is to starboard. There are two problems with the setup.
1. The float switches are unreliable over the long term. We’ve had them fail to turn on, even though they were floating. Their lifetime seems to be two to three years.
2. The float switch is on the opposite side of the bilge from the pump. When the boat is slightly heeled towards the switch it can activate, but the pump is not in the water. The alarm goes off repeatedly.
Our previous boat, a Vagabond Westwind 38, had a pneumatic bilge pump switch that worked reliably for the 14 years we owned the boat. The sensor was zip-tied to the pump pickup. No false alarms. It was time to change the setup.
We quickly found the Jabsco Hydro Air 59400-0012 online. There are several different vendors of these types of switches and we selected the Jabsco for no particular reason.
Installation was simple. The black box on the bulkhead houses a terminal strip and it was easy to replace the float switch connections with the Hydro Air connections - see the picture. The pressure hose is routed from the switch housing to the pump, where we zip-tied it. It’s been reliable since then and we have dry engine compartment bilges.
-Terry
