Wet floor in cabin. Is there a drain?

[sadworld]

Sundancer 1996 270...Last season i had a wet floor in the cabin that wouldnt dry up. I mean kids were coming in wet so i didnt really think anything of it. Thats how it got wet. I got a little concerned after several weeks went by and we didnt have rain and the floor was still wet. Talking about the lowest point in the cabin. Floor. Is there a drain under that carpet? Or does it just seep around the floorboard off to the side and find its way to the very bottom of boat? This year im thinking of putting a rubber mat of sort to collect water when we are coming in wet like that. I would have thought it would have evaporated after weeks of dry weather. Anyone have a situation like that ever?

 

[JimG]

Your cabin floor should not be wet. Do you use the shower? Do you use the air conditioner? There is a sump drain under the floor (or step) that may not be working.

 

[Gofirstclass]

Sad, look on the floor of the cabin down near that low point and you should see a panel that you can lift up. Under that floor panel will be an area that is glassed in and contains a plastic "box" that has a drain line or two going into it, a water pump in side the box, and a drain line coming out of the box that goes to your overboard discharge.

The pump gets clogged with hair and other gunk and sometimes fails. If you look at the glassed in area and it has water in it, your sump pump is not working.

Remove the top of the box (it's held down by several stainless screws). Fiddle around with the float for the pump and see if you can get it cleared up and the pump working. You may have to manually move the float up and down to get it to work.

If none of that works and you can't get the pump to come on you may have a bad pump.

On an unrelated subject, what part of MI are you in? I grew up there and am just curious.

 

[sadworld]

Yeah there is water in the box. Wont come on and looks like it hasnt run in years. Nasty! We got the boat mid last season...thanks for pointing me to this as it looks like i found a problem but im wondering if its related to my wet floor problem and how? We do not use the shower. Is this boxes only function to pump out shower water? Wondering if this should be a priority repair, since we dont use shower? Thanks- Matt. (Bay city, Mi) go Lions!

 

[Gofirstclass]

There may be a sink or two that drain into that same sump area. Look at the number of hoses that go in and out. One will be the outlet hose from the pump itself and is supposed to send the sump contents overboard.

All other hoses are inlet hoses so if there is more than one inlet hose that could be the source of your water problems.

It's not a big job to take the cover off then remove the pump and pump float switch to clean them. I took my dockside water hose down there and squirted water into the outlet hose to make sure it was not blocked. Spiders and other bugs like to build nests in there.

 

[sadworld]

Heres an update and questions.... the sump is working now. theres 2 lines going into the box (plus the discharge hose going out) one would be shower and the other is a skinny white hose. Would that be the air conditioner draining into the box? all othe drains and sinks have direct flow overboard as i can see... Another question i had is i noticed that when i squirted the hose down there in the box to clean it out, some water went to the bottom of the boat and missed the box. i was expecting this to drain to the back of the boat and the back bildge to discharge it. Nope. Stayed put around the box or middle of boat, did not drain to bildge. Does that sound right?

 

[skibum]

I think so. The bilge in my 260 seems to be a separate compartment, and I think it is the same in a 240. The engine compartment should be isolated (and sealed) from the passenger compartment to keep any exhaust fumes and CO out. I regularly hose out my engine compartment, and even when I shoot the hose forward under the gas tank all of the water stays in the rear bilge,

 

[aerobat77]

I think so. The bilge in my 260 seems to be a separate compartment, and I think it is the same in a 240. The engine compartment should be isolated (and sealed) from the passenger compartment to keep any exhaust fumes and CO out.

it should be ... at my 240 i fought last year a nasty wet carpet checking all the obvious sources like failed showerpump or leaking portholes . well... it turned out that at my boat sitting in the water all season some bilgewater from the aft bilge ran forward below the fuel tank and made it way subfloor the lowest cabin step wettening the carpet from below .

this happens especially when you sit at the dock with the watertank full und gastank pretty empty so the boat it tilted slightly forward .

 

[sadworld]

it should be ... at my 240 i fought last year a nasty wet carpet checking all the obvious sources like failed showerpump or leaking portholes . well... it turned out that at my boat sitting in the water all season some bilgewater from the aft bilge ran forward below the fuel tank and made it way subfloor the lowest cabin step wettening the carpet from below .

this happens especially when you sit at the dock with the watertank full und gastank pretty empty so the boat it tilted slightly forward .

ok yeah, that may be possible here. we'll see what the season brings... so any water on the floor or anywhere that makes its way to below the floor is just going to sit there forever until you suck it out with a shop vac or something? cuz i think the water would have to get kinda deep and get into that sump box before that would pump it out right? perhaps i'm missing something...

 

[aerobat77]

the floor where the showerpump sits is not the real bottom of the boat - this area is flat where the real hull is a vee . so water collected between the real bottom and the false floor where the pump sits and this water pushed from below . note that the lowest step in the cabin also is not the real bottom of the boat - flat area vs vee shaped hull.

the showerpump is not designed to be a fwd bilge pump , in a disaster scenario when you have such amounts of water that it overflows the box from outside it might serve as an emergency pump but in this case its really time to put on pfd,s and call the insurance ...

 

[JimmyDubai]

Heres an update and questions.... the sump is working now. theres 2 lines going into the box (plus the discharge hose going out) one would be shower and the other is a skinny white hose. Would that be the air conditioner draining into the box? all othe drains and sinks have direct flow overboard as i can see... Another question i had is i noticed that when i squirted the hose down there in the box to clean it out, some water went to the bottom of the boat and missed the box. i was expecting this to drain to the back of the boat and the back bildge to discharge it. Nope. Stayed put around the box or middle of boat, did not drain to bildge. Does that sound right?

Correct, the skinny white hose is the A/C drain hose; over time it gets clogged up with anything so from the A/C unit try to blow thru it with your mouth and have someone else checking on the other end the returns, it should be clean.