When do you use your bilge blower?

How many of you actually use their bilge blower like they should?

  • Total voters
    168
mrtopknight said:
How many actually use their bilge blower like they should? Be honest.
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I use mine while fueling and before starting the first time for the day. I'll use it again when starting if I've been sitting more than 15 minutes.

I will confess though - I rarely go the full recommended 4 minutes before starting.

I have seen boats melt due to not using the blower and lighting the accumulated fumes in the bilge. I've never witnessed the blast, but the ensuing fire can be quite spectacular.

S
 
Hopefully you didn't mean literally WHILE fueling. It should be off during fueling, and run after fueling. Running it during fueling can actually draw the fumes into the bilge.
 
i also use mine in "No Wake zones" is this overkill? Then sometimes i forget to turn it off and go a few miles with it on.
 
I usually have 2 children on board and prefer to err on the side of safety. Our blower is run before starting the engine (almost every time) & while the engine is warning up, after fueling, and while the generator is running. When I remember, I also turn the blower on when cruising at no wake speeds.
 
thunderbird1 said:
I usually have 2 children on board and prefer to err on the side of safety. Our blower is run before starting the engine (almost every time) & while the engine is warning up, after fueling, and while the generator is running. When I remember, I also turn the blower on when cruising at no wake speeds.
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Same - with emphasis on "While Generator is running."
 
Everytime before starting. It's too easy to not forget and is part of our routine. When we launch my wife has one of the kids start the blower while I'm parking the truck.
 
99.9 percent of the time I run the blower a few minutes before starting the engine for the first time, and don't turn it off untill I reach my destination. As a matter of fact... If my engine is running so is the blower.
 
I run it 4 min before every start and run it continually while the engine runs. Blowers are cheap to replace compared to loss of life or the boat.
 
Here is a use for the blower that I was unaware of after 30 years of boating. I have a 2006 280. Recently on a very hot day I took a long hot run and shut the boat down immediately upon arriving at my destination. An hour later, neither engine would not start. It turns out I had vapor lock caused by high temperatures in the engine compartment. I talked to the service manager at my dealership and he recommends running the blower for ten minutes after shutting down on a hot day to prevent vapor lock. Seems it really cools the engine compartment down. I am doing a couple of other fuel system modifications but he swears by the need to run the blower after a long hard run on a hot day. It is now standard operating procedure on our boat.
 
KAAABOOM

When I was a youngster, kids actually took on odd jobs to make pocket money. I was maybe 17 and took an oddjob to sand down and re paint the deck and cabin top of a 25' Chris Craft like the one my family had. The owner had seen my work on ours and wanted me to sand and paint his as well. I was working at his marina doing the "wax on wax off" thing by hand all day and noticed a fella accross the canal, perhaps 100 feet away from me doing similar work but below decks. He kept coming on deck for long breaths of air nearly heaving for breath and then go below for a two three miniutes and then back on deck ... He came up a couple of times for fresh varnish. But I laughed to my self that he was working like a "jack in the box."

After lunch the sun was bearing down like it does in SoFla in July and things get a little slower around the yard, because you're constantly sweating into your work the heat is intense. I raised up from an gunnel to strech my back just as I heard a KABOOM from accross the canal and I jerked by head in that direction just in time to dodge a frizbee sized piece of plywood racing at me at warp speed. As I ducked I saw the entire deck and cabin dog house of the boat accross the canal rise up in the air maybe 4 feet and drop down into rising flames and the workman I'd been watching was racing from below decks and throwing himself into the canal ... he was on fire.

The boat burst in to roaring flames every where and I was praying the fuel taks would not blow as I raced to the stern of my boat to throw the fella now swiming, a life ring. He was swimming at me fast and yelling that he was on fire ... he wasn't any more but he sure felt like he was with raw flesh open to salt water.

He reached my boat, but the owner didn't have a boarding ladder so I gave the poor guy the end of a long boat hook and pulled him along the dock to a ladder and helped out of th water and on to the dock after which he was yelling and collapsed into a semi coma mid cry. By this time the marina manager had called for fire department and had come to me with a FA kit. We greased the guy up with buirn creme and covered him in a cotton blanket ... as the Ambulance came some 10 minutes later the gas tanks ruptured and the boat sank in its slip after having caught two neighbors a fire. It was a bad bad day.

The cause ... the dumb a** was varnishing the interior of his own boat with a mineral spirit based varnish but was thinning with naptha and cleaning drips and mistakes with laquer thinner. (That was why he couldn't breath down below, he was holding he breath!) Several days worth of fumes collected in the boat to flash point and then something sparked .... He lived, but two boats didn't and a third was seriously damaged. My employers boat was actually singed along the after quarter top sides and my job was enlarged to complete re paint from the water line up.

Had the dummy been running his blowers ... there would have not been such a disaster. If I had to guess, there was no more than a pint of liquid converted to fumes but that was enough to destroy a boat and nearly kill a man.

Gas Boats ... run the blowers from 4 minutes before start to shut down. Leask happen while underway just as they do at the dock.
 
Ours are on before every start and when not on plane.

I've not been to a fuel dock before but I've read that you shouldn't turn the blower on right after fueling rather you should open the engine area first to air it out that way before turning on the blower.
 
and shut the boat down immediately upon arriving at my destination
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This is generally a bad thing to do with any engine. After a hard run, you should run at a bit above idle for a while to get the heat build-up out of the engine. On a marine engine with some designs, you can actually ingest water if you shut down a very hot engine. The blower will help remove heat from the engine room, but won't do a lot for the huge heat build-up in the heads and upper block.
 
I guess I'm learning more everyday. I usually blow for 3-4 minutes prior to start and shut off when I get out of the marina and up on plane. When I forget to shut it off, I feel stupid... but I guess running with them on is the preferred method?

Also when fueling, I have seen them left on as well and one gas dock I go to asks that blowers be on while fueling?

Confused.
 
RiverRat said:
99.9 percent of the time I run the blower a few minutes before starting the engine for the first time, and don't turn it off untill I reach my destination. As a matter of fact... If my engine is running so is the blower.
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I do the same!!!
 
First Born said:
RiverRat said:
99.9 percent of the time I run the blower a few minutes before starting the engine for the first time, and don't turn it off untill I reach my destination. As a matter of fact... If my engine is running so is the blower.
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I do the same!!!
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Exactly what is the problem about running the blower(s)?

I start mine about 5 minutes before starting the engines, and then disconnect shore power, lines, etc.
I leave them running all the time we're out, and they're the last thing I shut down after docking.

Cheap insurance.
 
What I wanna know is who are the two people that answered "Not at All" :smt018
 
I run it before any start, when not on plane, and when I forget to turn it off when on plane. I was under the impression from the owners manual that when running on plane there is enough ventilation from the wind speed to vent the engine compartment with fresh air, is this not the case?
 
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