Water Tank Level Monitor

I have lost count of the times my daughter has asked "Is there enough water for a shower, Dad"?   We have a large stainless tank situated under the front well deck and can normally go for days without needing to fill up, but showers do take a lot of water, and regular filling up can be a chore when the water points are in use already, so the tendency is to soldier on.

I bought a kit from Mid Service Centre Ltd and thought about installation.  It came with a plastic 15mm 'T' connector into which a nipple adapter had been inserted on the stem of the 'T'.  The connector needs to be inserted into a pipe between the tank and the water pump.  A trandsducer unit with a very short length of rubber pipe is supposed to be fixed onto this nipple and wired up to a neat analogue gauge (that is shown in the adverts).   My problem was that the pump is located under the corner cupboard and has been very "compactly" installed.  There seemed no room to insert the 'T' connector, and even if re-jigging the nipple location so that the 'T' now acts as an angle in the pipework, the combination of the 'T' and transducer would not fit in the space available.   An alternative is to drill into the tank, however, I did not rate my chances of being able to do this without tearing the thin metal of the stainless steel tank side, and besides, how could I fit a connector without access to the inside of the tank?   Drilling the top of the tank and using a dip tube would work, but technical difficulties would be the same as well as access for the drill.

What I did was to lengthen the little connecting tube between the nipple and the transducer, so that the transducer is now fitted to the wall of the cupboard above the shelf.   Obvious really, but it worries me that I took so long to work it out.   All in all it took about 4 hours work.    This picture shows the transducer inside the corner cupboard.   It is joined below the cupboard floor to the 'T' piece inserted in the water pipe which you can see coming up through the boat floor in the picture below where it leads to the pump .  This shows the floor board lifted and you can see the silicone rubber pipe connecting the transducer and the pipe.  I need to change this tubing, which I found in my scrap box, for the thick rubber pressure tubing which the manufacturer has supplied at my request to give a secure connection.  I am worried that there is no stop valve between this and the 450 litre tank which is on the other side of the bulkhead by the curved grey pipe. Tubing originally supplied was too short as the transducer was intended to be located immediately above the 'T' piece and not a few inches above.    I broke into the water pump power feed to supply the electronics which are all located in the transducer unit.

(Click on images to see enlarged versions.)

Comments

[brian Holt]

Why didnt you mount the trancducer next to the pump so it was lower to the zero water level?
I fitted one of these and it works well, mine is laid on the base plate under the floof so is the same leavel as the bottom of the tank. I am lucky, I fitted a valve on the outlet from the tank before any pipe work.