What to do after a freeze

Eluther3

Eluther3

Active Member
Mar 17, 2019
292
Boat Info
1992 Searay 400 EC
Engines
Mercruiser
Anyone watching the news knows that we got hit with a hard freeze here in Texas. We don't expect weather like this, so we leave our boats in the water for winter. On cold days, we put a heat lamp or heater in our engine room.

This week, we got temperatures down to 10 below. I had a heater in the engine room and the cabin heater on, but the marina lost power. Not sure how cold it got in the engine room or how long the power was out, as I couldn't get to my boat. When I was finally able to check on it, the water pipes in and out of the heater were frozen.

Temperatures finally got above freezing today so I went back out to the marina. 43 foot Portofino was partially sunk with another one also taking on water, and the boat in the slip next to me had 2 ft of water in the cabin. But the Sea Ray gods seem to have smiled on me, as I don't see any obvious damage.

I plan on starting it up and letting the engines and generator run, and turning the heater back on. Is there anything I should check before I do that?
 
Closely examine all of your hoses to make sure none of them burst or split.
 
I was wondering if anyone was going to post about freezing damage to their boats with this polar vortex event. Back in the late eighties here in Nor Cal we had a freak freeze and there were a slough of damage claims from cracked blocks and out drives because folks did not winterize. We rarely have hard freezing in these parts. After that most insurance companies eliminated freeze damage from their coverages.
I would just check all the freeze plugs and make sure everything is thawed out to make sure you will have good water flow. Turn on your water system and check for leaks from split water pipes in the cabin.
Hope all is ok.
 
Check your pipes. If you didn't proactively open all the faucets very good chance you have a burst pipe. We learned that lesson a few years ago - we drained the system but still burst the pipe that fed the tap on the rear deck. Now we leave them all open in winter.
 
A lot of the stuff has already been mentioned. Cartridges in faucets typically crack, pump housings also. Plastic elbows and fittings are often affected more than pipes.

Any cans or containers of fluids like pop and water will burst if frozen.

Running gear, fittings, and through-hulls under or near the water line should have been protected by the lake or seawater that would have been will above freezing. There's a good chance it would have protected your engine as well.
 
Perhaps test/check one system at a time. This limits what you have to look at, and what could go wrong. Main engines one at a time first, then gen, hvac, and finally water. Depending on how well things have currently warmed up down there, I would be concerned with how things are 30-60 minutes after your tests. Meaning, issues may not present immediately. For instance if a sea strainer is still partially frozen - even with the engines running it might take it awhile to fully thaw. Those things would worry me - thinking everything is fine. Being able to spend the night on your boat keeping an eye on things would be good. Are the bilges kicking on, does your fresh water pump run in the middle of the night, does the vacuum flush start chugging - all things that would indicate leaks.

Note: If your lucky, and still have the original march HVAC raw water pump, it has two plastic plugs at the bottom that pop out (due to water freezing). Those plugs end up in the fwd bilge, which you will need, so you can put it back into the pump.
 
We used to keep our boat in the water in Vancouver area. One year it went to minus 20c for a few days. The only thing that failed was the water filter on the ice maker. The boat has grey PEX type pipe so assume it just expanded. The holding tank was empty, the water tank was 1/2 full, all through hulls were open. In Anacortes we keep the boat on the hard a few years ago we had -10F for a few days. The only damage to any boats was on one with copper potable water lines. Based on what we saw in water stored boats engine rooms are fine as they are sitting in water that is not frozen.
If you had any canned beverages on the boat look at them. If not damaged you are probably OK. When we leave the boat I place canned pop in any area we think could be damaged by freezing. So far we have never seen them burst or deform. For winter heat on the boat we place four 100 watt heaters in the cabins, one in each room non heat in the engine room.
 
I don"t like the canned pop thing. If it does freeze they explode pop everywhere. We had it happen in a refrigerator we keep on the dock, helluva mess.
 
You didn't tell us about your engines. If you have closed cooling with antifreeze, that portion should be safe. The risk will be in areas with raw water cooling where raw water may have frozen. That said they are down low down below the water line, and unless you have a boat encased in 3 feet of solid ice, most of the engine area should have stayed at freezing.

On engine start up I would suggest starting and letting them run briefly and then shut them down. This will allow residual engine heat to warm up any spots where there might be localized freezing. You can overheat an engine with cooling channels that are clogged with frozen or slushy coolant. The plugs prevent coolant from getting to places like the heads and around cylinder walls. After you've let the warmed up engine sit for a few minutes you can start and run them up to operating temp.

In the future you can prevent waterline freeze ups by leaving all of the faucets open just enough to let them to do a steady drip. Moving water won't freeze. If you aren't comfortable with that, leave the facets open, and disconnect (not just shut off) the dock water. If a line freezes and bursts the only water that leaks will be what was in the lines. Dollars to donuts, your neighbors who sank left their dock water on and a line burst and the boat sank thanks to the municipal water system.
 
RBB said:
I don"t like the canned pop thing. If it does freeze they explode pop everywhere. We had it happen in a refrigerator we keep on the dock, helluva mess.
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Maybe use a diet seltzer water or canned club soda that wont leave a mess.
 
Eluther3 said:
This week, we got temperatures down to 10 below. I had a heater in the engine room and the cabin heater on, but the marina lost power. Not sure how cold it got in the engine room or how long the power was out, as I couldn't get to my boat. When I was finally able to check on it, the water pipes in and out of the heater were frozen.
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I wouldn't try to start anything on your boat until you checked things out thoroughly first. The fact that there could be frozen heater lines, engine water intakes or thru hulls lines, might be all that's keeping your boat afloat. Put some auxiliary heat in it, start thawing it out first while you're doing your inspection looking for damage and telltale drips.

For your boat water system....skip the idea of leaving faucets cracked and water dripping. The last thing you want is marina water unattended hooked up to your boat in those conditions. That's not even good practice during warm weather. Ya, ya I know moving water don't freeze;) but I've walked around on the Wisconsin River lots of times, even seen some frozen waterfalls. If you are fore warned and there's time to 'leave things drip' then you have time to drain your system, or blow it out with air, or actually do a complete weatherization/antifreeze.

As far as leaving a beverage on the boat so you know if it froze or not...I'd skip the canned foods, soda pops, and definitely wouldn't waste a beer. How about a small glass jar full of actual water sitting inside a plastic bowl that'll contain the mess when it breaks.
 
RBB said:
I don"t like the canned pop thing. If it does freeze they explode pop everywhere. We had it happen in a refrigerator we keep on the dock, helluva mess.
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Put one in each shower, sinks and one in engine room. You can use canned peas. We use pop because we don not have any canned peas.
 
Henry Boyd said:
You didn't tell us about your engines. If you have closed cooling with antifreeze, that portion should be safe. The risk will be in areas with raw water cooling where raw water may have frozen. That said they are down low down below the water line, and unless you have a boat encased in 3 feet of solid ice, most of the engine area should have stayed at freezing.

On engine start up I would suggest starting and letting them run briefly and then shut them down. This will allow residual engine heat to warm up any spots where there might be localized freezing. You can overheat an engine with cooling channels that are clogged with frozen or slushy coolant. The plugs prevent coolant from getting to places like the heads and around cylinder walls. After you've let the warmed up engine sit for a few minutes you can start and run them up to operating temp.

In the future you can prevent waterline freeze ups by leaving all of the faucets open just enough to let them to do a steady drip. Moving water won't freeze. If you aren't comfortable with that, leave the facets open, and disconnect (not just shut off) the dock water. If a line freezes and bursts the only water that leaks will be what was in the lines. Dollars to donuts, your neighbors who sank left their dock water on and a line burst and the boat sank thanks to the municipal water system.
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We don't use dock water on our marina. The boats took on water when their raw water strainers froze and cracked. I think the Portofino went down because both strainers cracked. In hindsight we probably should have shut off our seacocks, but we didn't expect to lose power and thought our engine room heaters would prevent that.
 
Do you know the water temperature? There’s a good chance your bilge never got below freezing as the water will help regulate the bilge temperature. I used to keep the boat in the water year round in NY and would regularly check the bilge temp. Most of the time the heater wasn’t running unless we had freezing temps for a long period of time.
 
I think that if it was me first thing I’d go do is close all the seacocks. Then if you wanted to take your time going thru the systems the boat would be safe. Going thru each system one at a time. Here I’ve only seen strainers freeze and crack. Take your time, I wish you the best of luck
 
dwna1a said:
I think that if it was me first thing I’d go do is close all the seacocks. Then if you wanted to take your time going thru the systems the boat would be safe. Going thru each system one at a time. Here I’ve only seen strainers freeze and crack. Take your time, I wish you the best of luck
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Did that this afternoon and yes, one of the strainers was cracked. Will be replacing that soon as I can get the part. Was surprised to find a thin sheet of ice on top of the water in the forward engine room bilge, even though it's been above 40 degrees for two days now.
 
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