Interesting find while cleaning AC

[440 Jim]

So, been wanting to come up with a way to freshwater flush my heat exchangers. A few weeks ago I got a hose barb fitting and while cleaning the strainer, flushed them out for about a half hour. Just disconnect from pump outlet and hook up individually. I noticed under hose pressure the fwd discharge kind of sprayed, not the normal steady flow. With the pump on it, it barely flowed.

Well, my time was limited and I was already in the process of putting together a recirc system to flush the heat exchangers with cleaner, so I bugged out.

Dock neighbor (good guy) sent me a txt saying my fwd discharge looked weak, I "explained" it I thought.

Spent a few days last week on The Office, did a freshwater flush before the HE recirc cleaning and almost nothing from the fwd.

Thought, Damn the HE must be screwed. Hooked that up first and good full flow through the recirc sys, ???. There is about 3' of discharge hose completely accesable to the thru hull. I hooked the hose adapter up, and same thing.

Pulled the hose from the thru hull and the through hull was clogged with small mussels it appeared (weird to me), reamed it out, hooked back up and same thing. Then pulled the 3' section of discharge hose and inspected-same thing as the thru hull about 8" into the hose. Got that reamed out and cleaned and all good.
Did the aft unit then done. Mid 50s air temp now, good improvement from last time I checked air outlet temp.

The puzzling thing is that I have never seen that in 40 years of boating. Thru hull is way above waterline. My guess is some "seeds" got pulled in and landed. I've dealt with growth from Indian River to Savannah over the years and this was a first.

 

[Maybe A Dancer]

Owned my last boat for 21 years

Had a fresh water flush with quick disconnects on the engines, genny and HVAC.

HVAC was plumbed so I could actually BACKFLUSH through the strainer if necessary.

Whenever we completed a run (of within a few days) I'd flush EVERYTHING out with fresh water, then run a dose of SALT A WAY through the system, LEAVING IT IN as to "pickle" the raw water side of things.

This practice led to two decades of trouble free boating

BEST !

RWS

 

[440 Jim]

I don't backflush strainers, I remove and clean them every other week, required in these brackish/salt waters this time of year. I also flush from the pump outlet through the HE to the thru hulls at that time.

The boat is in the water year round, so leaving a "pickling solution" is not possible since the ACs are always on/cycling.

I like the idea of flush the engine HEs though, will look into that.

I was just suprised that I had that growth above waterline from open to almost fully clogged in 4 weeks. I have noticed, as have some of my dock neighbors that do regular maintenance (some don't), that growth in general is worse this year than prior years.