Hey everyone. The fellow I mentioned in my previous posting from Wolf Watermakers was kind enough to send me some info concerning watermakers. I find it very informative so am re-posting it here.

As I mentioned before, I found Fred to be a great, no-nonsense kind of guy when it comes to watermakers. I have no connection with his company, and am simply passing along his (in my view) excellent advice.

Best regards - Murray

Hi Murray, thanks for the good word. It is interesting to see some of the discussion around Watermakers in your forum. There is a lot of misinformation swirling around the boating community about Watermakers. I will make a few key points about Watermakers that you can pass on to your forum if you think it is appropriate.
1) They key to trouble free watermaker use is to flush the system with fresh product water after each time you make water. This should only take about 30 seconds when you shut the system down. To prove how effective this strategy is, our first proto type watermaker had aluminum pump head and made trouble free water for 6 years – with no visible corrosion in the head.
2) You should pickle the system if don’t plan on using it for seven or more days. Pickle with sodium metabisulfate (available from home winemaking stores for about $4.00 per kilogram). About 5 tablespoons per 2 gallons of product water in a bucket would be plenty to pickle most Watermakers – and would cost less than 30 cents. You probably won’t ever need to clean the system with the expensive cleaners, unless you have a specific contamination problem, or you use your watermaker 10 times more than the average boater. Unnecessary cleaning of the membranes probably does more harm than good. Don’t mix up the term “pickling” with “cleaning” – these are two entirely different processes. The pickling should be changed every 6 to 8 months if the watermaker is not used for a long time.
3) Automatic flushing systems, running the watermaker every day to avoid back flushing and pickling, and back flushing from your boat tank are all bogus ideas at best, and cause more trouble than any supposed benefits extolled by the proponents of these ideas. Keep the system simple and it will give you no trouble.
4) The key to being a happy watermaker user is to make as much water as fast as you can. I have a 55gal/hour watermaker on my 35’ sailboat – and I only have a 30 gallon tank! It doesn’t cost anymore to make a 30 gal/hour watermaker than it does to make a 15 gal/hour watermaker. Always go for the biggest watermaker you can.
5) 12 volt Watermakers simply make no sense. They make such a pitiful amount of water, forcing running times so long that you end up running your engine or gen set unnecessarily for hours on end to meet you water needs. If you have to run your gen set or main engine to make water you might as well make REAL water utilizing all that power efficiently, and minimize running time.
I hope this sheds some light on the “Myths” around Watermakers.
Fred.