Rearranging FW pump

This may or may not be at all the direction you want to go, but I just replaced the water pump in a relatives trailer. They had a Shurflow pump that went out, and I replaced it with a FloJet (since it was half the price). Without changing any of the pipes or mounting, I would say it is about half as loud as the Shurflow was. I can't speak to durability or anything else, but it is certainly quieter.

Our pump is also installed on the floor in a cabinet under our kitchen sink. Last year I used a plyboard-foam-plyboard platform to isolate our pump from the floor and installed a homemade accumulator tank made from 3" PVC. I looked into options to relocate or change the configuration to allow us to better use the space, but could not find anything that worked better than the factory location.

Our pump is MUCH quieter now (not silent) and the accumulator has reduced the pump's cycling.

Ditto on using the Shark Bite PEX connectors. They're easy to use, no special tools needed, and the price is reasonable. As I understand, typical hose clamps will not work.

Happy Camping!
John.

I also think the floor is still the best places for the pump. I did put some heavy carpet material under mine and made sure none of the attached hoses were hitting anything making noises when the pump is vibrating.

My pump is right next to the 6-gallon water heater and not real bad on noise when you close the cabinet door. The added carpet material really did help out...

I found this on-line showing what one dude did to make his pump quieter... Food for thought I reckon haha...


This on-line photo may be the surge or accumulator tank TRACKRIG was talking about. Sounds like a good idea as well... This guy says he bought the tank at Home Depot...


Roy Ken

I did a few things to quiet down the pump on my previous TT...see picture here.

1. Mounted the pump to the floor on a sandwich of 1/2" plywood with 3" of high-density foam between.
2. Replaced the rigid PEX with flexible reinforced vinyl hoses.
3. Added padding anywhere the hoses could contact a hard surface.
4. Added a 5-gal accumulator tank to the FW system.

All together seemed to help a lot!

Since you're going to work on the pump and piping, I'd suggest puting a Shurflow accumulator tank to even out the water pressure and keep the pump from kicking on so often. I bought the stainless steel two gallon tank that I'll install when I can get the MH out of the snowbank. There's also a smaller one that CW sells. While the PEX tubing is flexible, it's not suitable for hose clamps. Check the various plumbing houses, most of them will rent the tool cheaply by the day. Since you'll be in there moving the pump, getting the accumulator tank installed won't take any extra labor.

Bill

jamnw wrote:
I am looking to move my FW pump and do some silencing.
It currently resides under the kitchen sink and takes up valuable space for storing pots/pans.

There is a small storage next to it that is where the FW fill comes through.
I am thinking of mounting the pump vertical against the wall that divides the under sink storage from the smaller area.

My questions:
#1 Can I mount the pump vertical?

Yes Mine is (Motor is horiz., base is vert.)

#2 Will that be difficult to silence?

Not really, 1/2" to 1/2" NPT flex tubing from Lowe's, HD, Ace etc.

#3 Is that pex tubing, and can you use worm clamps on it?

Yes PEX. No, use Shark Bite or get the 1/2" PEX tools. (I got the tools.)

Thank you

Change that pex coming out of the pump to flexible and you will notice it will be much quieter.

My guess is that you can likely mount it vertical but unless you beef up the wall/partition real well (maybe 2 X 4 and plywood you will have vibration. The floor is the best and most solid place to mount the pump.
Steve