Telum Pisces

It is not hard at all. Here is what I did after my boat almost sunk with a single 500 GPH bildge pump. I now have 2 1500 GPH bildge pumps in my 19 foot boat.:letsdrink

Electrically, I have one on a toggle switch up front. It is manual in operation. The second pump is wired directly to the batter with a float switch in between. This makes this bildge pump fully automatic. So if the automatic pump kicks on and is not enough, I can switch on the other one manually.

Making the extra thru hull is easy as cutting a hole in any wood. Get the proper hoses and a thru hull fitting that matches. I cut the hole on the opposite side of the boat from the original one. I used a hole saw to match the necessary hole and went to town. Used 5200 to seal the wood inside and out. I put a coating on the exposed wood in the hole before inserting the thru hull as well.

Attach all hoses and make the electrical connections and your good to go. Nothing to it.

DavidT

This is just about exactly what i want to do. add 2 1500 pumps one on a manual switch and 1 on auto just incase the dumb float gets stuck or something.

spiderjohn

Don't tie to same electrical wiring unless sized accordingly which means the wire would be oversized for one pump operation which would also mean fuses would be oversized and would lead to a potential to burn out both pumps. Pull separate wiring for each. Otherwise be ready for a big headache when the wiring acts up.

-=Desperado=-

You can run 2 guage or 14 to a bilge pump its all 12 volt so nothing is going to burn up.If the fuse is to large to match the wire than a potential fire could result but not gonna burn up the pump.Personally i would run different wires,,different switches,different batteries when running a back up bilge.That way you know your covered when 1 electrical syste craps out but you did not say if you had twin engines or not.If both bilges are wired into the same switch and the switch takes a dump than both bilges will be useless.If the hose on both bilges gets a crack than your down to no bilge.No point in having a backup unless its completely stand alone.I have 5 bilges on my boat and there all independent and stand alone with all 1 way valves .check your hoses once a year and electrical connections.Nothing worse than being 50 miles out and taking on ore water than your getting rid of.

spiderjohn

I was referring to running larger size wire which would be necessary to operate two pumps at once. If you do that, the fuse will be sized accordingly for two pump operation and to the larger wire. In that situation, if one pump fails it could lock its rotor and allow high inrush current to flow for an extended period which the fuses may not catch until the pump itself is heated and burns up. This happens on bilge pumps with float switches when it sticks and the pump is locked up for some reason. Only one pump draws current through a wiring system sized to run two pumps but the current is higher than the pump can withstand. With separate pulls, each circuit is sized for the single pump load so if one locks up and pulls high current, the fuse is sized to protect the pump and blows before too much heat build up. Last post is correct that oversized wiring alone is actually good if the fuse is sized to the load and not the wire. Most pumps tell you what size fuse to use.