Clearing Insect Nest From A/C Water Discharge Line- 2012 R27

[CaspersCruiser]

I got lucky yesterday.

With the boat on the trailer in my driveway, I was washing the port side hull and saw an insect fly into the air conditioning water discharge thru-hull carrying a few bits of dried grass material. I shooed him away and cleared out the bits of grass. I looked into the thru-hull, but didn’t see any evidence of a nest.

Today, I put the boat in the water. After I got the boat into the slip and shore power connected, I turned on the air conditioning. I always look to see that a good stream of water is exiting the air conditioning water thru-hull when I start the A/C. Today, there was no discharge at all. I knew immediately what was the problem.

Last year, I had a hatch cut in the footwell of the port side seat to facilitate quick and easy access to the air conditioning condenser unit and water discharge thru-hull in case service was required. Today, that modification paid for itself. In about 10 minutes, I was able to pull the hatch (takes about five seconds), remove the A/C water discharge hose from the thru-hull fitting and clear out an insect nest from down inside the hose. After I cleared the nest, and with the discharge hose still off, I briefly started and stopped the A/C twice to flush out any remaining debris. I put a container down inside the hatch to capture the discharged water so I could inspect it and assure all the nest material was out.

Here’s what the A/C access hatch looks like installed:



Here’s a photo of the hatch opened and the A/C discharge hose removed:



Here’s the debris I pulled out using a pair of needle nose pliers and a hook tip pick. I put a nickel in the photo for scale:

 

[knotflying]

Interesting. Perhaps if you have that issue when storing the boat you may want to put corks in you thru hull discharges. Just remember to remove them before launching. Another checklist item. :lol: