I get a little crazy when I find water in my bilge and try to locate its source and correct it when it occurs. Recently I had a stubborn source that was elusive for months. Finally the culprit was found in the form of the drain pipe below the aft shower. I had checked the area and found a few drops by the pump housing to remove the shower water overboard. However I was finding between 8 - 10 gallons in the engine room bilge a day or two later. I thought the shower could not be losing that much as I only found occasional drops. What I did find was that the spiraled flexible shower drain hose had cracks from age on the clear portions of the pipe from the pump housing all the way back to the drain as it was original equipment. Once I tried to remove it, this pipe deteriorated in my hands and broke apart. the water would take a day to work its way through the bilge galley's before settling in the engine room bilge. Fishing the new pipe about 6' of it was a task and had to be worked from both ends to properly align through the bulkhead opening. Once replaced, no more water in the bilge.
Another small leak was found when I heard hissing in the engine room. I traced that back to the hot water heater that had acquired a pin hole leak in the outbound hot water line about 2" from the tank spraying straight up against the access panel beneath the aft stateroom bed. This was a quick fix, I had to turn the hot water heater off and depressurize the system. Once complete, I only had to disconnect the line and cut the first 3" where the leak was and re-secure the good poly pipe to the pressure fitting.
Along the way I found that when I have water in the bilge, until I can find the source odors can arise especially in the heat. What I did to remedy this was to toss a 1" chlorine tablet in the bilges accumulated water at its lowest point. Odor stopped and the movement of the boat sanitized the bilge so when I sucked the water out that the pumps could not reach the bilge looked brand new, dry, and very clean.
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