The FCI water maker high pressure pump needed an oil change at 50 hours. We were just short of 50 hours, but I wanted to get it changed before our summer trip. I was kind of dreading this, but it turned out to be an easy job. The drain is pretty close to the sole of the laz so I used a ziplock to catch the oil. The only other risky part was getting a funnel to fit in the hole for the new oil. I only had one quart so I didn’t want to spill any. While I was down there I noticed that the steering hydraulics were a bit low on pressure. I have a little pump aboard since Shifty had a similar system, so it was a two-minute job.
The FCI is an extremely simple system to operate. Ours has the Automatic Pressure Control, so you basically hit one button and it just works. I keep worrying that it’s too high tech and will break, but so far we’ve made 3,859 gallons and it has been trouble-free. It takes a lot of power (need to run the generator) and can be a bit loud, but at 78 gallons per hour, we can fill half our fresh water capacity in two hours. It also has an auto-flush mechanism, meaning it keeps the membranes wet, so we don’t need to pickle if we leave the boat for a while. It was the most expensive add-on in the build, but we’ve been really happy with it.