When I was initially researching pontoon boats before I bought my own, I was told by other boat owners to check for drain plugs. I wasn’t sure what they were as I was new to boating, and with a little online research found that I wasn’t the only one, with one common question being whether or not pontoon boats have drain plugs. So, what is the answer? It’s below.

Not all pontoon boats have drain plugs. Some do, some don’t, and it seems to be down the manufacturer’s discretion about whether or not to include them in the design of the pontoon tubes. Older boats did tend to have drain plugs, with newer pontoons having an improved design where they have been deemed unnecessary.

Let’s get into that in a little bit more detail.

Your pontoon boat might have drain plugs, it might not. What I have found is that with newer boats, there are multiple chambers in the pontoon tubes to help protect against water entry should they get damaged.

This design helps to make them air and water tight, meaning unless they get ruptured, they won’t get any water inside of them that would need draining.

It also means that should you get a leak, fixing it should be a lot easier. I give some advice below on how you can do that.

Will Water Get into the Pontoon Logs or Tubes?

It’s very unlikely that water would ever get in, hence why you don’t tend to get drain plugs on the more modern pontoon boats.

Older pontoon boats did tend to have leakage in the logs, which is why having drain plugs installed was a handy feature. This used to happen due to the aluminum logs being held together with rivets – and those joints were susceptible to corrosion and leakage.

With the improvements in design, welding, partitioning, and materials, it’s an almost redundant feature on newer boats. Unless the logs get damaged, they should never get water in them that you need to drain out.

For example, I can’t remember the last Harris pontoon boat from the last 10 years or so that has been or sale with drain plugs in the pontoons. They just don’t seem to include them anymore, for the reasons described above.

Many other manufacturers have taken the same steps to no longer include drain plugs.

How to Install a Drain Plug in a Pontoon Boat

If you do have an older pontoon boat with drain plugs, then can become corroded (mainly due to salt water) and you won’t be able to take them out to let water drain away.

Removing a corroded drain plug isn’t a quick task but can be done. You can see a photo of a rusted drain plug below.

Pontoon boat drain plugs

This rusted drain plug needs to be completely removed and replaced.

In the photo above, it’s a steel plug in aluminum which has created electrolysis due to salt water corrosion.

To remove the drain plug, start drilling with a bit until you go through the plug at the centre point. Once drilled through, take a larger drill piece and keep repeating the procedure until you barely have any plug left.

Once that’s done you should be able to slice it with hack saw blade. You might have to cut the blade thin to fit in the drill hole and be very careful to not tear the aluminum.

After that you should be able to peel it out.

I have had help other pontooners do it numerous time on other pontoon boats, and it might take an hour to do it right.

Whatever you do, not try turn the plug out when it is a whole plug. Yes, it will take some time, but it is the safest way.

When you have the pontoon drain plug removed, clean the threads with a half inch copper fitting brush. If the treads are a bad, you can chase the threads with a half inch pipe tap.

Then visit your boat manufacturer to see if they can sell you a new drain plug from their spare parts catalog.

Alternatively, if you aren’t comfortable doing this, then find a local machine shop and pay them to get it done right. They will have the correct tools to do this without the chance of messing anything up. 

How do You Remove Water from Pontoons?

The only reason that water would get into the logs is if you have a crack or damaged seal somewhere on the aluminum tube.

If this does happen, then it’s relatively simple to rectify with a welding job.

To get the water out of the pontoon logs, you will have to take the entire boat out of the water, find the leak, then tilt the boat until all of the water has drained to the back of the tube.

You can then drill a very small hole in the rear of the log to drain out the water, then weld over the leakage area, and not forgetting to weld the drain hole you drilled as well! 

How to Pump Water Out of Pontoons

If you cannot drain the pontoons and instead want to try pumping the water out, then there are a couple of options I have found online. For full disclosure, I have not tried either of these methods, but the process seems very sound.

The first option would be to buy a basement drainer from your local hardware store.

You can connect a hose to the basement drainer then to an outside faucet on your house. There are two other lines, one being the inlet, and one being the outlet.

When you turn the hose on the house on, it creates something called the Venturi effect, which is a reduction in fluid pressure that results when a fluid flows through a constricted section (or choke) of a pipe.

As a result, the hose sucks all the water out of the pontoon logs, rather than pumping it out.

Alternatively, you could try forcing pressure into the tubes – but at a low pressure of 1 to 2 psi, doing it very slowly.

This can act to force any water out of the existing crack or leak. By doing this, you can also find the offending leak, as you should start to see bubbles appearing somewhere on the aluminum.

Conclusion

Having water get into your pontoon logs is very serious, as it will completely compromise your buoyancy. As soon as there is a sign of it happening, you need to act fast.

If you have an older pontoon boat with drain plugs, then you’re in luck as you should be able to simply unscrew them, tilt the boat on your trailer, and get the water out.

But with newer pontoon boats, there aren’t usually drain plugs which is when you will need to do my preferred method, which is drilling a small hole, and then welding that and the leak area back up.

Fortunately, this is quite a rare occurrence due to the advances in pontoon boat design, so it’s likely that this will never happen to you, unless you damage the tubes on rocks or in a docking collision.