Over-wintering

[Oliver]

If you don't live aboard, is there anything special that should be done to prepare a boat for winter?

[Paul Evans]

This is what I do:

 

1. Make sure you have antifreeze in the engine cooling system;

2. Make sure you have antifreeze in the central heating system;

3. Run the water tank down to half empty, turn off the water pump and open all taps;

4. Charge the batteries (good excuse for an autumn run);

5. Empty the loo;

6. Clear the bilge;

7. Turn everything off (don't forget the gas) and isolate the batteries;

8. Fix the fridge door open (to stop mould forming);

9. Visit the boat once a month, turn everything on, go for a run and then 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 again.

Edited October 20, 2004 by Paul Evans

[John Orentas]

Oliver.

 

The best advice for over-wintering is. Don't do it !

 

The term is usually used in the same way as laying-up. Some people think in terms of putting their boat to bed about this time of year, to be woken up next easter as you may do for a pet tortoise.

 

Most people can surely visit their boats every 3 to 4 weeks, if you can manage that, the traditional yearly ritual which is trotted out by all the magazines about this time is not neccesary. Run the engine for an hour or two, light the stove or run the heating system, get the boat warm and dry. Run the fresh water system, open lockers and cupboards and air things out. Better still go out for a short cruise if it only to the nearest winding hole and back.

 

Obviously there are things you must do when leaving the boat, but they are only the ones that you would do as a matter of course for just a day or so, drain down the water system if it is prone to freezing, if your stern gland is leaking it should have been shorted out, don't rely on an automatic bilge pump. You don't need to take your injectors out and squirt oil into the cylinders, you don't have to take your batteries home.

 

John Squeers

Edited October 20, 2004 by John Orentas

[Graham Blott]

Yes John, I quite agree - but let's not tell everyone. It is such sheer bliss to have the canals to ourselves for the next few months. This is my favourite cruising season.

Graham Blott

NB Mayenne

[Cussy]

This is what I do:

 

........

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I have been advised too, to keep the fuel tank well topped up since it helps to avoid condensation therein

 

Regards

 

Bob

[dor]

DO drain your fresh water system. And even then you may still get a burst or a popped joint. To minimise this as much as possible I reverse the pump with a couple of bits of hose after opening all the taps, to extract as much water as possible. You don't need to completely drain your water tank, but it is not a bad idea to get it as low as possible.

 

We take a five gallon bottle of water to last us a weekend. Miss out on the shower but we survive!

[Martin]

DO DRAIN DOWN YOUR PALOMA if you have one.

I forgot for two years in a row and each time it burst a pipe in the heat exchanger!

There is a drain plug for the purpose and I advise all to use it!

Luckily I was able to mend the burst by reforming the pipe with pliers and then bunging loads of solder over it - I was lucky it was accessible and this was possible.

[viking]

Interesting this.

 

When I go on holiday from home during the winter I don't drain the water system and put all the soft furnishings in storage etc. I just leave the central heating set to come on for an hour or so a day. With a cheap 7 day timer, some kind of electrically powered heater and a shore power line, the same must be possible for a boat.

 

I guess the question is how reliable are shore power lines ?

[John Orentas]

Fully agree with Matin about the Paloma. In fact that is the only thing I ever drain down. It is a bit out of favour now but I piped my entire water system using plastic hose, the type you which can also be used for pneumatic tools. There is a high temp. version, red coloured for the hot water.

 

You can buy a full range of hose adaptors, BSP connector etc. All fixed with stainless steel jubilee clips. Twelve years now without any kind of trouble.

 

I can't see any point in draining the water tank, what is the reasoning behind that.

 

John Squeers

Edited October 23, 2004 by John Orentas

[Paul Evans]

The only reason I can think of for draining the water tank is to ensure that the water does not go "stale" by being left for a long period. You can overcome that by adding 5 - 10ml of Miltons (or similar sterilising fluid) tothe tank contents.

 

I suppose that a really deep frost combined with a plastic tank might result in serious damage if the tank were left full but we are unlikely to get frosts so deep. Leaving the tank half-full should provide enough room for ice to form if if it does get really cold.

[dor]

I have known one or two people with split engines that told me "we are unlikely to get frosts so deep".

 

Make sure your engine antifreeze is up to strength (how many times did you top it up with plain water during the year?

[Martin]

I was away for two days last Christmas.

The thermometer in the boat recorded -3 degrees while we were away - INSIDE the boat.

We DO get frost that hard.

BW taps freeze and the canal freezes too - why should the inside of a boat differ?

[Paul Evans]

Taps and pipes freeze because they are out in the air. The canal surface freezes because it is exposed to the air and it seldom (at least in the effete South) freezes for more than an inch or so. If you have an integral water tank under the front well deck and leave it half empty, the water in it will be several inches below the surface of the canal and be unlikely to freeze. If the water in the tank does freeze, there will be plenty of space for the ice to expand (ice expansion is the cause of split pipes and tanks).

 

-3C is not a deep frost - just very fresh! But evenso, I agree you must have antifreeze in your engine (and central heating system) and you must drain down the water pipes inside the boat. Half empty the tank, turn off the stop-cock between the tank and the punp (you do have one don't you?), open all the taps and leave them open. When water stops running, turn off the pump. It works for me.

[Guest]

Do I need to drain the calorifier? Does it have a drain tap/plug? How much is it likely to hold? (only a 30' boat, with gas c/h)

 

Peter

[Paul Evans]

Some people drain the calorifier - I don't because it's lagged and in a cupboard in the cabin. I think it would take a very deep frost to freeze it up (Fingers crossed). There's more advice on this thread Winter and Water Freezing.

[David Schweizer]

A little salutory tale. back in the late 1960's, the Grand Union Canal froze over several inches thick. I remember witnessing a single loaded Working Boat crashing it's way through the ice near Uxbridge, moving the broken sections like tectonic plates under the suface of the unbroken ice. As it passed a small fibreglass cruiser moored on the bank, the sheets of ice cut it's hull in half and the cruiser sank in about fifteen seconds. That image will remain with me for ever. So I don't take chances, I drain down the system every year, including the Calorifier. It takes less than a couple of hours.

[dor]

There is a common misconception that insulation will prevent freezing, whilst all it will do is delay it. If the temperature is below freezing, even by only a degree or two, the water in your tank and pipes will freeze eventually. It is not uncommon to be below freezing for several days - that could be enough.

[John Orentas]

I am about to contradict myself here, I have previously made the same point as Dor. A well insulated tank or calorifier inside a cupboard, inside the cabin and containing 20 gallons of water. Given that the tank is not exposed to the outside air temperature and in general, even in the coldest weather the cabin will warm up during the day with the affect of direct sunlight. Also a significant area of the hull, the baseplate will always be a few degrees above freezing.

 

I am prompted to make this point as, although I dont have a calorifier my friend who moors close to by has, and under a cruiser deck too. In the decade that he has owned his boat his calorifier has never frozen, or at any rate never suffered damage and he has never drained it off because he dosn't know he has one.

 

Our boats untill the opening of the Huddersfield where the highest in the country. I think it would take a winter of Siberian proportions to damage the water tank as described.

 

John Squeers

Edited November 22, 2004 by John Orentas

[dor]

although I drain my calorifier along with the pipes, it is the freezing of the latter that concerns me more. I agree that the larger volume of water in a calorifier will be slower to freeze, but the pipes are vulnerable. And if they go, they may well dump the contents of your calorifier into the boat. In my experience, it is elbows under sinks and that type of thing that are most likely to split.

 

Just out of interest, we went out overnight on staurday, just down to the other side of Nantwich. This hour of running is normally enough to give us sufficient hot water for washing up and a couple of quick showers. On Sunday morning, the water was barely lukewarm. I put this down to the water in the calorifier being near freezing before we started, as is had been more or less freezing for a couple of days. Therefore it had that much more to heat up.

[Guest whould be dhutch]

well, what we do...

 

- Paloma gas geyser (this freaze very easly, and costs to repair)

- Domestic water, open all the taps, and let it out into the bath, but we dont bother geting it out of the main line, becuase its under the floor, next to the canal, also, extra care on the shower mixer

- Tie down the coach roof, becuase it has habit of sumasalting off ina stomes

- Open the stove and fridge door

- put a tripal twist on the stern tube grease, because the bilge pumpwill be off for a while

- the raditors have antifreaze, so there left with that

- water tank is well instlated, except on the bottom, so its left,as long as its not 100% full

- the calofifer is also well lagged, so get left as it is

 

- and then the rest is spacific to our engine

 

NB, emily anne does not have an IC engine, so as you almost certainly have, i cant tell you what i would do i we did.

 

 

daniel