blackrose

Mine is 35w per channel so reasonably loud with the right speakers but only draws 1A on 12v. I don't know how that compares with charging a Bluetooth speaker, probably about the same. Anyway if someone's batteries can't handle a 1A draw they've got serious problems.

Same. I have a higher pressure pump for summer when I'm using the Morco instant gas water heater and a lower pressure pump for autumn/winter when using the Webasto/calorifier for hot water. The Morco doesn't work very well with the lower pressure pump, but the high pressure pump is noisy so I swap them around.

Why would it have to scratch the roof? I have a couple of giant rubber scraper mats (1m X 1m) on my roof - the ones with holes - for coal, bikes, or whatever needs to go up there. They have little protrusions underneath and don't trap water. I thought everyone knew about them. As the OP is a CCer I personally think hanging bikes of the back is even less recommend. Eventually they will hit something - lock gates or another boat. Although the well deck might be inconvenient, at least the bikes are within the profile of the boat and the only thing you have to worry about if they're on the roof is low bridges and you'll know if they're coming up.

Which is interesting but is it relevant to the question?

Yes. You need to seal the gap above the rope so that water vapour and combustion gases condensing on the inside of the chimney and dripping down can't penetrate and leak through the gap. Your flue will expand as it gets hot so the rope and sealant create a flexible seal that can accommodate the expansion. Check the sealant in summer once you stop using the stove and reseal if required.

Yes that would be easier to fabricate.

Yes, stuff the gap with plenty of rope first so that it's reasonably solid, then seal with Envirograf. Don't put the silicone in first as someone suggested as it will burn so pointless.

It looks like you just need a bracket made with a cut out for your rudder stock bearing. Once you have that then it would be easy enough to fit it yourself if you have a socket set or some spanners. Why don't you make a template from cardboard with the dimensions and hole sizes and get it made from 3mm stainless steel sheet? An engineering workshop should be able to do it for you. Because the cut out for the bearing would be quite deep on your boat you might want to go for 4mm sheet steel if the workshop can bend it, otherwise the two fixing points either side of the bearing might be too weak in 3mm? Others will know better than me. I don't really understand how that tow ball holds a bike rack but you've obviously seen it done. I wouldn't fancy bikes bouncing around on the back of the boat in a lock myself, isn't it easier and safer just to put them on the roof or even inside while you're cruising?

It's difficult to understand why what's normally a timid bird has become so agitated and territorial? I wonder if it's anything to do with the other herons that were killed by the mink.

Unless you use several coals of proper long lasting epoxy paint and it could last a decade

I use a wire coat hanger

I thought there was a wildlife subforum but can't find it. Maybe this is it? A heron at my marina on the river Nene has gone a bit nuts, apparently after a couple of other heron in the area were killed by a mink. It squawks loudly overhead or if it's disturbed on the pontoons or boats which it's often walking on. It crapped (a lot) all over my roof when I was away for work a few weeks ago. You could clearly see its footprints in the shit. I've just never seen a heron behaving in this way before and squawking so much. It's almost being aggressive. Has anyone else seen this sort of thing?

The other reason smokeless isn't necessarily smokeless on boats is that even if a compliant stove is installed it's not really practical and may be impossible to install it in compliance with the manufacturer's instructions. It may require a minimum 3.5m - 4m overall flue/chimney length for the stove to achieve the required draw for example and those little narrowboat chimneys just aren't going to cut it.

I bled mine the same way. I think the Thermotop C is a 5kW heater. Do your 2x rads & towel rack + pipework roughly add up to 5kW? They'd have to be pretty big rads. Balancing heater output with radiator output is what you should be trying to achieve in the installation, otherwise if the rads are significantly less then the coolant ends up returning to the heater warm or hot and the heater starts to cycle down and the burner gets coked up. Webastos need to be run hard. Could this be why it was clogged up last time? Don't include the calorifier in your kW output calculation because once it's hot it's no longer taking any of that 5kW heat from the boiler. Also if your rads have thermostatic valves get rid of them. They just unscrew. They don't help because they shut the radiator off when the room gets warm leading to the same effect on the boiler as not having enough rads.

Did you actually read my post or are you just responding aggressively for effect? Firstly I recommended reading the TDS and if it recommended using a zinc primer then one should use it. You've found a zinc epoxy primer that I wasn't aware of and if it's recommended in the TDS then fine, as I said one can use it! However I didn't think the OP was talking about an epoxy primer? Secondly I was talking generally and I certainly haven't accused any particular boat yard of anything and I resent your accusation. I don't even know which boat yard you're referring to! But are we sure that the boat yard is using an epoxy zinc primer? It didn't sound like it from the OP's post.

I'm not sure which epoxy the OP is thinking of using. People on this forum just talk about epoxy like it's all the same. Look at the technical data sheet for the epoxy that's being used. If it says "After preparing the steel according to instructions above zinc prime the surface" then zinc prime the surface according to the TDS. If it doesn't say that then don't do it! I don't really understand why people (and boatyards) think it's a good idea to do whatever you want instead of following the paint manufacturers carefully researched and written TDS? Do these people even read the TDS? My experience of epoxy is only with Jotamastic 87 and 90 but there's no mention of zinc primer and my concern would be that most epoxies are designed to bond directly to steel. If the bond strength of the zinc primer to the steel isn't as strong as epoxy direct to steel then the primer is actually making the whole system worse.

If you need to cover the weedhatch while you're painting the cover then as someone else said, cut a piece of ply to size and clamp it on top. I did this when I was painting mine and even moved the boat a couple of times with the ply cover. If you want to move your boat test the ply cover first by going into gear while moored up. It's surprising how much water gets in unless you have a lot of clamps in place.

If I run my machine from the Honda EU30i generator which is meant to be pure sinewave, the Zanussi hesitates sometimes for up to 20 mins before it will let me start it. It always lets me start it in the end and once the cycle starts it's fine. I've never understood what's going on there.

Ok thanks Alan. I've put the drain screw back in to give me a chance to dry some towels for round 2. It's another example of poor design in my opinion. Why didn't they design a 1cm spout so you could put a container underneath rather than just leaving a hole that dribbles the water down the pipe?

It's not really a question of being connected to shore power or not. If you were connected to shore power then you should be properly isolated in which case your anodes wouldn't be doing anything other than their normal sacrificial rate of decay. To me that anode looks like it would last another few years. Give it a quick wire brush before the boat goes back in.

Trying to drain my non-room sealed Morco gas water heater as I'm not going to use it over autumn/winter. Trouble is that with the water feed pipe isolated and the drain screw removed the water just dribbles down the pipe so you can't catch it in a container. I've gone through about 6 towels wrapped around the pipe so far all soaked with a couple more towels underneath to catch the spill. Is there a bleed screw above somewhere so that the water would come out more "cleanly"? I'm running out of towels!

Yes I agree

Well I can't question your experiences but it's happened to me many times so you probably shouldn't question my experiences either. I've walked down pontoons where idiot dog owners have their dogs on those extendable leads and just allow the dog to wander up to people also creating a long trip hazard on the pontoon. I've actually had to step over the lead because the idiot wouldn't keep his dog on a short lead. That's just one example. Other times neighbours dogs have run up just as I was heading out for work and jumped up with muddy paws so I've had to go back in and change my trousers. The owners don't care of course because "he was just being friendly."

Unfortunately ALL dog owners these days treat their animals like children, just look at the OP. It's not "your boy" it's your dog! That's part of the problem because if dog owners see their animals as if they were their children then like modern children these days, they can do no wrong in the eyes of their parents. Most dog owners I see have absolutely no control of their dogs and what's worse is that they don't even seem to want to control them. Even when they're on leads many owners won't bother to restrain the dog preferring to let it sniff and jump up on people even when those people clearly don't want that. I don't care if "he's only being friendly" please respect my personal space! It's analogous to parents of young children who have no control over them and don't care if they're annoying everyone else.