gary955

Are we saying then that the washing machine will draw the whole 1500w for the entire cycle? without the heater!

Oh Dear. That would be a problem then, would a 1500w invertor run the heater even if the battery bank had sufficient capacity?

Cheers all. I think I'll give it a try

I have an old hot and cold fill washing machine that I'm thinking of bringing aboard the boat. It has an electro-mechanical programmer rather than an digital one so I think it will still work with the heater disconnected altogether. I have no generator but do have a 1500w psw inverter with a peak output of 3000w. Doable? and if so what sort of a bashing will it give to my 3x 120ah battery's? I could wash while running the engine but I only have a 55A alternator.

check out a few brokers before you go. Fikkers, Multiships, Doeve and any others that you can find. Having a number of boats to view will give you a basic itinerary and you may find others while you're out there. Good luck.

Quite. Except we're not in a pub, we're on a forum, possibly read by friends or relations of the deceased. When someone close to you dies, you (quite unreasonably) expect the world to stop for a time to mark their passing, it might be a little distressing to find that your friends life touched others so little. It's not up to me to dictate how others should contribute to a thread so I'll butt out now. I just wondered if perhaps a thread in the equipment section, properly titled so that others interested might better find it, might have been a better place to discuss the aesthetic merits of various stoves.

Yes not really offensive, perhaps a little insensitive given the very recent death and the possibility that people might perhaps be watching the thread for more news of someone that they may have met along the cut. It just seemed to jar a little....as in "I see there's been a fatal boat fire perhaps caused by a stove." "Oh that's unfortunate, anyone know where I can get a Squirrel in red?"

Ummmm....is this the most appropriate thread for a light hearted discussion about the merits of squirrel stoves and their colour options?

I've been lucky enough to receive £50 worth of B&Q vouchers for Xmas. I need a new cordless drill but am unsure whether to buy a 12v compact drill with a 10mm chuck and two battery's or an 18v drill with a 13mm chuck and just the one battery. I don't mind chucking in another £20 or so.... So which of B&Q's current range does the panel think represents the best value?

Thanks for the replies. No need to rush off to my nearest Lidl then.

this week's offer is an "intelligent" charger. Any good?

OK thanks for the replies. I've bought some battery's and I think I got a pretty good deal from Battery Megastore who are on my way home just off the M5 I got 3x Hankook 125ah (20hr) sealed leisure battery's for £229 inc VAT. My local boatyard who are very competitive were quoting me £234 for 3x unbranded 110ah (100hr) open battery's. Hope I made the right choice!

I'm going to replace my aging battery bank with cheap 110ah leasure battery's. There's some good deals on Hankook battery's but they are sealed wet cell. Should I get sealed or open battery's and why?

Been looking for replacement battery's. There are some good offers around but few suppliers seem to know whether their amp hour ratings are 20hr or 100hr! The helpful chaps in Halfords for instance look at you as if you're speaking a foreign language if you ask them, and even Adverc seemed unsure! A post on the forum recently suggested that it was now a requirement for suppliers to quote an EU standardised 20hr rating but I've found several battery's for sale from reputable suppliers quoted at 100hr rating. Should I assume that the battery's at the cheaper end of the market have their Ah ratings to a 100hr standard?

I left the 4A charger on overnight. Batteries this morning showing 13.3v with the charge rate down from 4A to 2A. Perhaps this charger is enough, what do you think? given the longevity of my existing bank under my current lack of a proper charging regime, what would be the advantage of a more sophisticated charger?

Sunny days only, not this time of year........think I once saw 3A on a blazing hot day with the sun overhead, but I may have imagined that! In any event enough, until now, for my copious LED lighting, water pump, bath pump and radio

Thank you chaps. I've given my batteries a little drink and plugged in my "happy shopper" 4amp car battery charger. Batteries at 12.6v at 5:00pm now showing 13v at about 10:00pm so going in the right direction. I think my volt meter over reads a little as it sometimes shows the bank at 13.2v in the evening after a sunny day and will show 14.2v with the engine on. I've only replaced one of the three batteries in the five years that I've owned the boat and for half of that time it's been my four nights a week home. I've never owned a proper charger and very rarely had to run the engine just for charging. Perhaps the bank is getting towards the end of it's useful life but it's done me proud!

My single 80w solar panel has kept up with the modest draw on my old 330ah domestic bank up to now, but a combination of shorter duller days and slightly more frequent use of 12v power means it's slowly losing the battle. Given that it often trickles in just an amp to keep me topped up, would a crappy car battery charger be able to supplement or replace it during winter?

Thanks chaps Although it's not sunny, the warmth under the cratch cover is starting to dry it, and it's going from greasy to tacky. I've given it a wipe over with a rag soaked in white spirit and I'm going to prime it this afternoon. On another note. The rear deck which received it's second coat of primer yesterday, started to pick up and peel when I started to key it for it's top coat! I noticed that my jeans were leaving a weave print on it when I knelt on it, so it's clearly not quite dry after about 20hrs!

I'm repainting my cratch and rear deck. I took the rear deck down to bare steel before applying two coats of primer. Waiting for a rain free day for the topcoat. The cratch deck I have not taken to bare steel but have rubbed it down well to provide a key and abraded off any rust from the (very numerous) pits and scratches. I then painted the whole deck with Jenolite as this seemed the best way to make sure that every little pit was treated. after an hour or so I towelled off the Jenolite from the paintwork and packed up for the night hoping that the deck would be dry in the morning. this morning the deck looks dry but has a slightly greasy feel to it. I guess jenolite doesn't evaporate, although it hasn't attacked the paint. Is it OK to overpaint this film with zinc primer? if not, how should I remove it?

As you probably know Tom, the plate is secured by two dogs mounted on studs fixed to the blanking plate and tightened from the inside. if you can see where the studs are from the outside then your problem is solved. You could indeed drill them out from the outside. Happy days! The studs on mine though were tapped into blind holes so there was no indication of where they were from the outside. I removed the studs, drilled the holes all the way through and then fixed the dogs to bolts which were passed through the plate. I cut a slot for a screw driver in the end of the bold in line with the dogs to indicate the position of the dog and allow me to swivel them into position once the plate was fitted. The dogs could then be tightened via nuts on the outside of the plate. Is that what you were thinking?

Sadly not Tom. Years ago I posted some pictures of the mod but they seem to have vanished! I'm sure that you've figured it out though, let me know if you're not sure. I needed the back boiler out in order to get access to the two dogs that secure the plate in the inside. Even then I had to cut them off with a Dremmel because they had corroded in place. You may be able to leave the flue and top panel in place as contrary to Morso's advice the back boiler will come out through the front door. It's a hell of a wiggle though. Alternatively perhaps if you removed the flue, you may be able to do it with the back boiler in place but I doubt you'd get a dremmel in and still see what you're doing, go and check out a new stove to get an idea if you'd have enough room that way. Either way it will be a struggle but worth it.

Ah That's interesting. much the same arrangement as my back cabin Epping, which is what made me wonder in the first place.

Well yes, about a tenner I suppose which as you say is a small price for personal safety. However peace of mind and personal safety are not always the same thing and a tenner is a tenner! I don't subscribe to the Bung On Another Thousand philosophy of boat ownership. We're talking about a close but not gas tight seal. There are two adjustable vents already on the front and don't some squirrels have a vent in the rear panel anyway? Given that open fires work perfectly safely in houses is there a chance that we all get a bit panicky about sealing up our multi fuel stoves that depend on a certain amount of air ingress to burn anyway? Only a musing, and as you say a tenner would ensure it is sealed.

When I replaced my squirrel back boiler, I took the opportunity to adapt the flue plate on the back of the stove so that it could be removed from the outside. This makes the (previously impossible) task of cleaning behind the back boiler easy. I'm glad I did because having swept my chimney this morning I scooped a third of a bucket of soot and crap out from behind the back boiler. However I have a little bit of a problem. The stove is very old and the fire rope channel for the rear flue plate is thin and corroded, I was afraid when cleaning out the old rope before, that the casting would break, making the stove scrap. I got away with it though and reassembled with a new fire rope topped of with a smear of copper grease to make disassembly easy. So far so good, the plate came off easily with the rope undamaged. But the problem is, it's completely petrified like concrete! I'm reluctant to dig it out, for reasons already given so I thought I'd reassemble with HT silicone. My HT silicone though, is solid as well! Bugger!! I'm thinking of reassembling it dry. There's no give in the rope any more so it won't be a gas tight seal but I'm inclined to think that any leakage will be inward as the flue will draw any gas upwards. Certainly my Epping stove in the back cabin is covered in loose fitting plates and that doesn't leak any CO into the cabin. What does the forum think? Daft idea? or perfectly OK? I guess I just don't want to buy a tube of HT silicone for a 10" bead and then have to throw the rest away because it doesn't keep