Bloomsberry

I'm off work this morning and popping down to Mercia to check up on my boat & do a few odd jobs, I'll see if I can get any info then.

Found this in the Burton Mail tonight but not much detail. Anybody any more information? It happened at 8am this morning and boat was well alight when fire crews arrived apparently. My own boat is there but I have been away all weekend and haven't had chance to check up on it. http://www.burtonmail.co.uk/Crews-fight-narrowboat-Mercia-Marina/story-29084834-detail/story.html Edit - Just to add there were no reported injuries according to the report

I still wouldn't chance it though, you may come up against some real nutcase who could do some damage.

What were the measurements of the baseplate thicknesses, were there any to cause concern ?

And if it does die in the roofspace and starts stinking the boat out , I assume the roof will have to be taken apart to try and find the thing. Best try and eliminate it before this happens

And with no grease comes increased wear on the stern tube leading to more leakage. I'd try and get it replaces as soon as possible.

Started my BMC 1.5 engine for the first time in about 3 months this week. It is quite old. I gave it 10 seconds of heating and maybe should have give it a bit more as it did turn over quite slowly and grunted a bit but managed to fire first time with a bit of smoke to start with. I think asking a very cold engine that hasn't been started for a while to start without any resistance is a big ask so think giving it more heating than usual is a good idea. I'm no expert but I believe engine oil is less viscous at low temperatures so would be a cause of more resistance.

Fire extinguishers - I think as long as the gauge is within limits it should be ok, on my exam last year I was told to shake the contents frequently as the contents tend to compact together. Batteries - My batteries weren't secured either so I fixed some wooden battens around the box containing it and that was deemed ok.

-12.2 somewhere in Scotland, coldest temperature recorded in the UK this winter according to the BBC.

And I bet the stove is quiet heavy too ( 45kg + ??? ). I had to cut mine in half to get the one out of my boat , but then again I'm hopeless at lifting heavy things.

A quick search found this http://www.wfbco.co.uk/narrowboats_for_sale/Beech

The original post does actually state the lock entrance , my mistake, I assumed they meant they were in the lock chamber itself.

I thought this was recognised practise when single handling or else the boat could move about all over the place in the lock. There's usually a large metal plate for the bow 'button' to move against when ascending/ descending.

Thanks for that, Joe. I hadn't noticed the other 2 episodes.

Not sure if this has been posted before but all 4 episodes of Canals - Making of a nation are scheduled on BBC 4 on New Years eve , 7-9pm. Not seen them all myself so will be setting the recorder for this.

Depends what bandwidth you require. I have a 3G dongle from 3 (15gb @15.99 a month) and can only achieve about 1 meg from my mooring but it is enough to watch Youtube in SD and stream football matches from the dodgy streaming sites. I have the option to upgrade to 4G but I'm a bit apprehensive as I don't know if the coverage of 4G is as good as 3G where I am. So for now I'm sticking to 3G, as they say , it ain't broken why fix it.

I think the heating element in a standard calorifier is only rated at 1kw anyway so I wouldn't have thought this sufficient to supply the heating requirements on a boat.

54kw electrical generation, Wow !

I recently did some modifications to my upstairs bathroom plumbing and when I restored the water supply found that the existing pipework had small pinprick leaks in it. I assume I must have disturbed it as it didn't leak before. The house is now 40 years old so I decided to replace all the upstairs pipework with plastic as I didn't trust the existing copper pipework. I didn't trust plastic fittings either so used copper compression fittings instead and it is all holding out ok.

How important is it to remove all the old coolant from the system ? You could just remove 2/3 of the coolant in the system then refill with a 50% anti freeze solution. This combined with the 1/3 still in the system would mean the anitfreeze would be diluted down to 33%. If this was deemed ok then you could probably leave the antifreeze in the calorifier circuit intact ? This would need to be done in summer during cruising season to give the coolant chance of mixing well before the onset of winter (unless you're planning on embarking on a winter cruise of course).