Monsoon merchant

Hi. Does anyone know if any coal boats service the stretch of the River Soar around Thurmaston? Thanks for your help.

Hi. I am thinking of investing in a cratch board and cover for my narrowboat, but have some concerns regarding ventilation. The only low level ventilation is at the front of the boat - ducted from under the gunwales in the well-deck. This means that a cratch cover would enclose these vents, and presumably restrict the air intake. Obviously loads of people have cratch covers, so presumably this is not a problem? Any thoughts would be welcome.

Thanks folks. I'll check those out.

Thanks Martyn, I'll have a look at that. I was hoping people might also be able to suggest companies that are used to making narrowboat tanks? Anyone any ideas?

Hi. I'm after a quote for a 135 gallon stainless water tank. Can anyone recommend a supplier? Also, any ideas what kind of price I should be paying? Thanks for your help.

Thanks folks. Toothbrush was only £6, so may as well give it a go and see.

Hi We wanted to use 'electric' toothbrushes on our (liveaboard) boat, without having to use the inverter to charge them up. I thought I had come up with a solution - battery operated toothbrush (2 AA batteries), using rechargeable batteries and a 12 volt battery charger, courtesy of Maplins. Suitably excited, purchased Boots own brand toothbrush, only to find instruction - 'Do not use rechargeable batteries'. There was no explanation as to why not, does anyone have any ideas, or shall I risk it?! Thanks for your help.

Thanks folks - very helpful

Thanks both, that's brilliant. The speed looked like it was set to 2, but was actually set to 5 (max)! Turning it down to 2 reduces current to half an amp, down to minimum reduces it to quarter of an amp. My only concern now is to have a high enough flow rate. How would I know if there was a problem - would it be the Lockgate boiler banging? Does the required flow rate depend on the temp the stove is being run at? Thanks again - great result.

Hi Thanks to lots of help on here, I am starting to try to get to grips with my electrical system. When I switch this pump on, it appears to draw 2.1 amps. That would mean if the heating (Refleks) were left on 24/7, it would be using 50 amp hours a day (I think?). Can that be right? Does anyone else have this pump? When I asked the boat builders during construction, they said it would use a fraction of an amp. Fortunately we mainly use the sf stove, so it hasn't been such an issue, but I would like to get this sorted. Thanks for your help.

No lid or covers - this is how it came from the builders. Is there an issue? (genuine question ) Why is there a separate battery for the inverter? That sounds a bit worrying - do you have any ideas to reduce the risk? Okay, so it seems that the black wire from the engine block should swap to the opposite end of the bank. I don't quite understand what should happen to the other connections - To inverter? To fuse board? To bilge pump? To Travel Power? Temperature sensor? (There aren’t any further connections on the back row) Is anyone able to clarify in words of one syllable for a simpleton? So have I got this right – if I can get this wiring sorted, the battery monitor should be showing the combined charging current of the charger and the alternator together? Thanks for sticking with me - I feel I am starting to get some understanding at least.

I found the shunt! See photo below. One terminal of the shunt goes to the -ve battery terminal. The other shunt terimnal has two thick wires coming out of it - one goes to the Victron, one goes to meet all the individual negative wires. Also shown is the red and black wire going to the -ve battery terminal, which seems to be the temperature sensor? The photo below is of the other end of the battery bank, and shows the wires going to the bilge pump and (?) the Travel Power, as well as the thick black wire going to the engine block. Any thoughts? Thanks again for all the help.

No, not patronising, I'm a beginner! Please tell me what a shunt looks like!

Hi again. I've had a look at the battery connections: Starter has a separate thick wire to the engine block (it's on the opposite side of the engine bay to the domestic bank). Domestic bank negative is connected directly to the engine block by a separate thick wire but is fixed to the same engine bolt as the starter wire - does this not mean that the negatives of the 2 battery banks are effectively connected together? All domestic negatives are connected together, and then to the hull. There is a red and black wire going to one of the negative terminals - is this the Victron temperature sensor? There are 2 black wires coming from another negative terminal: 1 joins a red and seems to go to the bilge pump. 1 joins a red and seems to head to the electrical boxes - looks like it might be the Travel Power box? So it does look like the -ve doesn't go through a shunt as you suggested. Is there anything alse I should be saying to the installers about the above installation? Thanks agaiin

Thanks folks. I will get on to the installers.

Hi, And thanks to all those who gave helpful advice on a recent topic I started on problems of a Dometic Travel Power working with a Victron Multiplus inverter/charger. This advice gave me the impetus to go and try and make some sense of those scary electrical boxes at the back of the boat - something I had been (sub)consciously avoiding! I have been trying out some of the suggestions given, and I think some of them may be helpful, but in doing so I have come across another issue that I am hoping someone could help with: The Victron BMV battery monitor only seems to be registering the charging current of the charger and not the alternator. If I start charging with the alternator only, charging current shows as 0 amps, which obviously can't be correct (charging voltage does register at around 14.3v). When I switch the charger on, the charging current shows as eg 50 amps. This then decreases gradually to zero, but as was established on the other thread, this does not mean that the batteries are charged, just that the charger has stopped charging. A significant piece of advice from the last thread seemed to stress the importance of looking at the charging current as a way of checking when to stop charging. I am not currently able to do this. Should the monitor be showing the combined charging current of the charger and the inverter? If so, is this an installation fault, and what might have gone wrong (still under warranty)? Thanks again.

Do people agree that adaptive charging does not work with TP? If so, this has been a pretty expensive mistake. This was sold as a way to reduce charging times by using intelligent charging, as if on shorepower. If it is being suggested that this be overridden by setting fixed charge times or (worse) by just using the alternator to charge, this seems to render the TP pretty useless for charging purposes? How unreliable do people think the adaptive charging is with TP? When the Victron switches immediately to absorption when starting to charge, does this mean that batteries are at 80% plus already, or is this meaningless? Thanks again for the replies.

Thanks for all the replies. Quite confused now and need to sit down and read them properly when I have time later. Just one thing though, it definitely is the inverter light that is coming on in battery charger mode, even at 1200rpm and very light load. This is what was making me wonder if it is not correctly wired? I am wondering if all this might be a bit beyond me. Can anyone recommend a really good electrician who covers the East Mids who might be able to come out and look at the syatem and help set it up properly? Thanks again

Hi, I’m looking for some advice from electrical experts and/or people who use Dometic Travel Power with a Victron Multiplus inverter/charger. The boat was new in June 2012 and has been used as a liveaboard since October. The set up is as follows: Beta 43 with 170amp alternator, 3.5KW Travel Power and Victron Multiplus 12/3000/120, Victron BMV600 battery monitor. Battery bank is 550ah (110 x 5 leisure batteries). No shore power available. Battery usage is around 60ah per day (12v TV, 12v radio, Shoreline fridge/freezer, LED lights, pumps, occasional inverter use for small items). I have been having some concerns that there may be some problems with the electrical installation, and wondered if people could help with a few questions. 1) If I switch the Multiplus to ‘charger only’ mode with the Travel Power running, the inverter switches on, which seems to be at odds with the instruction manual. Any ideas? 2) The batteries are charged daily with the engine running at 1200rpm and with the Travel Power running the battery charger. The charger stays on ‘bulk’ for only a couple of minutes and then switches to ‘absorption’ mode. This generally only lasts around 30 minutes and then switches to ‘float’, which I understood to be fully charged. It’s obviously great if the batteries are charging that quickly but I worry that they might not actually be charging fully. If I switch the charger off then on again a few minutes later, the absorption phase still takes as long – eg another 30 minutes. Any thoughts? Is there any point running the engine any longer once float is reached, as no active charging seems to be happening? 3) If I charge up late afternoon and check the voltage the following morning, it is often down to around 12.3 volts, after only 40-50ah discharge. This seems to be getting towards 50% discharge, which seems very high? There also seems to be a voltage drop on the monitor of up to 0.2 volts when the fridge kicks in. Heavy duty cabling was specified. Is this excessive drop? 4)The Victron manual states that the charger will reduce the charging voltage once the batteries reach float, but this does not seem to happen. Is this because the alternator is charging in the background? 5) How do you know that the Travel Power is running for example the washing machine, rather than the inverter doing it, as it seems that the inverter needs to be on to get ac out of the TP? I think the inverter can cleverly tell, but how do you know this is happening? Sorry for such detailed questions, any help very welcome as I am worried I am doing something wrong.

Hi Rob, and welcome to the forum. We had exactly the same requirements as you when specifying our stove last year, and went through the same list of possibilities as you. We eventually went for the Chilli Penguin (the standard one, I don't think the oven is any bigger in the fat version). We are very happy with it. It is compact, and centrally placed in the boat, has been the only form of heating we have needed so far this winter (62' liveaboard). It is very controllable and easily stays in overnight. The oven has proved much more useful than we imagined - we had thought it might be more of a novelty. We have found oven trays, dishes and casserole dishes that fit the small size, and have cooked all kinds of things in there, including fantastic jacket potatoes. The top still gets hot enough to boil a kettle when the stove is running quite hot, and can be used for soups/stews etc, having a surprisingly useable space - easily takes 2 sizeable pans. Realistically, we still need our gas cooker. As you say, you need to roast a chicken and would rather not chop it up first! However, what we have noticed is that our gas cooker useage is a fraction of what it otherwise would have been - 4 months full-time liveaboard and no sign of our first 13kg gas bottle running out yet. Even things that we don't cook entirely on the Penguin can sometimes be started off/finished off/kept warm in it. There is nothing as satisfying as 'free' cooking. So I wouldn't dismisss the Penguin out of hand. However, in answer to your question, we did look at one stove that's not on your list. This is the Evergreen ST1060 from boatmanstove.co.uk (Someone might be along to post a link). This is a cast iron, side by side stove with window, and an output of 6kw, and only £725. We nearly went for this, but couldn't fit the footprint into our design. Very friendly and helpful supplier. Might be suitable for you. Hope this helps.

Thanks for all the advice folks.

Hi We are looking for a good solid stovetop kettle that will sit happily on top of the solid fuel stove, but can also be boiled up on the gas hob when required. We really like the Le Creuset traditional kettle, but have read quite a few reviews that these rust inside. Does anybody have any recommendations? Thanks

Thanks folks. That's helpful.

Hi I want to paint some new plywood which has as yet not had any coating applied to it. I would like to finish off with a water-based eggshell finish, but am wondering what to put underneath it. I have been told that the ply will need sealing. Does anyone have any ideas what would be best to use, that would be okay taking (I imagine) a water-based primer/undercoat on top of it? Thanks very much for your help.

Hi Simon and Jan. We will be doing something very similar to you. For the time being we will need a base, so will be taking a year-round mooring in a marina. We will spend some time there and will have the benefit of being able to charge up batteries from the 240v supply. However, we do not want to live on a boat to be staring out of the window at other boats 2 feet away. So for a lot of the time, we will be out on the local (beautiful) stretch of canal, where we will regularly moor at weekends and at times during the week. We will find a number of quiet mooring sites overlooking stunning countryside. And during our fairly generous holidays, we will be off - exploring what the rest of the system has to offer. Some may find this boring, but I don't think we will. In fact, I think we will find it infinitely less boring than living in a (completely static) house, overlooking other houses and listening to the cars go by. Not everyone can drop everything (or work from home) and head off around the system just yet. That doesn't mean that we can't enjoy a fantastic life aboard. Good luck Simon and Jan!