Arthur Brown

Sort out between you what you consider to be acceptable project, and what is too much/expensive to take on. If this boat is just the stove short of your ideal then get a survey and make an offer. With all parts of the stove and much of the chimney they are loose parts that can easily be removed, even if a hammer is needed! It's especially good advice to chose your own surveyor -you pay his fee whether or not you buy the boat and he owes you a duty of professional care, if you use the seller's or the vendor's surveyor then the survey is for their benefit not yours. If the boat hasn't been cared for for long it may routinely need new batteries.

Most of my 12v to Dell (19.5v) converters work well with a battery on charge or engine running in the car, just they don't work properly at battery discharge voltages. OK it may be easy to find a 12v ATX PSU but at $250+ I'd consider an inverter.

The basic question of the post has to be answered that it is very possible to live with only 12v, In reality it's quite possible to live without electricity -half of the world's population does. However a further look at the situation indicates that electricity is now essential to our (UK) style of life, and that some things simply work better when powered from 240v rather than 12 or 24. Where the OP wishes to place their own personal lifestyle on the "needs electricity" lifeline and how much mains they really need is up to them, but most people do have some 12v and some 240v on their boats.

My experience with 12v laptop chargers is BAD most don't work at all some work poorly few work properly, I think I've paid for ten, bit only one continues to work. I've never heard of a desktop that's run properly off 12v. Personally I think life on 12v is too much like camping, with poor quality kit, Some things work well off 12v -LED lights as a prime example, but I would always have a pure sine inverter available. Likely a 600 - 1000w model would be enough but there are items of modern life that just refuse to work on quasi sine (square) wave inverters, and some things that die if NOT connected to sine wave power.

Possible the most informative posts on this topic would be a simple list of the exact model of washing machine that each person manages to run off which exact model of inverter, with notes where needed -warm water fill etc! Enough threads have been dedicated to what washing machines don't run off assorted power supplies. It's likely that the makers have no thought whatever that their machines will be run in boats or even just off grid. UK grid power is usually very good for volts, waveform and frequency which machine designers probably assume will exist everywhere.

Without real mains the general washing machine is a difficult load to power. Some auto washers will simply not work, some will. The usual problems involve poor waveform, poor voltage regulation and poor mains frequency stability, each can vary with load and a washer will have varying load during the cycle. A big generator -say 6KW or more, is a good start.

Only your first narrow lock should be "interesting", but as you do more boating you will get more accurate in your placing of the boat.

The inverter and charger need mounting close to the battery so that the thick high current cables don't have to be thick and expensive to avoid excess volts drop. An inverter will draw about 100A per KW drawn, so short fat wires are needed. the charger could well supply 50 to 80 amps so again short thick wires are needed. Remember that some solar systems can be extended more easily than others, and that a MPPT controller will make about 20% more electricity from the same sun and panels. Also consider that some components can be repurposed later if you ever decide to extend the array. Also that a complete system can be joined to another system at the batteries so a 30a controller and panels can feed the same batteries as another 30A controller and panels. If you end up with a small array contributing to your domestic needs, this can be repurposed later to feed the engine battery when you have a larger array for domestic use. -Don't forget the starter battery's needs! Once the engine will not start you need to pay for help usually.

The whole paint is a system, Only if you get the whole system right will it look right for long, Once it's cleaned and primed the other coats need to go on before the water gets in between the layers and blisters later.

Can you drain some water off the lowest point in the system and simply put it back into the header tank? Can you drain all the liquid out into a drum -which will mix it thoroughly, then simply replace it into the header tank.

Will someone send the spiders in with some more data credit.

Any paint is better than no paint! May give you some ideas.

The "View new content" button on the right of the title bar of the forum is a good place to find recent things, if something gets moved it's still in there.

At 50+ years old you need to accept that it will never be completely repaired! You will always find something else to do!

The downside of high voltage charging is that most 12v nominal equipment is specified for 13.2vDC as a reasonable estimate of a car alternator's normal running voltage. Some equipment may be damaged by significantly higher voltages.

As a starter battery usually has enough capacity to do about 100 starts without charging, what happened to the electrical system in the last few months. Changes that left a connection loose or something rewired anytime since June would be suspect, even inadvertent changes.

If you have one alternator and the house batteries are charging, then the alternator works! What actually charges each battery? If you have one alternator then what separates the house and engine battery? Is there a relay? Voltage sensor? ...? Do you know that the engine battery is flat? By testing the battery? Or does the engine not start, (which could be other things)? Can you get to a shoreline to charge both batteries? Can you fit a single jump lead between house +ve and starter +ve to do an emergency engine start then leave the wire connected while the engine battery charges with the house batteries. Have you a solar panel that will charge the engine battery?

For shoreline use I'd keep the present charger, for generator use while cruising I'd get a bigger one to limit the time of generator runs, I'd also check that the solar is up to standard at least to do the later charging stages when the current is low.

If your charger is effective in keeping your batteries charged then it's OK for you, but I suspect that most folk would like a bigger one. You do only need to keep up with what electricity you actually use,

With today's electrically dependent life having a good alternator in service and a spare, and the tools and skill to fit it is IMO essential especially in winter when solar may be less effective.

With most computers it's a good plan to have a back up drive, and one kept elsewhere.

People really have been moved on "within the hour" for breaching the terms of marina mooring permissions, which may be very hard if you have job and transport plans. So it would pay to check that your new mooring is suitable for your intended purpose.

You could easily use a simple switch. -Once the engine is running switch on the power to the bow thruster batteries. Given a moderate wire spanning 20metres the wire itself should limit the current available to charge the batteries. How much do you need the BT? a charge rate round 5 - 10 amps would not keep up with frequent use but would keep the battery in OK condition for occasional use. As yo have already tapped into the BT batteries for front cabin use maybe a solar panel going there would be a good plan. There is a cig lighter to cig lighter boost cable device occasionally available from Maplin etc that includes a boost converter for sending charging (14+v) power down a long wire to another car from a car battery. Maybe it would assist getting lots of power down a thin wire to your BT batts.