clarkaboard

It must’ve been water escaping from the loosened auto vent thing, because the pressure has maintained 1 bar for over 24 hours now

Are you talking about my boat? I didn’t mention anything about our timber floor being damp, leaking showers or stinky pools. A bit of rust and dampness in the bilge under a bathroom is inevitable. A thin layer of water in the bilge at the rear occasionally is comforting to see as it indicates any water that gathers in the bilge is seeping to the back where our bilge pump is. Your concern for my bilge is touching, but completely off topic. It’s not something that keeps me awake at night, nor has it in 7 years on this boat. I have managed to sort the leaking central heating - thank you everyone for your help.

Ok...all of the water in the bilge flows to the rear. Our bulkheads allow for this. The water in the bilge at the rear is at most 2-3mm deep and is not always present. Usually it’s dry, but occasionally condensation, etc. means there is a thin layer of water. I’m aware that a lot of boats rust from the inside out. A dry bilge is obviously ideal but, in my experience not that common. Thank you for your advice nonetheless

We have inspection hatches in the cabin at the rear, bathroom (mid boat), and kitchen (near the front). Rear has thin layer of water, bathroom is damp, front is dry The bathroom bilge dampness and rust is from shower water during enthusiastic showering. The trouble is, there’s very few places where we can see steel - there’s so much ballast. Our boat is totally over-engineered internally, it’s always been hard to get to the structure

The bilge under the floor at the rear. Our engine bay doesn’t have a bulge pump in. Rusty base plate? Too late! It’s very rusty under the bathroom and at the back where the bilge pump is. We have always had mixed opinions on bilge pump in engine bay - surely not a good idea to pump oily water into the canal? No bilge pump under cabin floor sounds crazy to me too

Yes, sorry, i’ve since found that out (i’m posting on multiple forums!) There’s not much water in the bilge (certainly not enough to kick bilge pump off). How much water would it take typically to fill a system with 4 small rads on 57 ft Narrowboat? There’s not much water in the bilge (certainly not enough to kick bilge pump off). How much water would it take typically to fill a system with 4 small rads on 57 ft Narrowboat? Could the issue be something to do with the pressure vessel? I don’t really understand how it could be

This is what I understand to be the PRV. There’s a red one as other’s have described it on our calorifier and another one like the one in this photo at the other end of the calorifier. Someone has suggested making sue the pressure vessel is adequately pressurised

We pressurised ours based on some bad advice. I agree with you, but in this instance I don’t think the pressurised system is the cause, but it adds to the complication

Thanks for your advice. I thought it sounded too easy. A couple of people have suggested I look at the pressure relief valve for any signs of leaks. Our PRV is where our header tank used to be and seems to be adjustable (I.e it’s threaded and can be loosened). I’ll try and post some pics later, but apparently it should not be adjustable

We have a leak in our central heating system (Webasto powered, pressurised system). Once the system is filled to 1 bar from the filling loop it takes about a day to fully leak so the pressure is at zero. It’s going to be very hard to get access to all the pipes and joints to detect the leak so someone has suggested using a leak additive - is this a good idea? I know it’s used on domestic central heating systems to solve pressure drops and micro leaks, but it feels too easy a solution surely?!

Hi all, Firstly, I apologise if this isn't posted in the appropriate topic - I couldn't find one to suit. We are currently on a CRT residential mooring in East London and need a mooring in or near to Bristol for approximately the next year. Reluctant to give up our current mooring to the CRT system of the highest bidder that has seen other London moorings go for anything from £14,000 to £30,000 per annum (!) in recent years I thought I would try to arrange a temporary swap with a Bristol boater who might need to be in London for the next year for a considerably cheaper annual mooring fee. Our current mooring is suitable for Narrowboats only, up to a maximum length of 60ft. Our boat is 57ft long. I will clear the exchange with our Mooring Manager and am not willing to do anything that may compromise either party's Mooring Agreement. Anyone interested?

Thanks Robbo, this is really helpful

We liveaboard and are connected to shore power the majority of the time (!) We're hoping to make the trip from London to Bristol next spring, which has prompted us to re-consider our power setup. We work from home fairly often so lots of charging of laptops and using mains-powered external hard drives. Perhaps we should do a proper inventory of the power we consume...

Yeah, I think we should Robbo - compare them to the data sheet. Alternatively, anyone know where I can sell two 2 year old Gel batteries and we'll go back to a bank of Trojan T105s?!

Thanks for the replies. Kuranda (where we bought the batteries) have advised (with what seems to be a pretty default response) that it's not a good idea to add two newer equivalent spec batteries to the bank as the older batteries may bring the new ones down to the level/age of the old ones. As you suggest Nicknorman, we've been pretty safe with these batteries (mainly because of the price of them!), whereas we put our old bank of Trojan T105s through their paces (I wish we'd just replaced new for old). The dilemma now is, do we stick with our current set-up for the next 10 years and suffer all the set-backs that will bring, or add two new Victron 12v 110AH Gels and risk bringing them down 2 years in age...