BargeeSpud

Any time Biz old fruit.

If you have a dome light with one of these lenses: Consider whether you really want to put a cool white LED into it, because in a bathroom situation with white fittings & light tiles, the lense will throw out a brownish pattern on all the light coloured surfaces giving a somewhat "desert camouflage" effect which is quite horrible. However, a dome light with a lense like this: Doesn't. I discovered this when I bought all the ceiling dome lights for my new build & they all had lenses like the 1st picture which is fine for the warm white LED bulbs in the boat, however I quickly discovered that the cool white LED in the bathroom dome gave out the effect described. At first I put it down to being a plastic lense & fortunately, I had access to an older glass version of the same lense which made no difference, so material wasn't the issue. Another stroke of fortune meant I had access to an identically sized dome light which had the same lense as the 2nd picture which I swapped over & the "cammo" effect became a thing of the past. Yay! I thought I'd pass this observation on as not everyone may be able to muck about with, or have access to, different lenses & light units as I fortunately did.

Just thought I'd share yet another "Halfords" experience I exposed myself to today. Don't know why I bother really, because I simply KNOW I'm going to be disappointed, but I thought I'd be in with a shout seeing as I actually had a Halford's product reference number for a drive belt. "Oh, we don't stock that one anymore.", she said. "I'm not surprised, this sort of thing is very common with your company these days.", I said. "Sorry.", she said in a manner that suggested it wasn't the first time she'd had to apologise for not stocking something. No doubt the masochist in me will try again with something else in the future. They must do that surely. Just on the off chance. You never know your luck. One born every minute more like!

Thanks, unfortunately a few posts for this thread have been lost, however, I've engaged Braunston Marina for brokerage & they're not being anal about it, so I'm not bothered & it seems that its a simple matter to get one from the RYA anyway. Unless by doing so I have to then conform to the RCD that is!

Provided 800 is the recommended tickover for your engine, great, but in my case 950 in gear is & it's very, very slow, ideal for entering a narrow lock without touching the sides. However, in my widebeam, the reconmended tickover is ideal for normal cruising, mainly because I'm propped for stopping ability. In my opinion, you must ALWAYS set your tickover to the engine manufacturer's figure. End of.

Try the simple things first, increase your tickover slightly & see if it makes a difference, I take it you don't have a tacho, but if you do, something around 950 rpm in gear is the setting on my Barus Shire 2000 for example. Bear in mind that the engine revs always drop when you put it in gear, so I'd definitely try to find out what it should be for your engine model if you can. Definitely make sure you have the manufacturer's recommended oil in the gear box, whether thats ATF or other & try doing the change from forward to reverse slightly slower or at least as smooth as possible. You have more time than you think, there is rarely any situation where you need to stop violently & if there is, its too late anyway. Good luck, I'm know its scary where the engine stops when you're in a dodgy situation, it happened to me in a broads hire cruiser & I hit Yarmouth bridge as a result losing my deposit. You learn a lot from that!

I'll give it a try & post their response for future reference. If you see my previous post, you will know your observation is correct.

I'm sorry, but I already mentioned in moriginal post that the builder went bust before build completion, so I have no paperwork at all. Thanks for the RYA tip, I'll get in touch with them & see if they can help.

Already contacted Reeves & got that info, but the responsibility for the HIN was with the boat builder at the time as they were only the shell supplier. I've looked everywhere else on the shell & its definitely not there, but as the builder went bust, I don't think they were too concerned with HINs, just getting hold of everyone's money before it went tits up.

There is nothing on Reeves' plate where the HIN is usually stamped & nothing anywhere else. With no record of a HIN for the boat on C & RT records going back to '02, as I said, it's clear one was never issued. I have heard it's possible to have one issued, but I have no idea who to approach & besides, whether not having one will affect my ability to sell remains to be seen but I'm not sure risking it is a good idea either.

I'm being asked for it by a broker. My boat was built between '99 & 2000 & therefore should have one. Whether that's a problem, I don't know, hence the thread.

Hiya, I'm about to put my narrowboat up for sale & I've been asked for the Hull Identification Number which I don't have. It's not on the hull anywhere & having spoken to the shell builder it seems they don't put it on, the builder does. Fine & dandy if your builder does it, mine didn't & went bust before completion. C & RT don't have it on record either which must mean it was never issued. So, will this be an issue & if so, what can I do? Cheers.

Thank you Mike, I'm glad someone was paying attention! Some clarification is in order I think &, Mike, please correct any errors I might make in my description of how I believe a gravity heating system works. When the the water in the back boiler of a solid fuel stove heats up, convection will occur in that the heated water will rise to the top outlet, drawing cooler water into the bottom inlet of the boiler. This heated water progresses through the top of each radiator as the cool water at the bottom of the radiator is drawn out towards the boiler & so you get a circulation without the need for a pump. Any calorifier installed in a gravity system is, in effect, just another radiator that heats water rather than air space, provided it has a suitable coil. Now, my situation is that because I can't totally isolate the calorifier from the gravity system like I can with individual radiators, any heat contained within it is being transferred to the cooler water within the calorifier's gravity coil & despite the fact it can't circulate because the bottom gravity valve is closed, that heat is being dissipated some 6 or 8 feet along the top "hot" pipe of the gravity system to either side of where the calorifier is tee'd into it. Thus, I'm losing all my hot water overnight. My thinking is that because the calorifier is installed in exactly the same way as a radiator in my gravity system, fitting an isolation valve in the top "hot" outlet of the gravity coil, should prevent the heat being dissipated to the rest of the gravity system, or at least slow it right down to the bare minimum. All I was asking is whether my thinking is correct or whether I should consider an alternative solution. The problem is totally unrelated to the Webasto or the engine/generator as these are not capable of heating the calorifier at the moment, they were merely mentioned to give a complete picture of my installation & maybe I shouldn't have mentioned them at all.

No, the engine/generator circuit is not the source, they have yet to be filled & are isolated at the moment. The reason I ask about the 2nd isolation valve on the gravity circuit is that I have to drain the system down to add antifreeze to it for the Webasto & that would be a good time to break in to fit the extra valve.

Hiya, We're getting used to the new boat's systems & have found that we've built in a problem, namely the calorifier totally loses hot water overnight. The set up is this: Vertical 75litre twin coil calorifier supplied by gravity feed - 22mm coil - from back boiler or Webasto (isolated during winter), immersion heater, & engine or generator (via "Y" valves). There is an isolation valve located on the cold inlet to the calorifier from the back boiler. First, after discovering the problem of going cold overnight, I realised that with the stove unlit, the immersion was in effect gravity heating the boat & I set the above mentioned isolation valve to the off position hoping it would make a difference which it didn't, well maybe slightly but not much. The gravity cicuit top pipe gets noticeably warm up to 6 to 8 feet either side of the calorifier, so heat from the hot water in the calorifier is being dissipated into the heating circuit. I'm wondering whether fitting a 2nd isolation valve in the hot outlet side of the gravity circuit from the calorifier would stop the heat being dissipated like this. Yes? Or is there something else I need to consider? Cheers.

OK Nick, I take your point, but only because your installation is different to mine in that you have a shunt fitted whereas my SG installation doesn't, so I can't directly compare your evidence against mine. When I got my SG, it specifically mentioned that no shunt was required, so maybe the reality is that a shunt is advisory for proper accuracy. Unfortunately for Merlin Equipment, my experience & total confusion with the SG has induced me to considering it to be sierra hotel india tango as a stand alone monitor & I cannot trust it, or them.

Really? The Victron gives a fictitious SOC, yet the SG doesn't? Are you sure about that Nick? My experience of SG is that it makes it up as it goes along & most of it's readings seem to bear little resemblance to power usage. In my case, I could use the same appliances for the same amount of time at the same time of day & get really wild variances of SOC readings. 1 day would be down to 60%, the next could be 85%. All with an identical power consumption & charging regime, so from my point of view, SG can be pure fiction I'm afraid Nick. In my opinion SG isn't what its cracked up to be.

Thanks for that, something simple to check out if all this fiddling with pressure settings doesn't work. Cheers.