Tony1

I don't always find myself agreeing with things you say, but I do think that needed saying, and I couldn't agree more.

Its not a plan for myself as such- I'm ok with running the engine to charge if needed. But I was idly curious, that's all. I can see that constructing an air intake and an exhaust system would be a lot of hassle, and would not resolve the safety concerns. Colour me convinced. So how about this: If I construct a steel box with a harness, and strap the generator to my body, I can then watch TV or cook dinner whilst recharging? Or better still, mount the generator on my head? If only some sort of head-cradle could be fashioned....

I'm no expert (which is why I'm grateful for more well-informed people to give warnings here), but I suspect you're right. Apparently its a common myth about CO being heavier than air. An offshore sport cruiser would probably want far fewer holes/vents in its hull than a narrrowboat, given the extreme conditions some sail in. So they are maybe intrinsically more vulnerable to build up of gases inside? But again, I would not want to downplay the risk to narrowboaters- as some have said, life-changing brain and other injuries can occur from CO poisoning- outright death is not the only risk. I would want to narrow down my personal interest to this question: How safe is it to enclose a 2kw genny in a steel box on the stern, with an exhaust pipe leading down almost to the water line? Its not allowed anyway by BSS, so its a moot point. But then BSS consider that LiFeP04 batteries are dangerous, when they are no more dangerous than lead acids. So the question arises in my mind of when can their claims about risk actually be trusted?

In my opinion I am not being blase about any deaths, especially since I said that after reading those reports I would not run a generator on my stern. But what people are more interested in, in terms of making their own assessment of the risks, is how many times it happened. The multiple deaths in each incident adds to the tragedy, but we need to know how likely it is that an incident will occur. And from what I can tell, out of several hundred thousand craft (since they are including all the offshore as well as inland waterways craft), and over a period of it seem about two decades, petrol exhaust caused deaths three times. I'm not personally including the gas cooker incident, in fact in my opinion, its verging on fear mongering to try to rope that incident into in a discussion about petrol genny safety. Of the three incidents resulting in death, none were on a narrowboat, and only one was on an inland waterways craft of any type. To repeat, I promise you that I absolutely do not want to play down the risks posed by petrol gennies, and I would never advise anyone to plonk a genny on the stern and run it there. But the on other hand, I also think its misleading to play up the risks by including things like gas cooker incidents. There are many thousands of GRP craft plying the inland waterways and using petrol outboards, and there seems to be only the one report of an incident with fatalities in the last 2 or 3 decades- and I think that was an inboard petrol engine. The other two reports involved much larger engines on offshore sport cruisers. Don't get me wrong- I think any petrol engine has to be treated as a major CO hazard (and I sincerely thank you guys for clarifying that), and they must never, ever be treated lightly. But conversely, I'm not sure it helps to create an atmosphere of almost religious terror about the use of petrol gennies either. The exhaust from a small petrol engine, if sealed off from the cabin and directed out from the boat near to the waterline, is clearly not statistically a major risk, at least judging from the vast number of GRP owners who are still alive and using this sort of engine at the back of their boat. I'm not saying for a moment there is no risk at all from a petrol exhaust near to the waterline- clearly even the small engines can be deadly dangerous. But maybe this is an area where the risks are being over stated a bit? I'm just asking that particular question- I'm honestly not trying to be blase about the risks, only to understand them better. But it has made me think about how safe I am when a GRP boat is running a petrol outboard immediately behind me and the wind is coming my way. Thankfully they tend to switch them off as soon as they stop. In my view, people only need to be told that exhaust fumes were blown back into a boat and killed the occupants because of the way they accumulate and their level rises to fill the cabin. That is enough to wake up and smell the coffee, so to speak. Knowing that my boat will effectively act like a tub- and will gradually fill from the bottom up with CO - is a terrifying thought, and a risk that I will take very very seriously. But on a related note, I do not trust some organisations, like the BSS for example. They are clearly over-playing the risks of LiFeP04 batteries, as an example, and that sort of fear mongering for me spoils their credibility when they describe real risks, like petrol gennies and stoves etc.

Whilst I would never advocate running a genny on a cruiser stern with a raised lip like mine, I do think there also needs to be some proportionality in terms of viewing the risks. There seem to be a small handful of death reports in what- two decades, maybe more? And that includes both inland and offshore craft, like the sport cruisers featured in both of those reports. All told that must be many tens of thousands of craft, taken over many, many years. And probably less than ten deaths attributable to exhaust fumes? The lesson seems to be never allow petrol exhaust fumes to be funnelled back into a lower level cabin space (including by the action of wind), where they will then accumulate. In one of those cases it was a 5.7 litre engine (with a lot of exhaust fumes), but even a 50cc genny will accumulate eventually. I'm still not convinced that more than one or two examples can be found of deaths on narrowboats caused by gennies, in the last decade or so. Gennies are not killing any more than a tiny handful of people on narrowboats. If even that. Certainly fewer than fires, or stove fumes. But all that said, I would not run a genny on my stern, and especially not after reading the reports.

Do you have the numbers or any details from any official bodies for these deaths, including the year they took place? The phrase "People have been killed" seem to almost verge on fear mongering. Although I know you're not trying to do that, the devil (and the credibility) is in the detail, and I think it would help to know the details if possible, otherwise it might come across as anecdotal reports without any basis in fact. Just to be clear, I'm not planning to install a genny on the stern myself- I'm happy to use my engine for the 90 or so days I need some extra charge during winter. If people have been killed by exhaust fumes from correctly functioning exhausts from petrol engines, what hope is there for anyone with a petrol engine? What is the message people are meant to take from that? Should nobody have a petrol engine? And what about when the wind blows the exhaust fumes towards the boat next to you?

In reality, the winter is when you need a genny - in summer your panels will do the charging. And in winter, a lot of the time you will be moored in a line of boats pretty much end to end in places like Nantwich or Ellesmere, so that you don't have to trudge through 300 yards of mud to reach a road. So the genny has to be close to boat- you're not going to move your genny 20 yards away as per BSS advice and prevailing wind etc), if that means it is sat beside someone else's boat. But to your specific point, I think its no bother to lift a 1kw genny onto the bank. But they only give out maybe 30-40amps, so I would guess they need running for 2 or 3 hours each day in winter. If you have a 2kw genny that will give out say 50-80 amps, it allows you to get your charging done much more quickly, so I can see the attraction of that. But those types often weigh 20kgs and more, and carrying one of those from boat to bank and back again (especially in places where you need to use a plank, and when the banks are wet, muddy and very slippery) could potentially be a bit dicey, so I can see why people who have the heavier gennies would want to look at whether there is a safe way to run their genny on the boat, and not have to lug it about. And before the safety police attack- I'm not saying it is safe, I'm just saying I can understand why people would at least look into it.

My worry is that my stern deck has a 6 inch raised lip around it, and the only route for any noxious fumes on the stern is down the steps and either through the water drain into the engine bay, OR through the door vent and into the cabin. And my worry is that gases like that could accumulate in the bilges, and their level could gradually rise into the cabin space. That said, a floor level CO alarm should detect exhaust fumes, but I feel like I dont know enough about the risks and the behaviour of gases to want to take the chance. My type of stern would be a pretty dangerous place for a genny I reckon.

Tbh my SF stove could have killed me but for the CO alarm. In my first winter I did not give any thought to the risks of CO, after I read several accounts (on here), from boaters who stated that they left their stove running 24/7, from October until April. One night (in late Feb think), I was woken by a loud beeping noise (which was also a bit embarrassing as I was in a marina). I tracked down where the noise was coming from and got the doors and windows opened, then held my fingers over the beeper to minimise the disturbance to my neighbours, until the CO levels went down and it stopped. My chimney had become blocked to a dangerous extent because it hadn't been swept, so that was an critical safety lesson for me. When I see these dire warnings about how you will instantly fall dead the moment you even start a generator within 20 yards of a boat, I wonder how much is fear mongering from people who enjoy that as a pastime- but because I don't know the truth of the matter, I feel I have to pay heed to the advice- especially after my stove could have potentially killed me. I di note last winter that many of the old hands- people who had been living aboard for a couple of decades and more- ran generators on the bank, and not on their boats, and that inclined me towards taking the risks more seriously. It may be, as I suspect, that only one or two canal boaters have been killed by gennies within the last decade (as opposed to the hundreds who are slaughtered each week by their murderous lithium batteries)- but I am inclined to not run a genny on the stern unless I had an airtight box installed, with an exhaust that takes the gas over the side. If the steel box and exhaust pipe are professionally constructed, and if they guide the exhaust fumes down to the same location as the engine exhaust pipe, then it shouldn't be any more dangerous than the engine exhaust, right? I give very little credence to the BSS statements, and their claims about the dozens of tragic deaths. Their job is probably to be professional fear mongers, after all, in order to get people to take risks seriously. But if the old hands are running their gennies on the bank, that does make me think twice about it.

I think you've found the solution here- if you get a 30kg genny, don't take it on cruises (assuming there's a secure location you can leave it). When off cruising, you'll be running the engine a lot more often anyway, and that will be charging the batteries (if you've got a decent charging system)- so the genny won't be needed as often. It may be that an EU10i (or a Kipor) could tide you over nicely when out cruising, and at 15kg you can lug it on and off the boat with much less risk than a 25kg model. Or- maybe save yourself some money, and just rely on running the engine for charging when you go cruising? It sounds like you wont be cruising too often, so the winter charging (when you're cruising) won't be putting hundreds of additional running hours on the engine.

Alas, such jealousy and bitterness. But typical of the social climbing peasants on the L+L. They probably wouldn't allow your sort down the boat lift.

Yes, I agree- I've edited that post above to withdraw that suggestion.

Just a thought on this- one of those proper built-in gennies will be very expensive, but it might be possible, at a reasonable cost, to construct some kind of steel box or compartment on the stern that will fit a Honda EU20 suitcase generator. The thing is, its pretty dangerous to run a genny on the open deck, because the CO fumes are heavier than air and can seep down the steps etc and enter the cabin. On the other hand, you dont want to be lugging a 20kg genny along a gangplank onto the bank every day, and a Honda genny is a perennial top target for thieves, if left in plain view. Now this idea could raise a variety of Boat Safety issues, so it is just a thought really, but.... a padlockable gas locker on the stern might do the job, provided it has an exhaust pipe that goes over the back of the stern and down a few inches. EDIT: Just seen Alan's extract from the BSS and it looks like a genny in a stern locker is not allowed, so forget all that above.

My dear fellow, you can stand down the torpedo tubes. I never play music outside of the boat, and when I play it inside, it is at no more than normal speech volume, at the very most. If it's evening, it is practically a whisper. One has to be acutely aware of the level of any sound on the waterways, and I must say I've heard very little noise nuisance this summer, although I have been skulking away down on the Weaver, where one meets a better class of boater.

I totally agree that dump throughs a re great to use and less prone to breaking than the choppy-up types, but in the last couple of years I've gotten the impression that pump out facilities are out of action at a frequency that would concern me a bit, if I had one.

Is this effectively banning the Bee Gees from being played anywhere on the Thames? Remember that terrible quote about Nazi persecution: "First they took away the Bee Gees music, but I didn't protest because I still had working ears. Then they came for the Bob Dylan albums...." Dark times ahead, I fear.

For me it depends on the boat type. If I had a widebeam I would have a compost/separating toilet, plus a quick-composting 'Hotbox', plus a few storage containers on deck and roof. On a narrowboat, especially a smaller one, for me it has to be a cassette, as there's no space for composting. I like the idea of pumpouts, but the idea of dealing with a broken one terrifies me.

Northwich drydock (down on the weaver) did my 50 footer with 2 pac about a month ago and it cost £1500 for the lot (with them doing all the labour), but bear in mind that included the base plate, which many yards can't do. If you could drag in a friend to help, you could save a few hundred by washing and blacking it yourself. As has been said before, they use a very high pressure washer, and lots of the old blacking comes off with that, so lots of small patches of bare metal are left visible after the wash. I'll see if I can find the photo later, if it will help. They are first class though- super helpful, and they don't cut corners, unlike a few places I've heard bad rumours about. If you're interested I can PM you with the names of the ones I've heard bad things about. The guy there was telling me about two boats he'd had in recently- one was 30 years old and had had the base plate blacked regularly, and he said the plate was almost immaculate. The boat beside it was maybe 15 years old and had extensive pits up to 4-6mm in the base plate, and the owners are now looking at very expensive remedial work at some point in the next few years.

It's worth explaining that running generators after 8pm is a bit of a hot button topic on the forum, because so many have had noise nuisance from gennies running nearby at all hours of the night. To even suggest running a generator (or engine) after 8pm will cause an angry mob to descend upon you, and is punishable by firing squad. Followed by hanging, just to make sure. But joking aside, if you are going to regularly go cruising on CRT waters, its probably worth getting into the habit of not running your engine after 8pm anyway, even though you'll normally have no-one nearby. On the odd night when someone does show up and moor within earshot (and bear in mind sound carries much further over waterways), at least you won't have to worry yourself that running your engine might annoy them, or cause any ill will. I might be a bit over cautious, but I think its a good idea to make sure your batteries are in shape and ready for the night by 7pm at the latest (unless you're away from the boat somewhere). It's not so much of an issue in summer because the solar is flooding in all day and the batteries are always nearly full. But in winter, if its already dark and you hit some kind of snag when you try to charge (e.g. a battery or connection problem, or if the engine just wont start, or even a blown fuse somewhere) at least you've still got an hour or two to before the 8pm engine deadline to make some emergency arrangements to get your batteries through the night. You might have time to find any engine problems, and you can do things like switch off the fridge or other power hungry devices, switch off a few lights, don't use the electric kettle (always have a gas kettle somewhere in reserve)- that kind of thing. If everything blows, you can sort out candles or something. But diagnosing charging problems and dealing with the associated hassles late in the evening is no fun at all, so if a charging fault is going to happen, you can at least make sure you know about it in the early evening, by doing the charging at an earlier time.

No question the tuning fork is the place to be, but I do wonder how busy it might be in June to August. In fact, I also wonder how busy the mooring places will be above Duke's lock, for that matter.

I had a couple of nights in there in early May, and there were one or two spaces for much of the time. Things might be very different now though, so I'd be interested to hear whether you found a spot or not? If I remember right there was enough visitor mooring space for maybe 5 narrowboats, but I had a backup plan if the basin was full- which was to go up through the first of the Rochdale 9 locks, and moor a hundred yards further on. There were a couple of boats moored above that first lock whilst I was at the basin (wide beams I think), and although its not nearly as nice a spot as the basin, it does offer 14 day mooring if you need that, and I never saw any yobs hanging about there, so I'd chance it myself.

Seconded- I do not believe you will find a more capable, knowledgeable and (very importantly) ethical professional to install or advise on lithium batteries and charging issues in this region. This is how fair he is: He made a visit to my boat in late June (it was 30 miles out of his way) to attempt a fix for an issue with the engine panel warning light plus the alarm for my domestic alternator. It was a very unusual sort of job, that arose from my very novel 'twin B2B' charging setup- and we weren't sure it was fixable in the way I wanted, but I reckoned it was worth a try. After squeezing me into his crazy busy schedule at short notice, he arrived and then spent a couple of hours poking around in the dust and cobwebs under the engine column on a very hot afternoon, and trying out different wiring fixes, but he couldn't find a solution that he was satisfied with. He could have sorted it out, but it would have needed a fair bit more time, another visit, and probably some installation of new electrical bits to replace the ones currently in situ. Thankfully it wasn't a showstopper issue anyway, and I had a workaround for it, so I accepted that the benefits gained from the fix would not be worth the effort. But when I asked him what the bill was, he absolutely refused to accept any payment, not even mileage/travel costs! In knew it advance this was a experimental bit of work that might not be successful, and I'd asked him to visit on that basis, but nonetheless he was still not happy accepting any payment without having completed the fix- not even mileage! He did a similar thing a couple of years ago when trying to solve my lack of alternator charging power. I'm not saying he'll be that generous with every boater- but then he won't need to be, because most jobs he tackles are much more straightforward than mine anyway. After all the headaches I've given him, he probably dreads seeing my number appear on his phone, but I have to say- I honestly don't believe you will find a better and fairer marine electrics professional.

So as usual you got a steal of a deal! 🤣 I reckon you must have slipped him some hallucinogenic drugs and dressed up as Dick Turpin to get that price on a virtually-new genny.

Thanks Peter- I'd love one of those big built in generators, I must admit- but I could never justify the cost of it to cover me for only 3 months of the year. I heard they cost a fortune.

I've lived aboard using 400Ah of lithiums for about 2 years, and I wouldn't contemplate using any less than 400Ah unless budget was a really critical. In fact I would prefer to have 500Ah. It's an area where you might save some money, but will come back to frustrate you in future months by constraining your electricity usage. I use a small electric kettle half a dozen times a day (with two people your usage would be double mine of course), laptop running for maybe 4-5 hours a day (and more in winter, if I'm indoors for much of the day), the fridge is on 24/7 (but no freezer), wifi router left on 24/7, etc. Also recharge an ebike every couple of days, among other things. I reckon I use about 140 to 160Ah of charge per day- and with two of you, you might go higher than that. My normal day to day cycling/usage of the batteries is to charge them up to about 80% state of charge (SoC), which I understand will help to lengthen their lifespan significantly. There are odd days I charge them higher, but generally I charge up to about 80-85% to avoid stressing them. For most of the year that charging is done via solar, but in Nov to Jan it's mostly done by engine charging, with a bit of solar added in. After charging, I allow them to run down to about 40% before starting to recharge them, and I like to have a decent amount of extra charge in reserve as a contingency- so the amount of 'useful' day to day charge from my 400Ah of batteries is about 160Ah. (In an emergency I would charge them up to 95% and let them run down to 10%, of course, but I'm talking about typical usage here.) What you also need to think about is the timing of your battery charging, especially in winter. You can't run the engine/genny to recharge batteries after 8pm, so if you've hammered them for a while (using kettle, washing machine, or power tools say), and you suddenly realise that they are down to 30% by about 7pm, the pressure will be on to get some charge back in them quickly, before the 8pm deadline, so that you can continue to run the fridge and other stuff overnight, and still have some contingency charge left in them when you get up in the morning. Trying to run a kettle (and thus draw 80 amps or more) from a battery that is down to say 15% can cause the battery voltage to temporarily drop a fair bit, such that you can trigger the battery's disconnect system. So in my case, during the winter I keep an eye on the state of charge during the early evening. I like to make sure the batteries are at least 40% SoC by 7pm, as I know from experience that they will still be well above 25% in the morning, and I'll have no problem running the kettle. Given your ideas about electricity usage, I would guess that 200Ah is not going to be enough. You might find yourself doing a charge in the morning, getting them up to about 80% SoC, and yet still not having enough charge left in them by evening. So you might find yourself doing a second charge in the evening, to keep them above a comfortable minimum charge level overnight. For an easier life, the minimum I would suggest is that your battery capacity should be at least twice your daily usage. So if you use about 150Ah per day (and it could be more), you would want at least 300Ah of batteries. And even that gives you very little contingency or wiggle room for those days when you can't charge when you want, for some reason (e.g. you're away from the boat all day, and dont get back till after 8pm). The thinking behind suggesting that your battery capacity should be twice your normal daily usage is that you would want to use about 50% of your lithium battery capacity day to day. Sometimes it will be more, of course- but for maximum longevity you want to keep them between 30% and 80% full. And in the real world, on those winter evenings you might not feel happy watching them get down below 40% in the evening. At the back of my mind there is always that thought that I should have some contingency charge left in the batteries in case I have to use them for longer than I expected to, e.g. if the charging system breaks (and if the winter charging system is your engine, then every serious engine malfunction also means you have no charging for the batteries). ETA- when pricing the batteries, do factor in the cost of a charging system, if you will be using the engine alternator(s). You cant just hook up a lithium battery to the alternator, they will need some control over the charging voltage and the current. I think gennies might be a simpler charging solution, but then you have to go traipsing to local garages with a 10 litre petrol can. And if you cruise several times per week, it seems daft not to use all that engine charging you could be doing for the lithium batteries- so some sort of engine charging system would be needed even if you use a genny for your non-cruising days. And the other factor is that an hour of engine running in winter also gives you a tank full of hot water, which a genny doesn't provide. At the risk of sounding like a management consultant, you should take a holistic approach to energy usage, batteries, and charging systems, since you are still in the designing/building phase and are able to change your approach if needed. Further edit- you dont say what your budget is for batteries, but one of the members here has recently bought a big 460Ah battery called a Fogstar Drift for around £1300, and apparently it is excellent, so that might be a good shout if you have the budget. The thing about them is that they are a 10-15 year purchase (at least), and it might not be that simple to just add in extra batteries to a bank that you've been running for a while, as they'll charge and discharge a bit differently. So its worth getting the capacity question right early doors, if possible.