Detling

Could you add a back boiler and plumb into exiting rads? you would probably need a pump though.

More likely will be, you pay full price for white and then claim back the tax from HMRC if you have the time and patience. You will of course have to be able to prove the use if requested, presumably by a fuel meter or maybe an hour counter fitted to your diesel heater. (chances of being asked miniscule, BUT )

I was refering to the interconnects as they are short and fat, you can basically forget about them. ( I couldn't remember the next size down so guessed 80 but was wrong)

I have seen it on new boats so it can be done, I suspect stuck/bonded onto the steel during the build. The navy has used a plastic similar surface for years, just not so pretty. If you applied over paint the adhesion is only as good as the paint to steel, which will probably peel in time.

Fit 80 upwards and forget, I have 95mm sq the resistance of the bolt down fastening to the batteries is probably higher than the resistance of the wire.

Private BSS Private License swappers have an accident with the boat, loads of money for the lawyers and not much for the boat owner.

Since 5G is short range there is no certainty it will ever become widespread in rural areas, where many canals meander. Speed needs depends on what you want to do, streaming a HD tv prog or film is fine on under 5 meg which is available on 3G if you are a serious online gamer then you need more speed, you also need to have the number minimum hops to the internet servers, so a PC with a wifi dongle with an externally mounted high gain aerial from the nearest pub/supermarket/library will have a much lower ping time than a PC tethered to a mobile phone or mifi device.

As a nipper I watched some boat repair men trying to dispose of a tub (giant bucket) of contaminated diesel (from a boat underwater for 4 hours) so it had a bit of sea water in it. They threw matches in they just went out, then they lit paper bundles and put them into the diesel which put the flaming paper out. They lit wooden stickes again they went out, eventually they poured a few cupfulls of petrol on top and threw a match at it. That worked and the tub flamed away for a good few hours till all the diesel was burnt.

An equalisation charge at say 15 volts for a couple of hours may just increase the capacity a bit, allowing you to limp into the autumn. As said Lead batteries like to be fully charged every day, certainly every few days, that usually means charging for at least 5 hours every other day in winter. Because the batteries control the charge rate over 80% full and gradually accept less current, the last hour can start at 4 amps and finish at 2 to get to 100%.

Totally agree if it is flapping when it hits the pan it is the best. I used to do similar in the Bristol channel, on trip from Barry to Ilfracombe we caught and ate our fill and had several mackeral left in a bucket. We thought we could give these to fellow yachties in Ilfreacombe, but everone had thought the same. We ended up feeding some to a seagull who perched on the boom and swallowed 3. When he felt full he stretched his wings, gave a few hard flaps, and splashed down into the harbour. We watched the seagull swimming round for a few hours, but he did have a grin on his face.

May sound stupid but check that the hatch lid can't be lifted at the front, or the back, originally mine could be lifted at the back, which sort of defeated the locks on the door end.

Wood and metal expand at different rates with heat, a narrowest steel side in full summer sun can get to hot to touch so about 50 degrees or more. Also wood expands and shrinks with moisture, a boat lives in a damp atmosphere. Both make sealing to prevent leaks difficult and probably temporary.

The filter shown above uses voltage measurements to get to a SoC on discharge, the same as Smartgauge does, but for Lithium. Going back to the original question, can any voltage based device cope with solar input, when the battery gets a long slow charge. This occurs on LA or Lithium ( if you only have a few hunderd watts of solar) with just a few amps going into the battery, which will raise the voltage. I know you disconnect Lithium when nearly full, but surely you still need to rely on volts and amps to determine Soc when charging?

Ok count the narrow boats in this lock.

Yes do that a couple times a year very useful. If boat use is intermittent, when you get to boat the solar will have the batteries at 100%. The first 3 or 4 days out the Smartgauge will be wrong, one day very low, one day very high and then better. After 4 days it seems to have recalibrated itself, I think long periods of no change makes it sleepy.

Crick is also in a sort of hollow which can trap smoke in winter, and the local shop sells twice as much housecoal as smokeless. It can get a bit smoggy. The phone (O2) signal is also noticable by it's absence you need to go up the bank.

If you have a decent amount of solar (500 watts+) you batteries are likely to be full by miday in summer, unless you are a power hog, so although the Smartgauge is not that smart when charging and reads 100% early, the important reading at bed time and when you get up will be good. I have both Smartgauge and a BMV which tells me the Amphours used, which I find more useful, but since they are counted via a fiddle factor, and measuring tiny 1 amp type loads is not that accurate. When charging I don't rely on the amphour counter but rely on the volts and amps. 14.3+ volts and 4 amps is full (5 x 120 Ah batteries). In winter the smartgauge is more useful because if by 4 pm, after the solar is gone and it tells me I only have 70 ish percent, I know I need an evening boost., since I use about 15-20% most evenings and overnight. I usually have the engine on in the morning moving or not.

At the moment since we use red it is mainly boaters who nick the fuel, when we are using white car owners as well will be potential thieves. Also since the government environment report is recommending the discouragement of diesel ,I expect large price rises are in the offing possibly with a recovery of the tax available to lorry companies.

Since the engine is running when you are using your bow thruster the initial battery voltage will be high as it is on charge. I have two batteries for mine at the bow, so that the drop caused by pulling 200 Amps is less than from one battery. Even then anything over a gently breeze will win and I have never tried to fight a current. Having been brought up with sticks, cloth and string boats on the Bristol Channel, you soon learnt fighting a current was a mugs game, the tide there can reach 7 knots in places. Steering in reverse is the best use of a bow thruster.

My wife who was a teacher for 40 years until retirement in 2012 has never taught feet and inches but always taught metric since 1973. She has assisted her pupils trying to understand this old fashioned imperial stuff, which has gone the way of the empire, working as I did for an american company they started using metric in the 1990's and we kept being told how good it was because bolts were all the same thread and it was easy to scale up and down.

You will probably see fatter cormorants and heron, they can see the fish better with clear water.

In good condition you could drive a tractor into a beam that size and it wouldn't snap. Looking at the pictures is would suggest there was only an inch or so on one side of decent wood, the rest being held by the paint. But on the bright side for once it is not boaters to blame.

The heater matrix of a van or large car is usually a couple of kWatts, add in heating the engine block via the coolant water, and you can get quite a load first thing in the morning, which is what they are often fitted for. My next door neighbours sons gas board van fires up at 6.45 he gets into it at 7:00 and sets off for work.

the isolation valve mentioned is between the two pipes going to the header tank, closing the isolator forces all the flow through the header tank, both the flow and return are still open to the header tank. Domestic header tanks usually only have one pipe and that should never be isolated.