PeterF

If this is the pressure relief valve, which I suspect from your detailed technical description (valve tap-type-thing !) then whenever water is heated it expands by about 4% in volume and this excess water has to go somewhere. A good fit out will have a small vessel called an expasnion vessel to accomodate this. If the vessel is not installed or is not working then the expanding water just builds up pressure in the calorifier until the pressure relif valve vents some of this water to stop the calorifier bursting. The way to deal with this is to pipe the outlet from the pressure relif valve overboard, either through its own skin fitting or into some other outlet such as the sink or into the engine bilge. If you can not do this then put a container under it, collect the water and remember to empty it routinely. An expansion tank will look like a mini calorifier, usually only about 5 litres (1 gallon) volume, also similar to the accumulator tank on the water pump. The relief valve often has a screw knob on the top which can be turned to brielfy flush out any debris on the valve seat. You could try turning this a couple of times to get the valve to seat better. It could just be weeping because this has some debris in it. example calorifier with relief valve (black knob at top) example relif valve with red knob

Went with Anglo Welsh from Trevor a couple of years ago and had no problems at all, hired one of their newer boats with good standard of fit out. The only problem with the holiday was we bought Waterways World and then spent all our savings on our own boat.

if you run some form of waterways based group, charity, voluntary group or other then British Waterways are apparently looking at supplying some of their old boats to such organisations. I do not think that all of these have found new homes. Your organisation may fall into the category. However, from the description their may be work involved as these are old boats and if you can not arrange the required knowledge & support then aquiring one may be more of a liability. Please have a look at New homes for old boats as this has furtehr details and a contact at British Waterways.

I have probably the lowest power microwave from a caravan shop, 550W output and that draws 900W according to the label, so even the lowest power microwave demands too much power from the inverter.

My need to add revs is not about the charging amps. When I installed my alternator I geared it 3:1 so even at tickover on low batteries it delivers >120Amps which is why the engine struggles a little, it is probably taking approx. 4hp assuming 60% alternator efficiency and I have to add some revs to get the engine to run smoothly. My guess is that the OP has a similar set up, with low batteries the aletrnator is delivering a lot of power even at low revs and a cold engine at tickover does not like this.

The following taken from Waterscape.com Frid 23rd May 3.00pm. Checked it out because I was planning run up to Hebden Bridge this week.

When current draw is very high after a night using the batteries and the alternator delivers a high current my engine is not happy at tickover so I throttle up to 1,000rpm at which point the engine runs smoothly. After a while when the charge current reduces then I can put the engine back to tickover.

Waterways world did an article in June 2007 where they looked at the waveform forms from small portable generators of the size boaters would use. It was hardly a substantive survey but it tested a standard frame mounted unit (cheap), an expensive inverter generator and a cheaper inverter generator. The cheap frame mounted unit had a truncated sawtooth waveform with no load and a square waveform when under load. The inverter generators had good waveforms although not pefect at the peaks / troughs. PeterF

Also, if it is a BW towpath mooring site it will normally have a large black and white sign somewhere nearby (the local chav's not having decorated it or sunk it) saying something like "long term moorings" or "residential moorings" and even if there are empty places it is likely the person who pays to moor there is away boating and likely to be ambivalent / mildly upset / irate / ****ing mad when they find someone moored in their spot.

How about a pair of these in your dutch barge!!!! Pity they can not really open them up when run like this. Beautiful engineering. Peter.

My narrowbeam has around ½tonne of steel blocks, each 25kg under the well deck, they are about 1ft square by 1½" thick. They are either from the balance weights from a lift or something like that. They have recesses in the ends so you can lift them and stack them on top of each other without pinching your fingers. They were on the boat when I bought it so no idea how to buy them or how much they cost. For trimming steel is good, density of steel = 8kg/litre, density of concrete or bricks can vary but is typicaly in the range of 2.0-2.5kg/litre from memory so you need 1/4 to 1/3 of the volume with steel.

Ah, my shell is from prior to 2006, that may explain it because I have a signed off RCD.

My owners manual states "The tank was pressure tested during hull manufacture and it will sustain a pressure of 10 kPa (1.5 psi)." This is lower than others are quoting. As 10kPa is 1/10 of an atmosphere and 1 atmosphere is about 10m of water depth, this corresponds to about 1m of water depth. Diesel from memeory is less dense so say 1.2m water depth or about 4ft. The tank is only likely to be about 2ft deep at most so this is twice the static head of fuel which is more than that quoted from the standard above.

I have a PowerMaster 1800W pure sine wave which is earth to neutral bonded, I can not remember if I did it or if it came like that. I previously had a PowerMaster 650W pure sine wave that I bonded earth to neutral without any problem.

To those of you who have asked follow up questions, I do not know how it was plumbed in in detail, it was a hire boat not my boat. The engine made the calorifier hot through the first engine fed coil in the calotifier. The water in the calorifer got hot and this nprovided hot water as normal. The joy of this is that the engine water circuit and the central heatoing water circuit stay segregated and both are segregated from the omestic water. The central heating circulation pump was turned on but not the alde heater. Therefore cold water circulated around the radiators and through the second coil in the calorifer, as the central heating water poassed tyhrough the second coil it got heated by the water in the calorifier and released this heat to the radiators. The calorifier was working as a heat exchanger, although not an efficient one and as someone asked, yes installed a heat exchanger would make the system even better. The hot water temperature was lower because it ended up mid way between the engine water and the temperature the raidators reached. What it was great for was after a day cruising like this the inside of the cabin was nice and warm and it had not cost gas for the Alde. I am thinking of doing this for my own boat now I have one, but it has an eberspacher rather than an alde so it does not have its own thermostat to turn down and I will have to think about how to do it or add an extra pump. PeterF

The field control wire is if you have an external controller to boost the charging voltage / current and is an after market fit by Sterling which connects into the alternators own voltage regualtor inside the case. There are two types of control, postive or negative depending upon how the internal regulator is set up. Most units you will come accross are negative field control, which is why Sterling wrote in several places on my alternator that it is postive, becasue if you set it up wrong you will kill it. This is only any concern if you have an external controller such as the Sterling PDAR or perhaps some other types where the external controller will also need to be set to postive. On my installtion, because the Sterling aternator runs at about 14.5V I have not fitted an external controller, I have just insulated the end of the white wire and left it free. If you search around the site you will find most people state that if you have something around 14.5V then an external controller will not give you much of an increase in charging rate. You can find more explanation on Gibbo's excellent site Gibbo on external alternator controllers Hope this helps further. Peter. Nick, Furtehr to the above, the unit does not need the field wire using, the unit will work. If you have an external controller I recommend that you set the alternator up first without the external controller with the white wire disconnected. Then you can be sure that the alternator works properlky on its own first and then add the external controller. If you do them both at once and you have a problem you are not sure where it lies. Peter.

I hired a boat once that had two separate heating circuits, the engine and the central heating and a twin coil calorifier. The central heating circuit had a separate pump in it so that when you were travelling along with the engine, the calorifier was heated. The separate pump on the central heating was started but the boiler (Alde) was not. The central heating water warmed up as it passed through the calorifer and heated the inside of the boat. This was there was no cross contamination of the two heating circuits and you got the boat warm for free.

I have the sterling 12V 140/145A alternator. the wires are Brown and white - rev counter Brown and red - D+ - warning lamp Brown - ECU wire not to be connected Red - Battery sense wire White - field wire. If you use the field wire this is a positive field control, please be extra careful about this. The field wire is not on the plug, it is fitted by Sterling and exits from one of the holes in the case and on mine unit STerling wriote +ve field control in several places to make sure it was noticed. The red battery sense wire must be connected to either the B+ terminal or to the battery postive , the latter allows for voltage drop in the cable. The alternator is case earthed so you do not need a negative wire. I have managed to scan in my instruction sheet and attach below, so print this image. PeterF

I found one with a magnet and after cleaning off the worst of the rust and scale I painted it with Vactan and that seams to have sealed the surface well and it has not rusted further and it is clean to use. Search for Vactan on this site and you will get many posts testifying to its efficaciousness.

Hi, some info you may find useful. I did not get anywhere with Barrus so being an engineer myself I decided to sort mine out. It is a 2002 model but the same, twin alternators on one belt and boy did it eat belts. I bought a sterling 140A alternator as theirs has the large single foot and will sit forward of the current mounting. I had to add another bracket to the front of the alternator to minimize side loads on the new bolt. The top adjustment bracket also needed some bending. I bought a new twin groove pulley from Thornycroft and had the end of the boss machined to suit the front of the Barrus pulley. The Thornycroft pulley is a 200mm pulley so with the 67mm pulley on the alternator I get a 3:1 drive which is still OK for max rpm on the engine and gives me good charging at tick over or a good power output. The only thing left was to design a means of adjusting the starter alternator belt as this alternator is fixed and it looked difficult to make new mounts. The answer lay in an idler pulley on an adjustable mounting plate which I found on ebay, I recall it was off an Alfa car engine being broken and this happily sits on a couple of the available bolts in the right places. I needed a few shims washers making up to space everything but it works fine and I can run my inverter with engine running at low revs and easily deliver about 1500W to the inverter without starting to take current from the batteries. I have to admit is is not as professional as the proper kit but it is fit for purpose. As I was developing the set up I scanned the Barrus manual drawing and modified it so I was sure I was doing the right thing. Tyhe pictures below may explain a little better what was done. I would recommend that you only get into this level of work if you really know what you are doing, as I said I am an engineer myself. Also, I have not changed anything on the original mounts and have retained the original alternaotr so if need be I can easily go back to the factory installation. If you want more details / some photos of the installation pm me with your email. PeterF

In the same position as yourself with 2nd hand boat. I have tried heating it with 2 blowtorches simulaneously, using a pipe wrench with impressive teeth, swore at it and cursed it and all to no avail. More heat may have helped, oxy torch perhaps. I have given up tying to remove mine, I have cruiser stern so it does not really get in the way. Best of luck and if you find a way to remove it without resort to demolition tools let us know.

I think Harveys Boat Builders in Tamworth sell faced ply, but not sure about maple. Can not get ointo their web site at the moment. www.harveysboatbuilders.co.uk