Lily Rose

If your main concern is battery state when discharging why can't you just supplement your existing method by monitoring the rested voltage? The only system I have is a cheap plug-in voltmeter in the cabin (initially checked for accuracy using a multi-strengths voltage reading on the solar MPPT controller) to make sure the voltage at bedtime is at least 12.6 and in the morning it's still well above 12.3. I have managed to get a decent life out of cheap lead acid batteries so far using only this method of monitoring. I did consider a smartgauge but wasn't at all sure I'd do any better than I do without one.

Good point. If mine was under the bed I wouldn't worry in the slightest. Unfortunately it's in the engine room of my trad-stern boat so it loses warmth quite quickly even though I have a hot water cylinder jacket wrapped around it on top of its own insulation. How soon it would freeze enough to cause a problem I just don't know. I'm hoping that one night of temperatures in the low (negative) single figures won't see enough ice forming to cause a problem.

Might not apply to your boat but on mine there is a stop-cock in the pipe about 6 inches from the tank. I turn this off, open the tap until all the water in the pipe has been drained, turn off the pump and leave the tap open before I go home. I suspect it makes no difference as the pipework is well below the waterline but I do it anyway as it's so easy. I have never been able to drain the calorifier so I leave a thermostat-controlled tube heater under it in winter. Unfortunately I didn't put it there when I left the boat 9 days ago as, at the time, tonight was forecast to be +4°C. It's now forecast to be -4°C so I am a bit concerned but probably not enough to do a round trip of nearly two and a half hours to put it back. If Jen is right about the 24 hour average then it should be ok. I hope.

This is Richard's website... https://www.primrose-engineering.co.uk/

Similar but I normally like to see 12.7 at bedtime with the fridge not running and the surface charge gone. I also hope to see 12.5 in the morning but sometimes I'm too late as the solar has woken up before me.

I'm quite interested in that as well. And what, if anything, you miss about NC. From time to time (usually during winter) I contemplate selling but the fear of missing it terribly later holds me back. My next door neighbours at the marina sold their boat 7 or 8 years ago. The new owner brought it to our marina and became my neighbour. 2 or 3 years later he sold it after he'd bought a bigger boat but it remained as my next door neighbour as the people he sold it to were the people he'd bought it from! They missed it so much they decided to look for another boat to buy and spotted their old boat up for sale, by coincidence, so they bought it back.

I don't mind it once I'm up but I'm not so keen when they wake me up at silly o'clock.

Aah Alexa. The last "person" I speak to at night and the first I speak to in the morning. Except when I'm on the boat. Frankly I don't care if she's listening all the time, I can't imagine she'll hear anything of much interest to anyone.

Passing on your findings is good but if it's vague and gives no source then it doesn't really help anyone. That's why I wanted to know more.

Ok then, I'll add some detail to make the information useful. It looks like this is is what was being referred to https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/warning-issued-drivers-filling-up-29341455?int_source=nba So the "fuel" being referred to is diesel and it's all about the current high diesel premium so it won't affect petrol cars. My diesel tank needs filling so I may see if I can wait a little bit longer but it looks like RAC wishful thinking to me. Hopefully it will happen but it's only going to be a 20p reduction per litre at the very most. Significant but I'm not sure I'd go quite as far as the RAC in calling it huge. Not for me with my low mileage anyway, more significant for gas guzzlers.

What type of fuel? Where did you get this information from?

Just came across this link which might be useful. https://livingonanarrowboat.co.uk/category/newsletter-archive/ Thanks. I remember originally thinking 60% was propulsion but something or someone changed my mind. I can't remember what/who it was but clearly it was wrong.

For people with more money than sense. The other fella caters for people with more sense than money.

As well as reading various threads on Canalworld you might also find it useful to have a read of some of the articles on Paul Smith's website. He no longer sends out regular email newsletters or writes new articles for the website but he does still do his one day training courses (just south of Rugby) for people thinking of buying a narrow boat for leisure or liveaboard. Going on one of these would probably be money well spent but it may be a bit too far away from you. Maybe there are similar services in the north, I don't know. Anyway, irrespective of that you should find his articles to be a source of useful information and, as a bonus, they are often very amusing. https://livingonanarrowboat.co.uk/

For some reason I had it in my head that it was 70/30, not 60/40 (which I always think of as the traditional balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds). Maybe I've never gone for a 60/40 split (in diesel purchase or investments), I don't remember doing so anyway. Do they ever challenge any self-declared splits? ETA: isn't 60/40 domestic/propulsion rather than the other way round?

In my view they are totally ineffective as a method of suicide. Unless you sit on them whilst the boat is moving. I hadn't thought of wiring them to a high voltage supply but then I didn't have them added to my boat, they were already there when I bought it and I hadn't realised what their purpose was until I started reading stuff on this forum. There must be more reliable forms of suicide than these seats though and which don't involve the initial outlay of tens of thousands of GBPs.

I often go backwards and I have suicide seats but I minimise the risk of unintentionally diving in head first by only sitting on them when I'm moored up. And rarely even then.

I believe that was the plan and that it has now been shelved. I could be wrong but it's definitely still red diesel at the moment.