Nigel S

Dear All Our 57ft narrowboat is now over 9 years old and I'm spending quite a bit of time touching up the paintwork. I may have to think of getting a professional repaint one of these days but in the meantime I was annoyed to discover recently that the main colour - Blakes/Hempel Rhapsody Blue (33960) has been discontinued and it's now very hard to find. Can anybody suggest a source of supply or an equivalent from another manufacturer? There are a lot of boats out there in very similar looking colours, so it's clearly very popular - it certainly seems perverse of the manufacturers to have dropped it! Thanks Nigel

Hi Julynian Very interested in your experience with the LED bulbs - are they lasting OK? Elsewhere there seem to be reports of the cheaper ones being very sensitive to voltage fluctuations and failing in a few weeks., even when they supposedly include voltage regulators of some kind. Thanks - Nigel

Gareth I am looking into alternator controllers as I have a Beta 38 with the same kind of twin alternator setup as discussed in this thread and I was interested in your endorsement of the Adverc. Our main problem is that we have a fairly substantial 240v domestic fridge which we run off our Victron inverter when on the move, and as I am a fairly relaxed boater and don't generally rev the engine a lot, I have the feeling (backed up by my digital voltemeter!) that we rarely recharge our domestic battery bank as much as we could. This is particularly noticeable in the winter (funnily enough) because the heating is on in the boat, so the fridge has to work harder, but of course we tend to cruise slightly fewer hours per day. Not long ago we replaced the domestic batteries with Varta AGM batteries (3x95Ahour but they are pretty conservatively rated) and I know they can accept a pretty high rate of charge - so if I could increase the rate from the present 30A or so (I estimate) by paralleling up the alternators it certainly wouldn't do any harm. Indeed as someone else has commented it might also introduce an extra safety margin by allowing the alternators to "back each other up". Do you think that sounds sensible? Presumably it doesn't matter that the starter battery is an ordinary flooded cell type as the Adverc should deal with that. Thanks in advance for any comments/suggestions Nigel

I notice that Rinnai and Morco both make instantaneous gas water heaters in the form of compact wall-hung units - is anyone aware of a compact gas boiler (about 5kW) for connection to a radiator/calorifier circuit designed along similar lines? I am looking for something fairly simple that can be mounted on the the wall in the galley and is compatible with existing copper fittings/calorifier (i.e we can't accommodate an Alde, unfortunately!) Thanks Nigel

As an update to my original message, this project may turn out to be over-ambitious - I have just heard from Harworth Heating (the people who make the Bubble stove) that the "wet" version of the stove cannot be used dry at all, even if you drain it down (whereas I had been assured by one installer that this would be no problem). So unless anyone's got any ingenious ideas, it looks as though it wouldn't be possible to install an independent boiler as well. Nigel

We have a diesel bubble stove with back boiler and a circulating pump connected to three radiators and one of the coils of our twin-coil calorifier. This works pretty well and can get the boat very warm but it is not very controllable and if it is left running at night, the saloon gets rather too hot for anyone to sleep near it. It's also a bit of a performance to light it if you just want some hot water. I am thinking of adding a CH boiler such as an Alde Compact (gas - as we already have gas on board for cooking) or a Webasto Thermo Top (diesel - as it would be more convenient to connect up to the main diesel tank and not to keep changing gas cylinders!) We would probably disconnect the bubble stove from the heating circuit and use it independently when required (I know you have to drain it first!) to avoid the systems fighting each other. I understand that the new Aldes are pretty efficient so I'm not too worried about running costs, but it looks as though the Alde has to go somewhere inside the boat (e.g. in a cupboard or under a dinette) and needs a "chimney" so would take up useful space and generally be complicated to install in an existing layout. However it is supposed to be very quiet in operation. The Webasto, on the other hand, could fit in the engine compartment but I am a bit concerned that it is supposedly more noisy - e.g. if it was set to come on early in the morning would it wake me up (I'm very sensitive to unexpected noises on board)? I know it also uses more power from the batteries but I recently installed some Varta AGM batteries which I think are pretty robust and I would usually expect to run it for just a couple of hours at a time as required. Any comments anyone? Thanks - Nigel

Thanks for the suggestion, Chris - I'm a great Screwfix fan as well but the trouble with most of the very cheap downlighter fittings is that they don't have switches so you have to do extra wiring and also they are intended for MR16 reflector lamps which have a minimum wattage of 20w (as far as I know - does anyone know of a 10w version?). I don't really want to go to 20w unless the light from the 10w lamps is still not good enough, and in any case I'm not really looking for a "spotlight" effect. You can also get G4 capsules in all sorts of low wattages - 5,10,15,20 etc. In order to avoid the switch problem (and to keep the reasonably "boaty" light fittings I've already got) I'm really trying to build something into the existing domes as David S has done, so I'd rather use bare lamp bases which are more likely to fit inside - which I don't think a reflector lamp/downlighter arrangement will do. Of course Screwfix also do "cabinet downlights" (£3.52) which take G4 capsules, the reflectors being built into the fitting rather than being built into the lamp, which might fit inside but it looks as though it could be a bit tight so one might well have to take them apart. Consequently I think I'll try one bare Maplin lampholder (£2.99) before buying lots more bits! Nigel

Nick: I certainly don't like the sound of them "dangling" on a boat! What I am suggesting is that the G4 bulb will be securely fixed on a ceramic base inside a standard kind of dome light with the filament in virtually the same position as the original festoon bulb - i.e mounted onto the metal base and well clear of the inside of the shade (which is glass anyway). You're quite right, the local temperature adjacent a halogen bulb is probably very high which means you don't want to have any thermoplastics nearby, but the total amount of heat (i.e inside the glass shade) certainly shouldn't be more than generated by the festoon bulb. Also I'm not talking about reflector lamps here which focus the light - eg. MR16 spots - but rather the small G4 bare quartz capsules which are not much different in size to a standard festoon bulb. If reflector lamps were a consideration I think it would definitely be safer to change the whole fitting. Nigel

Thanks David - that was the sort of thing I was thinking of, although my idea was to use a very small Maplin porcelain G4 lampholder base (I'm afraid I don't know whether this whole link will be reproduced): http://www.maplin.co.uk/Search.aspx?criter...rce=15&SD=Y This seems to have two small fixing holes. Are your bulbs just pointing straight down or did you arrange them to be horizontal (which might be more secure - I was thinking that vibration of the boat might shake them loose otherwise)? I certainly don't see that overheating should be an issue - the G4 capsules are very small and if they are the same wattage as the festoon bulbs but more efficient, the wasted heat ought to be less if anything. Anyway, I assume you got a worthwhile improvement in light output? Nigel

My boat has got conventional dome lights in the ceiling with 10w festoon bulbs and I'm thinking of changing to G4 halogen to get a bit more light especially in the saloon. Is there any easy way of converting the existing fittings rather than replacing them completely? I see that it is possible to buy porcelain G4 lampholders from Maplin which presumably, could be mounted in the existing housings - does anyone have any comments? Would it be worth completely replacing the fittings with similar looking 2D fluorescent types in terms of light output for the same wattage - and if so does anyone have any particular recommendations? Thanks Nigel