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Everything posted by Tash and Bex
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"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
i do have a webasto, but i am thinking of adding a second, a 5KW webasto will heat 150l with a 40c rise in around 40 minutes. they are commonly available from breakers yards now, as they are fitted to many diesel cars. I can get a working one for around £50! In terms of tank expansion, I am considering a tank very similar to my waste tank, and whilst doubtless this does distort when full, it's not by much. it will be interesting to see if 40 degree water has a similar effect! indeed, I refer you to my many earlier posts on in this thread which mention that -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
I appreciate your calling me stupid, however allow me to explain. A 200L water tank can be pretty much any shape you desire, a fairly flat tank would be easily to install under the floor of the wardrobes. A domestic hot water cylinder of any description has a diameter it seems of 510mm minimum, and would be difficult to site 200L of water weighs well, 200kg and will certainly affect ballast, if I were to implement my plastic tank idea, the tank would be on the same side as the bath, and as only one of these vessels would be full at anytime, ballast can be allowed for. The plastic tank would not be allowed to refill until the bath was emptied thus negating the dynamic ballasting issues. A DHW tank based system will cost around £600 more than the plastic tank system, not a problem if it has £600 of extra value to the system, but I am not in anyway convinced it will ah yes I take your point, but if i mount my water tank 50' above the boat I would struggle with bridges! -
Immersion heater consumption
Tash and Bex replied to Alan de Enfield's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
i'm a gonna guess the cabling will consume a bit, and there will be a tolerance in the consumption of the heater of a few percent -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
yes, in a pressurised system cylinders have a much better resistance to splitting and deforming, but I would contest your supposition that water is more often stored in cylinders as I live on a rather long stretch of canal which seems to be rather reasonable at storing water, domestic supply tank is frankly some kind of crazy polygon and my fish tank is a cube. I think the "good reason" you allude to is that it's much much cheaper to make cylindrical pressure vessels than any other shape. -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
thanks, I will look into it -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
well, raised to bathwater temperature, but yes, essentially, the advantages of such a system outweigh any other choices as far as I can tell -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
lol, you consider that using a hot water cylinder as a.....hot water cylinder represents out of the box thinking? domestic unvented cylinders aka calorifiers seems rather firmly in the box to me, but I appreciate your suggestion -
invertek charger solar input
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
Tony, I appreciate your heartlessness however I will not make concession to the fact that I live afloat when it comes to living, and whilst you are correct, if I light purely with candles and spend my evenings reading a book in silence then I could make considerable energy savings. I would prefer to use technology to solve my problem rather than run away from it, to which end 600ah of batteries, 500w of solar and a small suitcase generator do the job. I replace the flooded cells annually and all is well. I will shortly be fitting a full size domestic washer/drier...that's likely to need a decent generator anyway, I could of course get a dolly tub and mangle!! Thank god I didn't mention my tropical fish tank....! -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
yes, that would be a solution, however I would struggle to site it, hence it would need to be horizontal and even then would be inconvenient. also, if I have a system running the same capacity of storage as the bath it would only ever need to get to bath water temperature, a domestic unvented calorifier seems a bit overkill.....Now if I had a widebeam it would be a different story -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
a vented tank is at atmospheric pressure, it's vented! -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
generally yes, a split tank is the most dramatic outcome, and I have no concerns whatsoever about pressurised HW systems! -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
please expand? -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
a calorifier is running at 25psi in most cases, which is around the same pressure as a non vented domestic system. the issue really comes if the prv fails, they don't half go boom if they boil up.... However assuming that doesn't happen then this is a definite possibility should it not prove possible to implement my "plastic" tank idea. incidentally, a plastic tank would have the same capacity as the bath and therefore wouldn't need to be heated past 40 degrees and diluted, however I would have to heat it past i think, 65c regularly to destroy legionnaires bacteria -
Struggling to get the Webasto Top C to start up.
Tash and Bex replied to Kelbs's topic in Build Blogs
jury rig a couple of short pipes to the heater, stick em in a bucket of water, if she starts give her a while until you have a bucket of steaming hot water! if you have trv's on your rads replace one with a conventional rad valve (usually the towel rail) and then there is always going to be a flow. if you have a single pipe circuit for your heating then i am afraid your rads can't have trv's and must all be "on" at all times -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
it won't be on the centreline, which i agree could cause an issue, however if i further explore the "auxiliary" tank option either the bath or the tank will be full so they can be ballasted for. my waste tank is quite another issue! we have a cross bed arrangement, ballasting and list don't seem to affect sleep as much in a cross bed but an open vented tank doesn't necessarily mean an open tank, just an unpressurised one, if i have a similarly closed expansion tank which is then vented I could vent through the deck head. -
Struggling to get the Webasto Top C to start up.
Tash and Bex replied to Kelbs's topic in Build Blogs
my two penneth, I've had many old and outmoded webasto's donated to me over the years, one of the advantages of having a friend that works there. They are pretty solid little things and can stand a fair bit of abuse. If there is fuel squirting out of the pump, and if there is water going around the circuit then it's down to volts. Echoing what many others have said, check the voltage at the unit while it's trying to start, the volt drop when the glow plug kicks in is likely to be your issue, it usually is! As has been mooted around, the marine version has a lower permissible minimum voltage during running, but the permissible voltage allowance of the unit is modified during the start up cycle. The difference is significant at this part of the programming, presumably to take into account that most cars only have a single battery and it needs to be able to start the car! The units normal programming would allow it to make three start up attempts before going into shutdown, which then requires removal of the "heat" trigger signal to reset. If there is an airlock leading to no circulation of the water, thermal shutdown will happen in not more than a few seconds of flame. and it will take a good while for the overtemp to clear unless the water circulation is sorted quickly whilst the water pump is still running. -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
Brilliant, so allowing for a full bath of hot water will give me a considerable overhead, perhaps I can reduce the capacity of my auxiliary tank to 150L it's an ideal solution, my only issue would be sizing the second calorifier, what capacity would I need to fill a full size bath with nice hot water assuming the cold water I mix in is at what, 10 degrees? -
Immersion heater consumption
Tash and Bex replied to Alan de Enfield's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
I suspect it may be down to the voltage. The meter may well display watts assuming the standard 230v rms is present, do you know if this is the case, there can be huge volt drops on marina wiring! -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
Yes it would definitely be a bonus, and an external heat exchanger in combination with a circulation pump on the tank would replace an internal coil. In your experience, even on fairly short and cool days outside of april to september, do you get a "pre-heating" effect from the solar water system. Running costs are not a huge issue, the bath would certainly be seen as a weekly "treat" with showers being taken the vast majority of the time -
River Trent - narrowboat in trouble but all now safe
Tash and Bex replied to Momac's topic in General Boating
the trent is a pussycat if you are familiar with tidal waters. ALWAYS have a suitable anchor, and in addition a decent mud weight can get you out of many a scrape, I think it is important to assume you're going to break down on every tidal or rather "flowing water" trip and make arrangements to mitigate an occurrence. -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
I've just looked at the capacity, which it clams is 210l, so no allowance for displacement, but I think working on worst case will give me suitable headroom in the specs presumably a horizontal one would? even given the rubbish stratification issues -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
lol, nope, zero facilities unless you count a wonky mooring ring and a bollard! -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
another consideration would be to utilise the webasto to directly heat the bath, the principal being, fill the bath with cold water, switch on the webasto, go find something to do while the webasto circulates and obviously warms the water! A webasto water heater is rated at 5kw (or 9kw) we do not have shore supply at our mooring 40c water is fairly warm, recommended maximum temp for a bath is 39c -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
the open vented auxiliary tank becomes this extended calorifier, if it is connected exclusively (obviously via a pump), to the bath tap it will be effectively excluded when it is not needed. The shower will continue to be connected to the existing system. the large, insulated, plastic tank can quite easily have a small header tank to allow for expansion and this tank can be open vented -
"outside the box" thinkers only please!!!
Tash and Bex replied to Tash and Bex's topic in Boat Building & Maintenance
very little, we have a permanent city centre mooring now. I have been trying to work space in for a larger domestic unvented calorifier, but I just can't, unless I were to use it horizontally and even this would be a push