Tash and Bex

I'm considering a Lipo as a future upgrade, as well as heading down the electric propulsion route...may I ask as someone with experience of the same, would you change anything?

Hi, A little one for outside the box thinkers please. I realise a bath on a boat is a ridiculously indulgent waste of water. I also realise the folly of putting a bath on a boat in terms of the space it consumes. I am installing a full sized corner bath with a capacity of around 200L on Helena during a major refit. I am trying to think of ways to reliably, safely and "legally"(in terms of the BSS) produce enough hot water to fill the bath. Currently I am considering fitting an auxiliary water tank of around the same capacity of the bath to extend our tank capacity enough to allow for it without affecting our bunkering routine too much. and I am considering ways of heating this "buffer" tank before using it to bathe. A few little boaty tech facts about Helena... I have a large (around 700L) water tank, my hot water cylinder is a standard horizontal calorifier, can't remember the capacity, not much! It is currently heated either by a 1kw immersion heater (rarely), the webasto water heater (usually) or the engine. Fairly conventional stuff with exception to the cold storage tank. If i were to sneak in a 250L plastic tank under the new wardrobe floor I could theoretically heat the water that is in it and specifically use it exclusively for our bath. I would obviously have to have it open vented, but I think I could easily add a balance pipe to the main tank to fill it when we bunker, and gravity would refill it as we use it. I am considering a second hand second webasto to this end. My calculations seem to suggest a 5kw heater will take approximately an hour to produce a 30c rise in that kinda volume of water. Other things I have considered are of course an instantaneous gas heater (an 11L morco would only take 20m to fill the bath directly fed with "cold"water, but at what cost in terms of gas) which is certainly still an option. If I choose to heat the tank of water rather than the instantaneous option of course the tank would be insulated and in order to stop convection mixing the water into the main tank a one way valve could be fitted on the fill (necessary?) I have also considered the bonus that, if the webasto/tank option is viable I can install some evacuated tube solar hot water on the roof of the boat and pre-warm the tank or even heat it in summer, via a plate heat exchanger. I realise if I do either of these things there will have to be a way of getting the tank to above 65c weekly to remove the risk of legionnaires. Please understand that I am well aware of the folly of the above, please keep the discussion based expanding on my thoughts and let me know your thoughts on where I would stand with the BSS compliance. Thanks in advance, Bex

Tha Issue being I often leave the boat at 6am, and don't return until 7pm! Perhaps it is time to invest in an autostart marine genny (gulp)

Hi Tony, Still here, and offering advice, you helped me a very lot during the initial build, though I VERY much doubt you would recognise me! Our domestic usage is huge, I live aboard but make no concession the fact my home is a boat and run a 46" tv, and a valve amp on my hifi, my electrical draw is huge. On a good sunny day my solar is great, but does not provide a full charge so i use the genny. unfortunately I tend to have to start this when I leave for work, as it is rather late when I get back. Ideally I would like the batteries to make as much use of the solar as possible, rather than the mppt going into float, which lead to the question about the inverter being a better option for charge management, with the mppt connected to that. thanks again, Bex

Hi All, I added around 500w of solar to the roof at the beginning of the year, and though it seems to be working just fine I have a couple of ideas that may improve things. Firstly is the connection of the MPPT into the batteries. i have a fairly cheap 40a mppt, standard amazon chinese job, it seems to work well in isolation, however when i start the generator (no shore power) to charge via my 1500w Invertek inverter/charger (stirling rebranded) the mppt display shows a huge reduction in charge current, I'm guessing because the control circuits in the mppt see the terminal voltage as quite high as it is being artificially boosted by the charge voltage from the inverter and believe the batteries to be "full" and thus reduce the solar current? I'm looking at reconfiguring the system to take the most advanting of the solar and have a couple of direct questions!! Firstly, My Invertek inverter does have provision for solar input, it lists several compatible MPPT's which unsurprisingly are all Invertek branded and stupidly expensive. Is it necessary to specifically use an invertek mppt, is there any data communication between the inverter and the mppt which would make it brand unique? If it is compatible, would it be a better place to connect it than directly to the battery terminals in parallel to the inverters connection. Secondly, there are three pairs of terminals on the MPPT, obviously panel input and battery output, the other pair are marked "load" I have left this disconnected as most of my pre-distribution cable is 95mm2 and the terminal struggles with 6mm2 Do I need to find a "dummy load" or something to connect to this? Thirdly, can the assembled think of a better way of doing all of it??? Thanks in advance, Bex

HI Jen, New member, please be gentle! I moored at LB for several years, I have to say I loved every minute. LB itself is a lovely and very proud little town, and community. Commuting into central london was quicker then when I lived in Greater London (Northolt). The only negatives really are that the towpath is very busy with walkers, and the canal has paddlers on it every evening. Apparently since we left there has been an expansion on the settled traveller site, and that seems to be leading to a little more petty crime, but tbh I wouldn't worry too much, though we did have a generator stolen while we were there (I'm not suggesting for a second the two are related!!) All in all I really miss the place, and would love to go back. Bex