booke23

A leaking calorifier coil could have various symptoms depending on the specifics of your setup. One scenario might be that it won't leak while the domestic water system is pressurised (ie while the water pump is on) but does so slowly when it's off....perhaps even back filling your domestic water tank in the bow if the header tank is high enough. This could account for the total lack of evidence of a water leak. In the absence of any other evidence, It might be worth isolating or bypassing the calorifier coil just to rule it out.

As a thought experiment….What would a coastal marine broker choose to sell….a RIB, a motor cruiser, a racing Yacht, a sloop? It’s probably a tricky question to answer as all customers are different. I suspect most brokers would say ‘any boat that is correctly priced’ as I’m sure their worst nightmare is a seller who insists their boat is worth £20k more than it is and sits on brokerage for months.

Good point. On the beta 30 (Kubota 3 cylinder) an external header tank is optional. The engine has a built in tank like below. To @BlueStringPudding some photos might help.

A leak in the calorifier heat exchanger coil? This would drop the header tank as you use hot water from the taps. Or maybe an external leak on a skin tank?

I heard it’s because they’re made from bits and pieces.

That’s impressive!

West country accent?

Not strictly canal based but it does involve a lock! I was reading about the history of the USS White Sands, a mobile dry dock ship which was decommissioned in 1974. She was purchased by a ship building company to be used as a permanent dry dock in Lake Seattle, USA. This involved transiting an 80ft wide lock....the ship's beam was 81ft. The solution? Well they weighed down one side of the ship and transited the locks while listing 38 degrees. P.s I hope this doesn't give widebeam boaters any ideas!

Not tiny then. My narrowboat is 40ft and it currently has 400w of solar. I could easily double that to 800w and if I was happy to loose all the roof 1kw would be possible. But my boat has a big cabin for a 40 footer…..how much solar you can fit will depend on your cabin size and design (chimneys, pigeon boxes etc), and how much roof you are actually comfortable to loose as it’s handy for storage etc.

For the sake of the first time narrowboater OP......You'll need a battery bank at least double your daily usage, assuming it's a lead acid battery bank. So 440AH should do it. But with the kind of power usage you're talking about, you should consider LiFePO4 batteries as you can get away with a smaller battery bank....say 300AH. But that doesn't come that cheap. You'll probably want to install the maximum solar you can too..if you can get 1KW of solar on your boat it should keep up with those power requirements from May-September.

I have a 55inch oled tv in the house, it draws around 120 Watts. A PS5 draws up to 230 Watts. Using worst case figures if you play 4 hours a day, that's 117AH....say 150AH when you take into consideration inverter efficiency. Add in all your other power use (fridge,lights,water pump etc) and you're probably looking at over 200AH. That's a lot of power to generate every day.

You're right, but I fear the various voices of reason and caution in this thread are whistling into the wind. Just like most other posts like this, the OP has already made up their mind.

Even stretching to £25,000 will only get you a very low end steel narrowboat which would need work, so I'd definitely suggest you need to secure finance for a decent boat. £35,000 - £40,000 gets you a perfectly good albeit old boat. If you want anything built in the last 20 years that is suitable to live on, you're going to have to spend north of £50,000. Of course financing this sort of sum in addition to mooring fees/licence/boat maintenance/boat deprecation, will probably be close to what your current rent is. The sensible advice would be to use your cash deposit to buy a flat/house.....long term it's by far the better proposition then buy a boat as a hobby later...........But you only live once.

Good point.

150 amps at 13.8 volts is about 2kw or 2.7hp, so very similar to cruising at 3mph in most boats. Of course during charging 150 amps won't be generated for long, but it'll still be a significant load.

Yes, once you've planned the route go to preferences at the top of the page, then the planning tab. There it will let you put in the dimensions of your boat and it will plan the route accordingly.

Here's the chart from the Beta 43 manual. Notice the fuel consumption graph at the bottom....there is hardly any difference in hourly consumption between 800 and 1200 RPM, but likely a big difference in alternator output.

Canal plan says it's possible. 4 or 5 days cruising depending where you are on the Nene.

I've tried all three. Brazier is a bit rubbish and I wouldn't recommend. Very ashy and although cheap,, a false economy as you end up using more of it to get the same heat output of better coal. Homefire and ecoal are both good, in fact I'm using ecoal at the moment. Homefire is a bit hotter but more expensive.

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True.....and expensive when you get into rebuilding beds etc. Which is why I ultimately abandoned the idea myself.

That may well be, but when you're retrofitting as in the OP's case certain limitations come into play. In my case there are drawers under the bed on my boat which means the tank would have to go in the space behind the drawers along the port side which would result in a list.