Piran

I need to just check as my electrician took it, but it was definitely over the normal amount

The electrolyte level is fine and has been since I noticed the bubbling. However, when I last topped them up a couple of months ago unfortunately some of the plates were very close to being exposed or exposed slightly as I had forgotten to do it for a few months. It is also possible the solar controller has been overcharging for a while (which I perhaps didn't notice until recently), which perhaps has damaged and not allowed them to recover...

Thanks @Tony Brooks. The batteries were installed in 2016, trying to gather if that makes them quite old and prone to plate issues? As the charge is dropping at a slow rate does that make it less likely there is a leak of that sort?

Thanks for the responses! Haha I did wonder about there being a mouse down there but definitely seems to be the batteries! It is odd... is it possible that one of the batteries could be doing less well than the others causing current to pass between them?! Not sure if that would explain the continued bubbling. Would someone mind explaining what a 'shorting cell' means? Cheers again!

My Trojan open batteries were being overcharged, thought to be due to a fault with my solar controller. Since Friday (4 days ago) they have been disconnected from the solar and haven’t been charged by the engine. Their voltage is now 12.6 and they are still displaying symptoms of over charging such as make little squeaking noises and produce a small amount of bubbles seen rising from the plates. At no point have they been hot or making a gassing sound when opening the terminals. Is this normal? How long can I expect them to bubble or might something else be going on?

Oh and what process / tools did you do to get rid of as much rust build up before treating? I have a metal scraper and sandpaper but wondering what else could be good!

Ah ok cool, maybe I will go all craftmaster

Gearing up to paint the accessible portions of my cabin bilge and wondering if there is much variability in rust treatments? I have plenty of this one left over from treating my weed hatch cover but want to make sure I am using some thing well suited to the job. I have a condensation issue in the portions of my cabin bilge that my back boiler pipes run through. Any recommendations of primers/paints to use in bilges that are damp prone?

Cool, thank you!

Can't get hold of the yard as it is good Friday but would like to know if this is a standard practice in grit blasting

Have been using whatever I can get my hands on so far but I know some are definitely better than others. Do people tend to prefer certain kinds due to their heat output or other factors?

Hmm, starting to wonder from a bit more research whether a header tank is an expansion tank (sorry for the tripping up on this)

Well, we have a header tank but no expansion tank... There also isn't a drainage system Do you know if having a header tank in fact means that it is an open/vented system?

right so after a lot of searching and a call with the previous owner I have realised that I actually have a closed, pump system. After experiencing an (electrical) pump failure yesterday we are quite keen to just disconnect the back boiler and use the stove on its own. Would rather just have the stove without the stress of the back boiler at this point. Any tips for disconnection? Wondering if we can just unscrew the back boiler entry and exit pipes and let the liquid in the back of the stove burn off or if we need to drain the entire system and remove all the pipe work? Getting pretty chilly so keen to get the fire on !

Thanks very much all of you. I will do those things tomorrow and will definitely be looking to update the entire fuse system ASAP