cheesegas

I've got a little Villager Heron stove, and it's a real pain to get the balance of air just right so the boat isn't 30 degrees inside, or the fire goes out. Bought one of these and it's much easier to maintain a constant temperature without turning the boat into a sauna. Probably could have done the same with some fire bricks but the two builders merchants I tried didn't have any.

It's always worth revisiting concepts though as new technology emerges - off grid, gas free cooking is getting viable now with lithium batteries. Well, in summer at least! Until October, I use an electric kettle and induction hob, the gas hob gets covered over. The power is quickly put back into the batteries from solar, and it saves on gas; a 13kg bottle lasts me about 8 months as it's only used for hot water.

I bought one of those mini diaphragm pumps with a little hose gun for about £15 on ebay for washing the boat with canal water. Works great for that, but it has a fairly fine filter on the intake, the little valves inside will clog with hair and soap deposits very very quickly. It's simply the wrong tool for the job, price aside...

Thanks, I'll get some True Blue, there's a Toolstation near me at the moment. All the reading I've done suggests that NPTF is gloriously self-sealing, hopefully that'll solve it. Very difficult to clean the female thread on the pump though...

Nope - first thing in line is the water seperator, then the filter, then the lift pump. Usually it's just below the injection pump on my engine, feeding it directly. Facet say that the pump should be after the filter too, I don't think they deal well with crap in the fuel. Ah I'll have a look, thanks, will apply the tape with caution!

Great, thanks all, I'll try some PTFE tape! For some reason I thought it broke down with diesel, but a quick google and you guys have proved me wrong. Will keep it off the first few threads as I don't want it ending up in the injection pump...

London isn't for everyone, but it certainly isn't the hell-hole most people on here make it out to be... I enjoy the contrast of the upper Stort or the GU around Stoke Hammond to the hustle and bustle of Clapton, or the community around Kensal. And then the quiet industrial bits of Brentford before getting onto the Thames... A bit of everything makes it fun, that's why a moving house is fun! As someone who's part of a certain engineers group on Facebook, I can tell you that there's no shortage of engineers willing to travel and park in awkward places, it's just the sheer number of broken boats needing attention. Average waiting list to have someone out is around 8 weeks at the moment. I'll PM you.

Whereabouts are you in London? I’m not there at the moment but I commute through occasionally, mostly to jobs in East London though.

Thanks, yep I've tried searching for an 1/8 NPTF to 5/16" compression too but the nearest I found was an 1/8 NPT male to 5/16" compression - apparently NPT and NPTF are compatible, but will no long seal on the threads and will need sealant. Hoping to keep it all NPTF but it seems that even that leaks!

It's a good idea to get an marine sparky (not a house sparky, most of them don't know 12v systems!) to have a look around the boat and tell you what does what. Most boats more than a few years old will have been modified by each owner, resulting in wiring changes, mystery switches, things not being hooked up like you'd expect and so on. For example, your 1-2-both switch may be hooked up backwards to convention... For example, my boat passed a BSS shortly after I bought it in unchanged form; electrics were a mess and I hadn't been through them other than to use it as a bargaining tool...but I took a chance to see if it would pass. It did. The 1-2-both switch actually did nothing at all, the domestic 12v fuseboard was hooked directly to the starter battery with a wire wound around the clamp, and there was a teeny tiny relay which connected the leisure and starter with an unlabelled switch. Without knowing all that, it's a shot in the dark trying to give advice to someone!

Hi all. The mechanical fuel lift pump diaphragm rotted and developed a hole on my Isuzu 3KC1, called Engines Plus and the diaphragm is no longer available as a part...but they could sell me a whole new lift pump at £890 + VAT! I've fitted a low pressure Facet electric pump and blanked off the mechanical pump. The Facet has 1/8 NPTF female connections, which have a taper and are meant to seal without sealant, without relying on metal-metal contact at the base of the fitting. However, I can't get it to stop leaking, drips about once every 5 min. On each side there's an 1/8 NPTF male to 1/4" BSPT female adaptor, followed by a 1/4" BSPT male to 8mm female compression fitting to get it to connect with the 8mm copper fuel line. Couldn't find an 1/8 NPTF to 8mm compression fitting anywhere! That all doesn't leak, it's just the thread at the pump. Anyway, I've tried a few different brands of 1/8 NPTF adaptor - brass and steel - and they all leak. I don't want to overtighten it, and the threads in the pump all look good. Some sort of sealant maybe? Any ideas welcome, I'm going mad. Thanks!

I've found that my Czech heater, whilst being a lot cheaper than the Eber/Webastos, is actually a lot better on power consumption. On the lowest 1.4kw setting, it uses 800mA, and on 2kw it's only 1.2A. Not very hungry at all if you have decent batteries. An Air Top pulls almost double that on its 1kw setting... I remember when I shopped around, an Air Top was about £600 and that didn't include the marine specific bits like the silencer and skin fitting, whereas the LF Bros was just under half that. The expensive heaters may last for longer in durability, but after a couple of winters with the cheaper one, it's great so far. I opened it up just before this winter to check for coking as I usually run it on the 2kw setting (out of a max. 5kw) for long periods, but it was clean inside. As you probably know, it's a good idea to run it on full blast once a while to clear out carbon deposits.

I’ve fitted an Lf Bros heater (a Czech-made one, a bit more expensive than the Chinese ones) in my cruiser stern. It’ll be fine fitted inside as long as you make sure all the exhaust joints are gas tight. You need to bin the following items in the kit - exhaust silencer, fuel tank, fuel filter, jubilee clips (they’re usually crap) And buy this, it’ll cost around £150 - brass or rubber ISO7840 compliant fuel hose and fittings, metal fuel filter, sealed marine type exhaust silencer, insulated skin fitting, exhaust condensate trap. Some crap kits come with a 1.5mm2 power cable which is about 3m long, the voltage drop on startup is too much, if your batteries are less than fully charged it will fail to start. You’ll need to cut it and splice in a 10mm2 or larger cable as your run to the batteries will be quite long. It will pull about 10 amps for 1-2 minutes on startup and shutdown. The plastic fuel tank in the kit can’t be used in the engine space, and whilst I’m not sure if the BSS forbids it in the living space, it’s not a great idea. You’ll need to tap off the main tank - run a long brass/copper fuel line from a spare outlet on the water separator (most boats have one) to the heaters dosing pump. It doesn’t have good suction, so it will need to be lower than the fuel tank, and I have no idea if it can deal with the long fuel line, you may need another lift pump after the water separator. The dosing pump is designed to be gravity fed. Note that the fuel line from the pump to the heater can’t be ISO7840 rubber as it expands too much with each pulse of the pump - you need to use the included hard nylon tube, I sheathed it in rubber hose for some sort of flame resistance, passes BSS too. Not the most elegant of solutions, I know! The exhaust needs to be lagged to avoid the fumes condensing as much as possible, and the skin fitting fitted as high as you can get whilst being below the heater, check how far it is from the waterline! You need a U bend and a condensate trap if it’s not a straight run down from heater to skin fitting. Combustion air can be drawn from the cabin space, but consider where the heater intake takes its air from. If it’s from the cabin, you’ll have maximum efficiency but also condensation inside the boat as the air is never renewed. If it’s from outside, you lose efficiency but you don’t get condensation issues. I installed a 2 way valve (about £8 on eBay) on the intake so it pulls in a mix of outside and inside air, about 70/30 outdoor/indoor air works well.

They’re generally as incompetent as the car park grunts I think. Moored at Hampton Court this year, I knew you had to pay last year so walked almost the length of the pontoon looking for signs, found nothing. Stayed for one night, as we were getting ready to leave, one of the grunts turned up and got angry we hadn’t paid. I pointed out the lack of signs, he moved a bush aside at the far far end of the pontoon to show an A3 sized sign. He couldn’t see the issue in having only one sign, and said they’re expensive. A3 full colour print on foamex is about £9… Argued with him and his one brain cell for a bit, then left with him yelling that I’d get a fine. Nothing yet! Had it last year too on the upper Thames, can’t remember where - but essentially the signs had old info one them - website address for payment on it didn’t exist and the phone line was dead. The parking attendant said I should have googled the company and found the phone number that way. Absolutely not…their responsibility to post correct info. Again, argued with this single cell organism for a bit, no fine came through.

Early boats like mine seem to have oversized tanks - it’s the full height of the swim and pretty much the full length, stopping just short of the stern tube. Engine temperature barely changes when flat out. However, I’ve seen a couple of newer ones with bigger engines and smaller tanks…

Mines an old scaffold board I found in a skip. Every year it gets a coat of cheap wood preserver and it’s fine. I recommend making a hole near the end for a bit of rope, and stapling rubber mat to the bottom at one end so the boats movement doesn’t rub the paint off. Its about 6ft long, perfect for the Thames, gets used a lot when we’re on it!

Solar panels reduce in efficiency with age - generally, the panels are replaced every 20 years or so. There was a big boom in building farms in the early 2000s, meaning there's now stacks of panels appearing on the second hand market for not much money. I don't have the numbers to hand, but I seem to remember that by the end of their 20 year cycle, they've lost 20% of their original efficiency. When there's thousands of panels that's a lot of power! Anyway, I'd say they'd be fine for an installation when you don't need to squeeze as much power out of the sun as possible; might be good on a boat that's on shore power over winter, and cruises during summer, or a panel to keep the batteries topped up over winter when no-one's living on it with no shore power. Less good for a liveaboard all year round, when in winter you need all the efficiency possible!

I’ve heard this from many people who live in marinas out of town, what’s funnier is that some idiots actually believe it… There’s a few WhatsApp/Facebook messenger groups for certain areas like Kensal, which people join and leave as they moor in that area. No talk of shuffling though?

In London, if you buy a 30 year old boat and something goes wrong and you aren’t able to fix it, the waiting list for electricians/engineers is around 3-6 months at the moment. The cost is also significant if you need to call someone to fix every little thing… I cc from Rickmansworth-Brentford-Limehouse-Stort, following work, (and spend August on the upper Thames), it’s certainly cheaper than renting. However, I do fix everything apart from gas myself, I’ve got a feeling it would be the same if not more expensive. (and I’ve got a 30 year old Liverpool boat which has been perfect for gas and no more troublesome than similar aged boats. One of the good ones?)

Please don't just shuffle from Hackney Wick to Stonebridge and back like a lot of people...between Brentford, Uxbridge, Limehouse and the Stort there's a lot of nice spots that take you out of town whilst being commutable.

I find it's handy to keep a small tool roll in reach in the engine bay too, with just enough tools and bits to tweak stuff after checking the engine so you don't have to dig through the main tool bag. Spanners the right size for stern gland, gearbox dipstick and injection pump bleed, plus a quality adjustable spanner, I like Bahco ones. Cable ties and small snips. Rag for wiping dipsticks. One of those screwdrivers with interchangeable bits stored in the handle. Retractable knife and bread knife to clear stuff caught in the prop.

As above, it’s basically a tiny computer which connects to all Victron and some non-Victron products to provide control over them, and output a customisable display. You can also do handy stuff like have one temperature sensor and one voltage meter which is shared amongst all inverters/MPPTs etc on the network. It also sends data to Victrons VRM portal for free, so you can log in anywhere in the world and see your electrical systems data like state of charge, and also GPS location. I’ve attached what mine looks like currently. There’s an active community of people who modify the codebase and interface as Victron have made it partially open source, it’s very customisable. The software it runs can also be installed on a Raspberry Pi (low cost mini computer) for similar functionality. I’m a big fan basically. Expensive hardware but the software is made very easy thanks to Victron. Yep, that’s the one thing I’d like, as a high load will result in the battery cycling from 95-100% which isn’t good for it. Unfortunately only the Wakespeed or Mastervolt controllers will allow it…if I see one for cheap I might get it. And yeah, since the balmar knows the engine RPM thanks to the tacho input, it’s a shame it can’t be done automatically.

Hi all. Got my lithium setup at a place now where it all works well after installing it at the start of the year. There's a whole bunch of different ways to do it, and I'm intrigued as to some different ways to get ideas. Aim was to do it on a budget, whilst avoiding lead times and having total system control relying on the BMS as a last resort protection, not routinely using it to limit charge cutoff. Most of the functions of the Cerbo have a manual hardware override in case it fails. Fairly complex but it's easy enough to troubleshoot. I'm totally off grid, no shore power. All in all, it works very well and with minimal intervention, it just looks after itself and whenever I get a text or the wall controller beeps, it's time to put the engine/genny on. Standby current of the whole boat - toilet fan, cat fountain, 4G router and Cerbo - is about 10 watts. Kit House battery - 4 Lifepo4 cells and a JBD/Overkill BMS (£500) Start battery - lead acid, 18a DC-DC charger (£80 for the DC-DC, kept the original start battery) Heating - 100w silicone pads and a thermostatic controller (£40) Engine - 3 pot Isuzu with a single 75a A127 alternator and Balmar ARS5 reg (£30 for the Balmar, £0 to modify the A127 reg) Inverter/charger - Victron Multiplus (already in place, as were the last 3 items) Solar - Victron 100/35 MPPT Battery monitor - Victron BMV Control - Cerbo GX running the Large OS and Node-Red. Amazon Fire tablet in picture frame showing the Node-Red dashboard. I would have preferred a REC BMS but lead times were over 2 months when I ordered, and it still didn't arrive. I'd also have liked a dual alternator setup to eliminate the possible failure point of the B2B, but I couldn't source a front pulley without having one machined. Next step is to connect the JBD BMS to the Cerbo via RS485 so it appears as a BMV, using the JBD's built in shunt. Alternator charging Alternator output goes to the house bank, as does the Balmar's sense wire. It's set up to regulate to 13.8v with the field percentage set to zero so it basically never tries to go onto the absorb/float stages, just plain 13.8v. Temperature sensor is an LM235H on the alternator's negative terminal. The ignition wire to the Balmar goes to a NO relay; one side of the relay is switched positive by the ignition switch, the other side is grounded by relay 1 on the Cerbo. A node-red script on the Cerbo controls charging - when the BMV reports below 95% SOC and the engine is running (the Cerbo has ignition positive wired to a digital input), it closes relay 1 which engages the alternator. When it gets to 100%, the relay is opened, stopping charge. As the float voltage of the solar controller is set to 13.4v, the battery discharges a little before settling there. The alternator is only engaged again if the SOC drops below 94%. I also have a manual override switch which shorts the neg side of the relay coil to battery neg to force charging if the cerbo fails. However, the A127 alternator will happily charge at 50a at a good temperature. This presents a fair load on the engine; fine at tickover (or just above!) out of gear, but if it's in gear cruising along at tickover whilst charging, the idle speed is pulled down from 950rpm to 600-700rpm. That's right in the lumpy, vibey range for the engine, not nice. I therefore have a limit switch on the throttle and gear linkages, which short circuit the Balmar's temp sensor when in gear and at idle, which limits the charge current to a point which doesn't pull the RPMs down noticeably. There's a 3 position switch on the engine dashboard to turn alternator charging off, limit to slow charging or auto, using the switches above. Battery heating The batteries are in a cruiser stern, which dropped below zero in Jan. The cells are insulated, and have two 100w silicone heater pads, one on each side of the pack. These have a built-in 80C cutoff thermostat which is used as a safety. It's controlled by a cheap digital thermostat, set to maintain temp at 50C; much like a fridge, if they were switched on until the thermistor on the battery terminals read above zero, the pads would overheat before their heat is transferred into the mass of the batteries. The thermostat's sensor cycles them on and off nicely. The thermostat is switched on by relay 2 on the Cerbo, controlled by anothe Node-Red script. I wanted them to be warm enough to accept a charge as soon as possible; the script turns the heaters on if the Cerbo's temp sensor reads below 2C, AND the PV wattage is over 10w, AND it's before 10am. Another flow turns the heater on if the engine is running/shore power is available AND it's below 2C. I also have a manual override on the Node-Red dashboard (and a hardware switch) to turn the heaters on, for example if I want to run the engine to charge the batteries and it's too cold. Solar/Shore Nothing fancy here, DVCC on the Cerbo shares battery current/voltage/temp with the Multiplus and MPTT which don't charge below 2C.

I have blue Bosch stuff for things I use often like drill/impact wrench etc, and Parkside for less used. Had a Parkside multi tool and jigsaw for ages, used the jigsaw more than I thought, batteries and tool are still perfect. Seems on par with the budget Screwfix stuff but a bit cheaper, perfect for DIY occasional use.

There’s a model of Danfoss control box for the BD series of compressors which has a terminal for both 12v and 120v/240v input. This is prioritised over the 12v input so it changes over automatically. Im not sure how it achieves this exactly, but I expect it has a switch mode power supply in there that converts mains to whatever voltage the compressor uses.