thingsweregood

Would sanding down the pipe with some fine grain sandpaper work to smooth out any burrs? I assume that would prevent future leaks once seal/elbow is replaced.

Thanks all for these very helpful tips. I have yet to locate the drain cock (I have all plastic push-fit pipes, so maybe there isn't one), but it might just involve me removing the elbow joint sitting at the bottom of the engine bay below the header tank and trying to drain it there. Coincindentally, I have a small leak somewhere in the system because I keep needing to top up the header tank/bleed the rads a little bit and I'm 99% sure it's this elbow joint that's the culprit with a slow drip. So will try and replace that at the same time I drain the system. Tony Brooks - flushing the rads is a great idea, but might need to wait till spring when I paint the inside of the cabin because I'll need to remove them then. Too hard at the moment as a cc'er as not necessarily near a water point to do it!

I think I need to bleed my radiators and replace the coolant/antifreeze as I’m not sure how long it’s been since it was last done and I’m getting some overheating errors on my Autoterm diesel heater. Maybe a very basic question, but I’ve searched and every answer I’ve found says “drain the system and replace with a 50/50 mix of coolant and water”… but how do I best drain the system? Do I just drain it out the same place you bleed a radiator (seems slow and inefficient as the hole is tiny)? How do you then fill it up and ensure no air in the system? Do you fill it up whilst rad bleed points are open? apologies if I’m not using the correct terminology I’ve never done this before! I have 3 radiators in sequence linked to a small header tank and an Autoterm heater in the engine bay.

I don't really think they'll sink, but it feels like it's kind of bad form, no? I thought the idea was have the outside boat's ropes tied to the bank, not to the other boat (where possible), and not over the centre of the inside boat. Also by mooring half in front of me, and half in front of another boat they hem in two boats for the price of one! We're all narrowboats, if that makes a difference.

I'm in London and someone has double moored up against me (I'm on the towpath). This is fine, except they're half moored against me, half against the boat in front of me, with their bow rope going OVER the middle of my boat and tying on to the towpath ring. I can't find any info on this online but I'm sure I've read somewhere you should never run your ropes over someone's roof when double mooring?! If they sunk, wouldn't they just drag me down with them?

Hi all, I am looking to neaten up these joins in my ceiling - would love to hear if anyone has any nice ideas? I was thinking either a very thin (1.5mm thick or so) piece of walnut strip tacked on and painted over to match, or else some sort of flexible poly filler? I'm conscious there might be some slight movement that could cause regular filler to crack and fall out.

Ingenious Also great Wow, never knew these existed!

I'm looking for a way to adjust how open my hopper windows are - currently either they're fully closed (with the latch), fully open, or I can adjust the amount they're open using a rolled up piece of paper towel wedged in the side of the window. Is there a more elegant solution!?

Woah this is cool as hell. My webasto might have kicked the bucket (waiting on someone to check it out to confirm) so if I end up replacing it, I should get one of these put in at the same time.

What system do you have for heating? And what do you use to control it remotely?

Ah interesting. So if it's getting a bit of sun during the day, and nothing is drawing power, it should stay fairly topped up? Just don't understand if batteries discharge (slowly) by themselves with no power draw or not...

Hi all, If I'm away from the boat for a few days (no shore power), and I wont be around to monitor that the batteries are staying topped up via solar, is it best practice to fully charge them, then turn them off at the isolator before I leave? Will they stay charged when switched off like this (no draw on power)? Or do they slowly discharge regardless? Is it better to leave them on, but have nothing drawing power (inverter off, all 12v electrics off etc)? Thank you!

So assuming 'typical' use and roughly accurate manufacturer figures, I should take 46 Ah as the figure to enter on my power audit? I also FINALLY managed to find the brand name/model number of my batteries on the unit (those 68kg guys are hard to move in a small space!): I've got 2 x Deka Unigy HR7500ET. I can't tell what the Ah/capacity of these would be?

Cool, will do some digging.

I'm going to attempt to do a power audit so I know what I need to be prepared for after summer (currently 720W solar is covering my needs, but notice things get a little low after a few cloudy days). The boat currently has a 240V LEC under counter fridge freezer, model T50084W. Unknown age, looks to be a good few years old, but seems to work well. I want to assess how much power this uses if left on 24 hours a day, with the inverter. Then I can figure out if I'm better going with a 12V fridge, a newer 240V (not sure if you can get more efficient than A+ forn undercounter fridge/freezers?), or if the current setup is fine. I have a Victron Phoenix 12/800 inverter, plus 1 x starter battery and 2 x Deka Unigy HR7500ET lesiure batteries (750W?? Can't tell capacity) I can't tell from the spec sheet below how many watts the fridge uses or how to work out how many watts per hour (so I can then work out the amp hour draw). I also am not sure how much draw from the battery the inverter uses being on 24/7... Does this model inverter have a 'sleep' mode whereby it turns itself off when no/low power is being drawn (eg, if fridge compressor is not running)? ⁉️