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Just happened to see them in the Crewe B&Q store at the weekend. I know these chinese 2 stroke gennies are a bit limited, but it looked reasonably well made and for £50......... Not long ago you would not have found much under £150 - £200 for a littly genny.

But I think the owner of the forum, i.e. Jon, could be prosecuted for libel.

Hi Daniel Saw Emily Anne at Nantwich last night. The wheel house was looking very smart - is that your new roof.

Wasn't ordered by Postman Pat was it?

Fair comment Rog - when I first did it, I don't think pipe stats were around!

Richard: Do you have a source for 12V mororised valves?

The thermostat goes on the water pipe outlet from the back boiler, not on the stove itself. A standard tank stat does hte job, wired up in parallel to anything else so it effectively overrides any controls and turns the pump on. I had mine set to 95C, the idea being that it would turn the pump on and dump heat before the water in the back boiler boiled. You need to be careful if you have TRVs - as with any system using a solid fuel stove with back boiler you should have at least one rad without a TRV, and preferably able to themo-syphon.

To answer your original question (more or less) - whilst I haven't done it on a boat, I have done it on a domestic system - i.e. plumbed a solid fuel stove in parallel with an oil boiler. Used a thermostat on the back of stove to turn pump on if it was getting too hot. Worked no problem and I see no reason why a similar setup shouldn't work on a boat. The stove acts as a pre-heater to the boiler.

The complete opposite of Alde who I've found to be very helpful on the phone. They also do a servicing/repair service at very reasonable cost. Now maybe diesel heaters are cheaper to run at the moment, but what will happen when the derogation goes? I know that in theory you can still run heating from 'red' diesel, but will you still be able to get it? I would think very seriously before fitting a diesel heater, as I think it is very unlikely that the derogation will be renewed.

Well I use Haven Konx-Johnson. Not the cheapest, but they did not quibble when I made a claim. When I rang round ( or emailed round) to get some other quotes one year, a number of companies did not want to know my (then) 14 year old boat. Some only seem to want the nice shiny new ones on their books.

B&Q are doing an 850 watt 2-stroke genny for £49.99. (and loads of cheap tools).

When using a twin-coil calorifier, with an Alde feeding heating and coil, what is the standard / recommended way of splitting the output between heating, hot water or both? Presumably it shouldn't be such that both can be shut off. I have a 3-port valve from a domestic CH system, which was operated by a motorised valve. It would do the job, but is fairly restrictive. What's the normal method?

for electrics, go to http://www.tb-training.co.uk/ Note, this is the new address for what was the Reading site (Tony Brooks). Also see http://www.motoren.ath.cx/ - very good for making sense of alternators and charging circuits. (look at links on left hand side) Don't know about plumbing.

Have a good trip.

I think the point is Richard, that cooker hobs & grills are not considered to be "appliances with continuously-burning flames", but ovens are. It is the unattended, non-visible nature of the flame that matters. Hence an oven should have a FFD, but a burner doesn't. Thus a pre-2000 cooker installation can have a non-FFD hob. I know that when you put the kettle on, hte flame is burning continuously until you turn it off, but lets not get caught up in semantics again!

I've a cruiser stern with a fairly high cratch. I have a wooden seat round the top of the stern rail to sit on, with a board across to rest feet on. If I need more visibility I can stand on the board (probably the height of the milk crate). Works well for us!

I'm sure it's been discussed here before, but what you should do is fit a thermostat (I used a standard tank 'stat) on the output pipe close to the boiler. This is wired in parallel with the room stat, but set at about 95 deg C. Then, if the solid fuel boiler gets near boiling, it will turn the pump on and dump heat into the radiators, even if the room 'stat thinks the room doesn't need heating.

No problem to you, but not exactly environmentally friendly! AS I understand it, the proper grease is soluble ( or at least miscible) in water and is not so unpleasant to the environment.

I can see why a membrane might be recommended, but I don't think many boats have it. The bilge under the cabin shouldn't be wet. Similarly with insulation, the floor is going to be in contact with the water, which doesn't get that cold (i.e. below freezing), and much of it will be covered with ballast which is probably brick or concrete slabs, which will insulate a bit. Think of the ballast as a storage radiator.

Westport lake is still fine as far as I know. Also just outside the tunnel is a pleasant quiet spot if you are not looking for pubs & shops.

The following is a quote from the snecklifter website (a genuine CC by the way): Anyway, we are happy to be back on the Macc, despite its shallow stretches and the sign on one local house asking boaters not to moor opposite them on a long stretch of legitimate towpath mooring. (Why do some folk choose to live near canals and then complain about boats?) So what do people think about this sort of activity - i.e. house owners adjacent to canals putting up 'no mooring' signs? Do you ignore them or obey them? Should they be allowed?

Wouldn't buy one just to use on the canals. But if you already have one, there is a bit of fun to take it with you. It's interesting to see how fast you are actually going.

There are in fact quite a number of genuine CCs who do have computers. They use them to post logs of their cruising around the country. At least one of them posts on here occasionally. They probably have more sense than to waste their time on endlessly repeating the same argulements for or against CCs and whether they are genuine or not. Try the Granny Buttons site for links to secveral of these blogging boaters.