Ex- Member

Hi Staarak Where did you obtain a 500w 240v unit btw? I do have an older 1500w inverter I could use if I were to consider a 240v element option, I do have a 1kw element already fitted though anyway. I'm unsure if I can set the temp on it, I do recall a small White dial in the unit tough. I don't quite understand the use of a timer, if it's not sunny, surely it's going to use a lot of battery energy, or is this way set up to harness excess energy only. I'm assuming this still requires use of a relay too? Our 740w of panels could produce up to 60a, very rare we see over 45a with the panels set flat. We do plan to add 200w though.

We recently moored near a lot of that rhubarb type plant, what was annoying was the amount of flies and other insects these plants attract that were getting into the boat. Doing a bit of research Lynn found a home made recipe for keeping flies at bay. We didn't have all the ingredients in the herb list but we had some Citronella oil, fresh lavender & Rosemary. These were chopped up and steeped in a litre hot water and left for a few hours. We then ran the liquid through a sieve and decanted it into a sprayer bottle. We've been using it a few days now and the results are amazing. We spray it around all the door entrances and opening portholes. The other bonus is that it smells great, much better than any air freshener we've used before and there's not a fly anywhere in the boat. http://www.getridoffliesguide.com/herbs-to-get-rid-of-flies-naturally/ We've also seem to have had some success with a home made flea repellent, this is made from Lemons and Rosemary again steeped in hot water and left to soak for 8 hours and again decanted into a spray bottle. You can spray it on your cat (cover eyes) or apply drops to the back of the cats neck and shoulders, and spray it around the boat bedding & furniture, again it smells really nice. We did use some chemical flea sprays and powder a couple of weeks ago, but they didn't seem to do much at all. We used the mix this morning and we've noticed today the cats aren't scratching themselves at all now where before they seemed to be doing so every few minutes, and we haven't seen any fleas where as we would see lots before this treatment. I believe lemon kills fleas and with Rosemary they apparently they hate this mixture. This also works with dog fleas. WARNING. YOU MUST CHECK YOUR CAT ISN'T ALLERGIC TO ROSEMARY, A SMALL PROPORTION OF CATS ARE. http://veterinary.answers.com/fleas/safe-and-effective-flea-treatments-for-home-use

The idea of dump load is to use the excess energy your batteries can't absorb and diverting it to the water tank element. Heating water up daily for 2 hours would put a massive strain on batteries let along the amount of time it would take to replenish the batteries. Also if you're using 240v then inverter losses also need to be taken into account as well. A 330 amp bank won't be up to the job IMO even if just heating water and running nothing else on the boat.

There's just been a thread about this here. http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=66982&hl= 240v element is possible, but apparently there have been some issues. I much prefer the 12v element approach which I'm currently trying to source.

2.5 inch Rubber tube fenders, and yes 45 degrees always works for us too.

What's this stuff then?

Internal bulkhead walls are stud walls using 2x1 sawn timber between 9mm Oak ply. The free cavities are great for cabling and fitting switches/sockets etc. Walls are very solid.

Neither are best, both are useful.

In essence with products like Kingspan Cellotex etc the vapour barrier is the foil. We insulated our boat in Rockwool batts on top of the batts we applied 10cm thick Cellotex over all the rockwool. all the joins were taped over with Aluminium foil. The cavities were exactly 60mm so the Rockwool stays pressed tightly to the steel. Another tip is to fill any ribbing/square tube with tinny spray foam. We drilled a 10mm hole every 18 inches and gave a 1 second squirt in each hole. It will prevent condensation forming in tubes ribbing.

A pain in the arse!

Could be a few reasons, an inverter does require good ventilation, Make sure there's plenty of clearance around the inverter. It could also be partially blocked with dust that's accumulated over time. I recently cleaned out our inverter, it's surprising how much dust can get inside. If you're moving every day then you will most likely charge your batteries. If you let members know your B/B size alternator amps etc they'll give you better information. It might also pay to check your batteries are ok before you cruise, If you've been moored and on shore line for a long time, It's difficult to judge just what condition the batteries are in. You could disconnect the charger for a day and see how long the batteries last as a guide.

This explains the Winter Roving Permit. http://canalrivertrust.org.uk/boating/mooring/winter-moorings It's possible someone at C&RT mentioned these as an option for mooring, but they aren't proper moorings as in a fixed location with an annual rent.

There's a winter roving permit which runs for 5 months from Nov to March or you can choose 3 months within that period also. I'm not 100% sure they're doing the roving permits again this year, well not heard any conformation they are. They were very popular though and a good money spinner for C&RT Basically you can moor almost anywhere on a 14 day limit, but the roving permit allows you to stay over the usual 14 day limit. There is a rule you have to moor 1000 meters away from any marinas, I believe this was going to be reduced to 500m, again though no conformation of this I'm aware of. I doubt you would be offered a roving permit/mooring, it's something you need to apply for from CART

Hi Robbo Fortunately I didn't fancy the AC route, it just didn't sit right with me. I'm trying to source a 12v element from China, I think I've secured a free sample element from a manufacturer just £17 postage. It has a 2.25" BSP And I think you can wire different wattages depending on how many you connect together.

Considering heat would be lost from the higher areas of the boat, that's rather an ass backwards way of insulating a boat LOL

Not all boats, we certainly don't, but then again we did the insulation ourselves. It seems to me that many boat yards consider insulation a job to get out of the way that they leave to private contractors. I've yet to see spray foam insulation applied properly on a boat. Polystyrene was and probably still is a cheap option and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with it. These types of insulation need to fit tight to the hull side though, and every gap crack or crevice filled in, some even adhered the insulation to the hull. Unfortunately though many boats done in poly weren't insulated very well and the Polystyrene comes away from the steel. Some boats I've seen have one inch thick poly in a 2 inch gap. I

If your current controller cant accommodate any additional solar panels, you'll need to add another controller at an appropriate size to cope. I don't think that running 2 different charge controllers is a problem or conflict, I've asked this question on this and another related thread just in case there is, but non of the boffins have given any definitive answer. There is a thread with regard to heating water using excess energy from solar panels using a 12v or even 240v elements in a calorifier to heat hater with solar energy, this is known as dump load or more correctly diversion load. Good quality charge controllers seem to have a function for doing this, you just need to fit an appropriate relay. The thread is here. http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=66982&hl=

If this boat is several years old and has been condensating all that time, I would really wonder as to the state of the steel work internally, especially in the bilges.

The problem with aerosol primer is that the mix is very thin. If you use a spray gun, even a small one you can apply primer quite thickly by making the paint mix thicker and applying several coats. I do use primer aerosols but mainly for quick spot priming to protect freshly rubbed down steel. Fine body filler will do the job, better is primer stopper, but that's cellulose based unless there's an acrylic based stopper available now, I'm not sure. But once you've applied an acrylic primer you should be able to apply primer stopper on top of that.

They offer a 5% discount on bank transfer as it avoids paying credit card companies a percentage fee. You can purchase from them by C/C if you wan't though. We've been offered credit card payment machines, but never ever offered a fixed price, only a percentage. It's not worth us going that route as we simply don't do many transactions. Most of our customers now bay by bank transfer BACS it's instant and free.

Well I suppose you can get it all ready and just connect the panels when they arrive.

Hi Lilly To help energy input through the winter we're planning to add 2 x 200 to 300w of flexy solar panels. These weigh just 2.8KG each and we plan to attach to the boat side panels to glean energy from the low winter sun. We've sourced some 50mm pot magnets which will be fitted to the flexi panels, and we can move them appropriately to glean winter sun each time we moor. Like you we have ample energy from March to October from our 740w of solar panels. Last year we ran the engine for an hour every morning to bulk charge the batteries. Quite often most days we would also run the small generator for an hour sometimes more. We're hoping the additional panels will reduce the use of both boat engine and generator. We'll add the additional panels in October until March when they'll be put away for next winter. We'll need another charge controller too at 20/30a This can remain fitted when the panels are decommissioned. If you don't add panels, we found that running the engine in the morning gave us hot water and bulk charged the B/B the solar panels would further top up the batteries through the day if there was good light. This regime seemed to keep the batteries at a good SOC 50% +

We used Brass skin fittings 25mm 1" from the skin fitting to the sink outlet we use rubber hose. On our larger sink with washing machine outlet plumbed in to its waste we've used a 50mm skin fitting. We've used proper sink traps on sinks and shower although kitchen sink is so close to hull side there's no trap, you can obtain reducers from 1.5 inch plastic to 1" or less for rubber hose, sometimes hard to find though. You don't have to use traps though, many don't, but on longer pipe runs gunk accumulates in the pipe and smells can then come up through the plug ole Some fit them to stop insects/spiders accessing the boat as well. I believe that ideally skin fittings should be 10" above the waterline. We could manage this even though we used waste traps, but we have set all our sinks around 4 inches higher than standard hight used in houses and kitchen worktops. So sometimes waste traps aren't possible anyway.

Agreed, they are effectively a good company selling solar equipment at a reasonable price, clearly though selling more than they actually have. My business is in Dorset, so when I buy stuff I'll arrange to collect as it's only a few miles away from our depot. They really need to sort out their stock & delivery times, if they keep pissing customers off they'll just lose business.