Cinimod

Thank you for all your help and suggestions. Good news is - we already have a Sterling 1230 (12v 30amp) charger, so I think that side of things is taken care of. The call really comes down to which gennie. My issue really is the cost of the Honda and is it REALLY that much better. I guess in for a penny in for a pound it would be the Eu20i that we would go for - which is coming in at around £880 from Edge, £890 from Just Gen and £873 from Tidy - this is a 'tidy' sum of money. Looking on eBay there is this Kipor 2000 generator, which appears to be only slightly louder and have only slightly higher fuel consumption - the price for this piece of kit - around £300 (here is the link) Can you see my issue? I know the Honda comes with a 5yr warranty, but I could buy a couple of the Kipors and still be in pocket during that time... the issue is does 2db really make that much of a difference - I can house it in the engine bay, so that will muffle it too... its enough to drive you crazy!

Hi... We have pretty much all we need running off the 12v system now... LCD TV (Max 5A with DVD playing) 2 x Laptops (via 12v to 19v adapters from Maplins) 1 x Wireless Internet Router (12v 1A) 2 x phone chargers (?Minimal?) 1 x Fridge... (Lots of power)... (plus the radio if that is on...) Now - we can run this lot no problem. But as we do not have an electric hook up we need to charge currently using the engine. The bonus to charging using the engine is it does the hot water too, but how much fuel does the engine typically use per hour? Drawbacks? The engine is pretty noisy in the boat! The engine is noisy for the neighbours I believe it is not good for the engine to run it with no load What we are considering is a generator - now I think we have 2 options - Use the genny to charge the batteries and take power as 12v only Use the genny to supply 240v to run applicances and also the battery charge unit (which we use when on mains) The issue I see is that looking at the generators their direct 12v output appears to only be about 8.5Amps tops... which I do not think is enough to charge up the batteries whilst we are using the 2 laptops and LCD TV(as a 2nd monitor) at the same time Are any of these any good? Or can anyone recommend a different genny? Kipor IG2000 Whole list of eBay ones... ANY help in making this decision is greatly appreciated. Thank The other thing we are considering is 360w worth of solar panels to cover most of our needs - but this is going to attract an outlay of around £1k and does not help us if we need more power at night!

Go with the suggestion of it being a blocked cooling fan - especially if it is noisy and gets hot. I have a couple of Acer notebooks and have to clean them out regularly. If you can do it with a VAC then great... job done, if not you need to take it apart a little to clean it out (I had to do this with mine).

I spoke with our local chippie and apparently their oil supplier collects the old oil when it delivers new and then reprocesses it... so none for us... shame... Is chippie or Chinese oil cleaner?

OK - so where do we get this from and how do we need to treat it to be able to use it? Maybe time to set up a recycling plant for Canal users - though what are the draw backs of using chip fat over red or white?

An impressive lookup - where do you find that? Ta

This is what we are going to do with our boat... any suggestions on how we should treat the ply before painting it so it does not just run? Thanks

I think you would probably still need to keep the receipts for your propulsion tank too... Is the onus on HMRC to prove that you are being fraudulent, or on you to prove that you are not? Does this mean there is going to be a shortage of Billy Cans come the winter as the boaters have all bought them to get Diesel from the supermarket? (Especially if you can get an extra 5p/ltr off for buying £100 of food!)

What would you recommend for noise insulation of the engine bay? Is that a better place to start than a silencer to get maximum noise reduction?

Does anyone know of any reasonable winter moorings near Hungerford? - where do you find out what winter moorings are available? Thx

Coal at Frouds Bridge Marina ranges from £7.70 for BargeNuts to £10.87 for Homefire... Taybrite somewhere in the middle.

And with AVG 8 they also do firewall software too... LINK With v8 with internet security you have to 'buy' it, but they do this tradeoff thing where if you sign up for one of these subscription sites you get AVG for free... we signed up for a music one on their introductory offer, paid not a lot and got 75 music tracks into the bargain! - Just remember to cancel before renewal! Then you get software and music (or something else) for a nice low price...

Anybody know if and where there may be a coal boat on the K&A near Aldermaston at the moment? Contact details and prices would be handy! Ta

I have heard of pumps going bad and not working, which can cause a big issue with the water over heating - so you need to make sure the system is designed in such a way that it will circulate using gravity and that the pump can be left 'off' and the water will still circulate - I think this is an open pump??? (I have only just started looking into this too!) If you have a 'powerful' pump then it can circulate the water too fast so that the heat transfer is not very effective, so you need to either have a temperature sensor so you can turn the pump on/off automatically depending on the heat of the water coming out of the boiler, or have a variable resistor in place so that you can slow the pump down. Best of luck!

Here is a photo of one on a boat... As they use an auto feed system, I guess they require electric to do that - I wonder what the drain is... I guess the diesel ones use a gravity feed drip system? Could you burn litter pellets on your stove? Probably make great kindling and get the fire up to a hot heat quickly on those cold mornings? We are just looking at putting in a squirrel with back boiler for doing rads and water on a gravity based system with an open pump to just tickle the water a bit rather than pump it round proper, as heard of a few issues with pumps breaking...

FYI - just spotted on eBay - 3 x 13KG Propane Cylinders Collection only from Birmingham B18 area or Stourbridge area Cost £17.50 each... seems reasonable... LINK HERE Can you get any money for returning empty cylinders and not getting them refilled?

Hi FYI - IKEA are entering the fray with a mobile phone offer 9p for calls to landline or ANY other mobile (UK) 6p for texts More details - here It is provided by t-mobile - LINK Seems good - but there is no data

Saw a great way to mount your dish the other day... a block of wood about 35 to 45cm cubed - so nice and heavy, then screw the mounting device into that - then you have a dish that can be easily moved to anywhere, and is not going to blow away...

OK - I am ready to be contradicted on this, but I think it may have to do with the charging cycles... The less you discharge a battery before you recharge it the more life you will get out of the battery. So if you are only shallow discharging 9 rather than deeper discharging 6 they should last a lot longer... On a note of battery replacement I was chatting with a long term CC chap who says he ALWAYS buys his batteries from Halfords, as they guarantee them - then before the guarantee expires he takes them back as faulty (with the assistance of a screwdriver to bend a plate) so gets new batteries every few years at no cost... v naughty!

An update on this - my customs charges were for some cosmetics coming in from Hong Kong, not for the dealextreme stuff - so I will definitely be back there for more once my LED strips are proven

OK - well I just ordered a bunch of stuff, and it came in from Hong Kong rather than the US, which is an interesting one... spend on the goods about 45 USD - which I thought would come in OK... BUT - lo and behold I had a note from the PostOffice to pay about £15 in charges - £9 to the post office and £6 to the goverment... So - it is still a really good deal, but order a good quantity or the PO charges make it not worthwhile.

IKEA have also joined the fray... a 5m roll ( about an inch wide I think) is £2.99 or £2.24 at the moment with a family card... If you are near one then great, otherwise their delivery cost is a little prohibitive (LINK!)

These people seem to have good prices and will deliver, but only in the Tyne & Wear area... <LINK> They are quoting £17 for a 13KG bottle