Jen-in-Wellies

His Granddad must have broken at least one of those conditions, or his dad wouldn't have been born. ?

The beer will soon be drunk though, then you have to get more beer. An ecofan will give you many winters of not doing anything very much. Better value all round? Not so sure now.... Must go get some more booze. Will Aldi take an ecofan in exchange for beer? Perhaps that is how they got the ones they are selling.

And if it turns out to not be the pump, but something else, you now have a spare pump ready for when it really does fail. Another common cause of this, aside from dripping taps and leaks, is the pressure relief valve (PRV) on the calorifier leaking. It is a safety valve that stops the cauliflower going over pressure. Sometimes a bit of scale will get trapped in the valve seat, causing it to drip water past. The usual one has a red knob it. Give this a couple of half turns to flush any scale through. If it still does it, then it may need a new PRV. Not expensive. Less than a new pump. PRV's usually look like this. . Jen

Welcome to the forum. Autumn in to winter leaves collecting round the prop will give these symptoms. The leaves shield the prop and prevent it getting any bite on the water. You slow down, increase revs, nothing happens. A quick blast of reverse every so often clears them. If you take the weed hatch cover off and have a feel around there is nothing there as you had to use reverse to stop. Start again and the prop starts collecting leaves again. Just keep giving a short burst of reverse as soon as you feel the speed start to drop. It will go away later in the winter through to next autumn. Fallen leaves. Not just a problem for trains. Jen

When you say twin alternator I'm assuming that you mean one 12V alternator for the engine battery and one 12V alternator for the house batteries. If so, then no split charger required. A huge wiring diagram isn't really required as it is mostly the same circuit over and over again. Batteries, through a big fuse and a big isolator switch, then to a distribution point, then an isolator switch for each circuit and fuse/breaker, then out to the pump, lights, whatever, then a 0V return back to the battery bank. Other things like battery monitors, solar power connections and battery monitors are best dealt with by looking at the wiring diagrams in the destructions for the particular units you intend to fit. Care with using the right cable, good connections, logical segregation of services labelling, documentation and easy access for the future are equally important Something that has not been mentioned is wire size. Do calculations based on voltage drop from the there and back length of cable, rather than current carrying capacity. A good book to read, though it is getting rather dated now, is Graham Booth's Narrowboat builders book. I used it a lot when fitting out my sailaway. Do the research, before getting involved with wiring spaghetti. Make sure you understand why it is done a certain way. Ask questions here, but better they are specific ones, rather than "please do all the work for me" ones. Jen

Another reason to space the slabs from the steel would be ventilation. Without this, any moisture from condensation, let alone more substantial amounts of water, would be trapped between the steel and concrete, leading to corrosion of the base plate. Similar to what happens to painted boat roofs when people leave bags of coal on them all winter. On my boat, the paving slab ballast is spaced off the baseplate by a few mm by small plastic pieces, similar to tile spacers. They may even be tile spacers for all I know. I only moved a slab once, many years ago and can't remember for sure. Don't know about "textured paper" as I've no feel for what that actually is. Jen

Batteries can be a good thing to move to change trim. A single 110Ahr battery can weigh 25Kg (56lb), so moving it from one side to the other is equivalent to adding two 56lb weights to one side of the boat. Did this on my boat by moving the four leisure batteries from the port to the starboard side of the engine hole. It corrected a very bad port side down list. There are other heavy things, that if stored, or fitted on one side of the boat can be moved with varying levels of difficulty. Anchors and their chains, calorifiers, mooring pins and hammers. Shelves of books, either added, or moved can make a big change to the boats trim. Plus you can read the ballast. Jen

It may be a little longer. The nearest neutron star is the evocatively named RX J1856.5-3754. It is 400 light years away, so according to CanalPlanAC, this will take: speed of light 186000 (miles/sec) * 60 seconds in a minute * 60 minutes in an hour * 24 hours in a day * 365.25 days in a year * 400 light years away * 2 there and back / 3mph = 1.565x1015 hours travel time at typical narrowboat speeds. Fortunately, there are no locks in space. Which will take 223,608,137,100,000 days at seven hours a day. Check with CaRT for any stoppages that may increase your journey time. Make sure that your diesel and water tanks are full and your pump out/cassettes are empty before setting out as fuel retailers, water points and sani stations are few and far between. Stock up with coal to keep the cabin warm in interstellar space. Ignore the boat safety scheme and seal up the high and low level air vents before leaving the Earths atmosphere.Your space suit will end up smelling of diesel like all your other boating clothes. Jen?

If space is at a premium, then you need to replace the ballast with a denser material to get the same weight in a smaller volume. Some ballast from your nearest neutron star has a density of 1014g/cm3, which means that a 25kg ballast weight can be had as a cube 0.006mm on each side. Just don't drop it on your foot when moving it in to position.

Theory and practical test for hire boat crew before being allowed to take a boat out. Eyesight test - Can you read a standard CaRT index plate at 20 m? A ban on captain's hats and pirate flags.

Or even both. As with the oil pressure going, if it happens than anything to bring it to the steerers attention as soon as possible is a good thing.

There are always exceptions. I have seen a marine temperature gauge with the high temperature warning light was built in to the gauge, but most likely a separate warning light. VDO are a big name in the marine instrumentation market and have been around for a good while. Jen

You can sort of see house owners doing this unknowingly, but boaters have to get their boats through the BSS every four years and one of the criteria is no charred wood near the stove as it is one step from catching fire. Since they know wood too close can get charred, why store logs that way?! ?

At that sort of age and on a UK engine like the BMC, there is a strong possibility the wiring is to British automotive colour norms. A temperature warning sender to light wire would be black with a purple stripe for example. A temperature sender to gauge wire would be green with a blue stripe for a gauge with built in voltage compensation. See here and here. Jen

Cut out the middle bit of solar to electricity to steam Solar direct to steam. See below. Just needs scaling up a bit to drive a narrowboat ?

A possibility. Comparing wire colours at the sender plug and where they go in to gauges and warning lights may give more clues.If the loom is home made, or has been seriously hacked about, then who knows! Jen

Could the OP tell us what colour wires are going to the sender? There is always the possibility that they follow the old British Standard for car wiring colours. The loom for a 1.8BMC I helped with did. This may determine if it is the water temperature sender. Jen

2007 to 2020 thread revival. Is this a record?

It could just be unbalanced. Mine did it after taking one too many falls to the floor after accidentally steering the boat in to various bits of canal infrastructure. The fan blades got bent. I got a new motor and blade after the motor died and it stopped rattling. Jen

The thermoelectric module gets destroyed above a certain temperature. 100 to 120C or thereabouts from memory, depending on the type, so this is what the bimetallic strip does. It is also why the thermoelectric bit is quite a way up a thin aluminium strut, away from the stove top. It reduces the temperature to survivable levels. The hurricane force blast from an overspeed Ecofan would cause significant damage to the boat and the area around it before it self destructs. I'm surprised that a check on this safety feature isn't a part of the BSS. Jen

It has been in around two years or so. I've not checked it thus far. Perhaps I will. Thanks for the feedback. How long was your antifreeze/inhibitor in for? What sort of central heating system is it in? Jen

What is the temperature gauge? Who made it? A picture would be good. Front side and any writing on the back. It may be possible to work backwards and deduce the sender from that. Do you have a vernier caliper by any chance. The outside diameter and pitch of the threads would help decide if it is BSP, or UNF. Or try running it in to a 1/2"BSP threaded something. Any suitable plumbing fitting, which will confirm it is that or not. Jenny

Didn't know that. Sounds like the modern ones can distinguish between the blacking to steel interface return echo and the steel to air, or insulation interface echo at the far side of the metal further away. At least you hope it is further away!

Ultrasound needs the blacking locally removed to give an accurate result.

My understanding is that most domestic inhibitors don't have antifreeze properties. Some do. I use this on my boat for the back boiler central heating and for the solar thermal hot water system, which does. Also uses propylene glycol, which is non toxic. Useful if you leave your boat unheated in winter to avoid having to drain the system. Jen