michelleandchris

Hi Peter, We are selling our narrowboat, which is on a resi mooring (transferrable to new owner) at Packet Boat Marina (Uxbridge). The details are at http://apolloduck.net/117679 Michelle

That sounds promising, as we are planning a clear run from end to end on one side, with the stove centrally. Also been wondering about the ecofans for a while but not really needed one on the narrowboat. Sounds like another new toy to add to the list!!

Thanks for the advice everyone! Having thoroughly searched the forum archives and done the calculations, the evidence is pointing to having a squirrel with a gravity radiator system, especially as the stove would be fairly central in the boat. the morso badger doesn't have a backboiler option anymore, i believe. we could try a different brand of stove with slightly higher kW but it would be a bit disappointing if we didn't like it as much as we like our squirrel! if anyone has done similar calcuations on their boat, and then been proved right/wrong, that would be interesting to know as well! cheers!

We have been doing some calculations about what kind of heating is required for a new 60x10ft widebeam. Assuming 1" of sprayfoam on the walls and ceiling has a U value of 0.17, and taking into account 4.5 sq m of single glazed windows, for a living space of 13.45x3.05m, we came up with a value of 4.5kW required to heat the boat (which includes an extra 2kW for heating water). If this is right, then a morso squirrel (with back boiler feeding radiators through the boat) would technically be enough to heat the boat, as the max output of a squirrel is 6kW. The calculations are right to the best of our knowledge, although that is restricted to a copy of a double page spread of a book (without the accompanying explanations)! As a comparison we calculated the requirement for our current boat, a 54' narrowboat with polystyrene and rockwool insulation, and it came to 5.7kW! (and we are fine with a squirrel.) Does anyone have any thoughts on this? We'd be interested to know if other people have calculated similar values for their boats, and if anyone actually has a squirrel on a widebeam. Searching the web, it seems that most widebeams have bigger stoves - but we would rather stick with a stove we know if it will be sufficient. (We would ideally like a separate diesel stove at the other end as a backup / supplement, but that may come later.) We've also had the madcap suggestion that underfloor heating could be a secondary/backup heating system (eg http://www.flexel.org.uk/ ) so thoughts on THAT would be interesting too!! Thanks, Michelle and Chris

you must be thinking of a different marina (or i've misunderstood which marina you're referring to), because willowtree does not have a dry dock, and it does have it's own car park. and moorings aren't to BW, it's a private marina which also acts as a brokerage. i live at willowtree and it is a good, secure place to live, although there are going to be some new (extortionate) charges from 2009 - definitely for residents, and i think also for pied a terre. there are several boats for sale, details at http://www.willowtree-marina.co.uk/. michelle

yeah, that's what i meant, a screw cap. we only have 1 cassette and empty it about 2x a week and only just getting probs. temporary cure is sealing it with lots of vaseline but replacing the cap would be better!

It's been a while since the last post, but we now have a new question relating to this vacuum cassette system. has anyone with the cassette had to replace the cassette lid (where you empty out)? the seal on ours has started to disintegrate and doesn\t seal properly now. just wondering if there's any way to get them without having to contact leesan. for anyone who's interested in how our previous problem got solved - in the end it was a problem with the actual ceramic toilet bowl. that was the only bit left that we/leesan hadnt tested, so we sent it back and when they sent us a new one it was absolutly perfect, and the pump never went off unless we flushed! over a year on, it hasn't (yet) gone wrong, doesn't smell and we are quite happy with it. only problem being the frequent emptying as we live aboard. plus we put just regular recycled loo paper in the loo and it's fine, if anyone's following that discussion. michelle+chris

Some interesting comments... We have 'recently' bought a vacuflush casstte system from leesan and have been having months of trouble fitting it, so was hoping to find out if others have had the same problem. We installed as per the instructions and the vacuum pump goes off every 45(ish) minutes like clockwork, so it seems like there's a small leak. the waste pipe is completely straight/flat and there is no water loss from the toilet bowl. we have put vaseline around the joints to try and identify a leak, but can't find it. We've had the unit tested by leesan (on their premises) and they say it works. We've also tried replacing the pipe, and getting the pump/cassette replaced. But every time it's exactly the same time interval and the pump goes off. After months of trying to fix this we are at a loss as to what to do! Leesan don't seem to be much help, as the engineer they sent fiddled with it a bit, but it made no difference to the pump going off. We have tried all their suggestions and none of them have worked. So if anyone has any idea what might be going wrong, please let us know! Also, leesan reckon that hundreds of people have bought this system for live-aboards. so we want to hear from you, even if you assure us that your system works perfectly fine! Thanks Michelle and Chris

hello does anyone know if international paints that you get in b&q (http://www.international-paints.co.uk/) are the same as international yacht paints? their logo is different and the products are branded differently but i was wondering if the normal exterior 10 year gloss might be the same thng as the yacht paint. they both have the same parent company. i have been reading other threads about painting but am still very new and confused! i'm trying to figure out what kind of paint to use on our newly acquired second hand boat. we're not looking for anything fancy, which is why i was wondering about this other international stuff. or perhaps dulux weathershield - i haven't heard anything about that, anyone got an opinion? thanks michelle