David Mack

Fit the battens running fore and aft so there is through ventilation. You may need to adjust a few of the top layer of ballast blocks.

Yes. I've read of a few instances of high CO levels, including fatalities, resulting from fire/stove ash or barbecues (with glowing embers beneath the surface) left to cool slowly in or close to living/sleeping spaces. And never put your stove ash in a bucket in the front well deck, unless it is cold. Otherwise CO from smouldering embers could find its way into the cabin through low level vents in the front doors/bulkhead.

What are the opening hours? And will there be shorter slots if the listed time windows fall partly within and partly outside opening hours?

I prefer to drop down the 3 locks and moor outside The Boat for the night.

On most modern narrowboats the widest part of the hull is at the top guard, the upper part tapers in a little from there to the gunwale and the lower part tapers down to a 2m wide baseplate. The internal lining may follow that shape, or more likely just run straight from under-gunwale to chine. A few builders build 'Brumagem square' with vertical sides below the top guard down to a wider baseplate. Most working boats were built with vertical sides between the upper and lower guards, but tapered in above and below to the gunwale and baseplate. Modern boats built as faithful replicas of working boats may do the same. Only thing you can do is measure your boat.

I would expect those Allen bolts to be tight anyway. If they were loose enough that you could nip them up then water could be getting through the joint behind the front part of the gland and/or you could have lost some of the grease by the same route. Can you actually see it leaking? How many drips of water per second (or seconds per drip). A continuous dribble is worrying, a drop every few seconds can safely be left for a week or more between manual bilge pumping.

Perhaps more likely that the engine was mounted in line with one of the props, using the standard kelvin gearbox, with a chain drive across the two propshafts.

We are told OP's partner is a joiner and neither of them knows much about engines. We don't know how much either of them knows about 12V electrics (which are different from house wiring), plumbing, heating systems, LPG gas systems, BSS requirements, welding, painting, etc. etc. So at the moment a bit of an open question as to the overall level of their practical abilities.

This boat? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/315200806314 Ad suggests hull is OK (but then it would, wouldn't it). Could be OK but a lot of work. Not just joinery and an engine refit either - there's plumbing, electrics, heating, gas etc. to do as well. If you've never been on a narrow boat do you really want to take all this on? And the previous engine was probably a Sabb (not a Saab) and to my mind a nicer engine, but presumably now history.

A bit more than that - it's a standard technique for relining and reinforcing sewer pipes. The fibreglass liner is inserted into the pipe with a plastic tube inside it. The tube is first filled with water under pressure to force the liner against the existing pipe structure and then hot water is circulated through it which triggers the temperature-sensitive setting reaction of the fibreglass resin. Then the plastic bag is removed and the fibreglass ends trimmed.

I have often read about the need to remove mill scale before blacking, either by angle grinding, grit blasting or leaving it to rust for a few months. But outside narrow boat building, what does the steel fabrication industry do? Angle grinding and leaving it to rust don't look to be credible solutions, and I can't believe that fabricators pay the extra cost of blasting in most cases. Which suggests they largely get away with just a degrease, primer and paint. I have been told that the top notch boatbuilders used pre-blasted and primed plate for hulls, but prefer plain steel, primed after fabrication, for cabin structures as it is easier to get a good line and finish that way.

A bit like this then!

Many thanks for sorting it Rich!

Is it just me, or are VNC and Search giving an error message for everybody?

The caption on the last picture states it is all steel!

That looks very much like a bespoke adaptor fabricated for the purpose rather than an off the shelf part. Can you not adapt it to suit your purpose?

I know it says that. And I don't doubt that this is an older building much extended. But it just isn't in the right location to have been a lock cottage. Hence my question whether it actually was one.

If the engine is designed with a standard SAE gearbox mounting, you could probably find a bellhousing intended for another engine with the same SAE mounting. Try other engine marinisers.

I seem to think that at least one of the original Lichfield locks was blown up by the army for demolition practice. A bit unfair to blame the original builders, or those responsible for its maintenance while in use, for the lock failing in those circumstances!

Another AI bot post?

The canalside property in that area which I once aspired to own collapsed over 30 years ago.