Jim and Paula

We wouldn't want to live anywhere else. This is our 4th winter living on our boat and CCing and we wouldn't want to go back to living in bricks and morter. The weather doesn't bother us either, it's lovelly curled up in front of the stove with a good book.

Hi Jonjo, Very good point, I maust have been having one of my senior moments!!!! You are right, if I do go sealed, I can keep them on the swim plate.

Our current battery bank is on it’s last legs. The 6 110Ahr batteries are just over three years old so we can’t complain (we live aboard and are CCers with no shore power). The current batteries live on the swim plates and are a real pain to get at for maintenance etc. We are toying with the idea of buying sealed batteries and fitting them in a void space under the dining table (beside the pump out tank). Does anyone else use sealed batteries and if so, would you recommend them as a replacement for standard vented types?

Excellent data, many thanks. I see that I am not the only ‘nerd’ for recording things

Thanks again for the replies, the gas conversion looks very apealing, will probably go for it.

Hope they look after it better than they do their Bull’s Bridge store. We are not ones to complain about much but Paula felt she just had to write to Tesco complaints department about the state of the approach from the canal. Paula attached some photos of the state of the place to her letter. Some of the photos can be seen here: http://www.nb-anon.com/Diaries/0912_Dec/Diary/01_Hayes.php Their reply arrived back today and is as follows: I appreciate that you have taken the time to write to us and it is only polite that we reply in a timely manner so I hope that you will accept my apologies for the delay in doing so. I was surprised to see the photograph of the mess as you approach our Hayes Bull's Bridge store. I can certainly appreciate your concern. I have discussed this with the stores Duty Manager, xxxxxxx. She went down to the canal to have a look for herself and can completely see where you're coming from. She has arranged for the Cleaning Manager to go down tomorrow and tidy this up. She also understands the importance of maintaining this and has assured me this will be adhered to. Thanks for letting us know about this. I am very confident that this area will b a lot nicer the next time you visit the store. However, if you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact us at customer.service@tesco.co.uk . Kind Regards xxxxxxxxx Customer Service Manager Tesco Customer Service It will be interesting to see what the site looks like next time we pass.

Thanks John, I will give that some thought.

Hi Keith, I should have mentioned, I have 50Amp and a 30Amp Sterling Pro-Digital chargers that I normaly run from the engine mounted 3kW Travel Power setup. I can also run the chargers from the shore power connection which is where the Honda will be used. I intend to bring the batteries up to close to full charge using the engine then switch to the Honda for the longer equilisation charge. I was concerned about the Honda petrol consumption when running for the long equilisation period. Edited to add: The battery bank consists of 6 110A/hr batteries and we are live aboards. The bank is now 3 years old and will soon need replacing. I intend to look after the new bank a bit better than I have looked after the current ones - hence the periodic equilisation charges.

I am considering buying a Honda EU20i generator, mostly for equalisation charges but also to run other equipment on occasion. I am aware that the EU10i would probably do the equalisation charging role but if I am laying out the money on a new generator, I would rather spend the extra and have the additional capacity that the EU20 provides. My question: What is the ‘real’ fuel consumption that can be expected from the EU20 when running at say 300W load (I expect that my equalisation charge will be in the order of 10Amps into the batteries as that is about what I see now). The sales blurb on the EU20 says that it will run for 15 hours on a 4.1 litre tank full when in Eco mode but I don’t really understand what that means in relation to load???? Many thanks in advance.

Many thanks to every one for the constructive and informative replies.

We are thinking of heading up the Lee and Stort in January for a month or so. Can any one advise on risk of flooding? Don't want to end up tied to a tree for days on end as we have had to do on rivers in the past. Many thanks in advance.

Some recent-ish photos of the moorings in Limehouse basin. Three Mills is a possible mooring option but it can be a bit noisy. See: http://www.nb-anon.com/Diaries/0908_Aug/Di...3_Limehouse.php and the page before this one for Three Mills.

Another option might be ‘drinkable antifreeze’ in the system. Never tried it myself (we live aboard) but have heard of people that have and they said it worked fine for them.

Forgot to mention, we are live aboards and the fire never goes out during the winter months. We will cap off the chimney when the stove is not in use next spring. We do burn quite a lot of wood and it can be a bit ‘fresh’.

In case anyone is interested….. For the past number of winters, we have had an 18 inch double skin chimney stack with a Cooley hat fitted. We have also been plagued by ‘brown fluids’ dripping off the Cooley had and staining the roof – it’s almost impossible to remove the staining. About 6 weeks or so ago, the Cooley hat got knocked off the roof and lost into the depths of the Grand Union. Since loosing the hat, we have had no more problems with the ‘brown fluids’. It would appear that the Cooley hat has been doing more harm than good and we will not be replacing it.