Chris Lingwood

I'll have a look into them. Its a good job I've got a garage to store all these things in Although the car might need to go in there now and then Yup planning is a good idea. Its rapidly coming up my to do list so actualy having another look at it propperly, rather than just thinking "that would be nice", will happen soon. Although theres nothing like the sense of adventure you get from going off half cocked! Thats probably how I missed it then!

Most of the people I know who would have such things live about 300 miles away I think a workmate would be better than tresals for when the sheet gets a bit smaller. Hmmm...I'm sure they didn't have any aproaching that cheap! I'll pop in again and have a look. That would probably do the job. It just once you have spent about £40 you might as well spend £60 and get the superduper one. But if theres the option of a tenner then the £60 just looks silly.

The thing is I don't have anywhere else to conceivably cut wood in anyway. I had to use the roof of the boat to trim some chrome piping I was using to reinforce the work top (after I replaced a cupboard with a freezer). Which was hardly ideal! I can't imagine how I would cut that much wood without something handy to work on. I've found this which isn't shockingly expensive...might have a sqiz on ebay http://www.diytools.co.uk/diy/Main/Product...ProductID=13025 I'm not sure how standard I'll be able to keep the wood. It all depends on how big the hole is. If its odd (and most probably inconsitant). I'll just use sheets of ply and trim it to the right width with a jigsaw. The really fun part is going to be trying to get the curves at either end right. Any tips for that? If I can't screw it to the existing battons I was thinking I could put some cross peices in with plates on the top, then screw the covers to those plates. It is a hell of a lot more work though! I'm not sure I'll be able to do much in the way of directing moisture, the cladding on the bottom wall goes up inside the top wall so I can't really direct it behind. I was going to glue some kind of insulation (recomendations) ontop of the covers to help keep the condensation down. It will be as removable as I can make it as I'm intending to put in some LED downlighters at a later date...mainly because they look needlessly good I'm tempted to do it now but it sounds like a great way of overcomplicating the job and putting it off forever!

Seeing as the person who fitted out my boat inexplicably left the underside of the gunnels open, presumably to make sure they drip onto the floor, I'm going to need to plug that hole. Unfortunatly its a 60foot boat so thats about 100foot of covering! And the main tool I lack is a workmate on which to cut up what ever wood I end up using. I had a look at the ones in wickes but they had one out on display so I gave it a good shaking and the thing damn near fell apart! But then again the ones in b&q seam to start at about £80. Is there any need to spend that much? I'm not even sure what you would use a tilt feature for! Also is plywood appropriate for filling the gunnel gap? Its probably less likely to warp than anything else I can think of. I've not got any great ideas for fixing it on realy either. I want it to remain at least mostly removable but all I have is the two overlapping walls with the top wall having some right angled beading on the bottom with about 1.5cm lip. I'm thinking of using the bottom of the battons holding up the wall! The most important thing though is which workmate to buy seeing as I don't want a flippy floppy one or one with a hundred thousand features I'll never use! So much for not having to do much maintenance!

I would say a dehumidifier is a fairly important thing to have. Not so much because of the condensation isue (but it does help a bit) but because they are good at sorting out the aftermath of leaky windows. Of course the best solution to all this is to make sure your windows don't leak in the first place but where would the fun be in that!

theres lots of wiring under neath the gunwales. That is infact where it all is! I was going to glue some glass fibre stuff to the wood and insulate it that way. Its what the rest of the boat is done with. I suppose i could do where the water tank is in ply wood with glass fibre behind. That is I could if I could fit more than my head in the hole. Would this pretty much sort the condensation or would it just cover it up.

the gas pipes are just too small...its the wrong diameter for the appliances which are in there. That and the fact that there isnt a flexible pipe on the cooker or isolation valves for the cooker and heater...oh and the fact the gas pipes go through the engine bay without any lagging, are hidden in places AND run directly next to power cables means its probably a good idea to replace the whole system. The gas might not be causing the chugging but its certainly not helping. The heat settings dial is firmly stuck and if I've been informed correctly you aren't allowed to repair these heaters, but you are allowed to keep them if they work. Something like that anyway. I'll have a fiddle with the other knob though. I shall have a look around for accumulators now I know what they are called. Cheers. I might be able to make one.

Yup that old chesnut! This ones a bit different though. The hole which my water tank goes in isn't lined with anthing so theres quite a bit of condensation in there over all the metal surfaces. Is there anything I can do about it short of cover it the metal all with something which would have to wait as theres lots to take appart to get to it. The other fun is that the gunwales (is that the right name for the lip half way down the wall) aren't covered. By that I mean the top part of the wall overlaps the lower part but bit you look up between them you can see some metal. Whats the best solution for this as the insulation is getting bit moist up there. I though I could mount a strip of wood to "seal" it from the air. Would I just want to cover it up or put some insulation ontop of it too?

I've got a paloma water heater which is a bit chuggy. Half the problem is the gas system can't keep the presure high enough (replacing all the pipes soon) but the other problem is it has a little fight with the water pump. It seams to restrict the flow just enough to make the pump turn its self off then on again about once a second. The guy who came to look at the gas said there was a tank of some kind you can fit between the cold water feed and the heater to make the flow smoother. What are they called? It would be nice to have hot water which actualy comes out at a constant rate.

Big pliers, correct sized connectors, brute force Do make sure your pliers are the type for crimping rather than cutting though

but surely our engines and tanks are quite firmly stained already so at least for a while we can say we filled up our tanks before they changed the law It does seam a daft thing to do having just spent lots of money getting canals going again to try and kill off the trafic by doubling the cost of the fuel, thereby removing the capital to maintain the canals and potentialy causing them to fall into a state of decay again. The laws an ass.

Good god thats incredibly strange!!!! I bought my very first guitar from you about 4-5 years ago! You probably wouldn't know who I am, I've not been in very often but you should know my friend Andy hards and his brother and my perhaps my girlfriend Hannah Carpenter (I think she knows your son) or Annie Carpenter from chequer mead. How very odd. What kinda boat have you got? You mustn't keep it too close by what with the lack of canal.

If you don't plan on going to the shops very often then a freezer is a good idea. I tried to live without one for a while but I found I wasn't really eating anything very interesting because I'd have to eat all the meat fairly rapidly before it all went off. If you go shopping alot it doesn't matter because you can buy more...but I don't. The freezer only cost £150 delivered and fits where a cupboard I never use was and uses something like 250kwh a year which is about as little as you can get for a reasonable price. Theres certainly no point for a pleasure narrow boat, only a liveaboard, for a continuous cruiser the power draw might be a problem when its freezing alot. Depends how meaty your inverter and battery banks are going to be. And wash the dishes in the sink for goodness sake

My 4/5th lock ever that one...fortunatly going down...less can go wrong down

Take photos as you go along! You'll thank me later.

When my boat was refitted they threw away the old guages because they were ruined. I'd quite like to add temp, oil and rev guages just so I can see whats going on in that engine a bit more acuratly rather than relying on clouds of steam to tell me its a bit warm. Seeing as british leyland (or whatever they chose to call themselves at the time) refused to design something more than once I expect that the guages for almost any car of that era would fit. Would I be right? If so does anyone have any ideas what cars/vans might have had the bmc 1.5 desiel in them. The temp/oil guage is probably completly generic but the rev counter would have to be desiel specific. I think ebay will help me out!

Splendid. I have a good idea of what should be going on. I just need to try and check if thats whats actualy happening. I'll see what I can do about ameters. At least then I know whats afoot, be it good or bad!

Ah right I think I understand what its trying to do now. Is that relay just a standard relay? If so surely when the engine is on all three are being charged. Is that the idea? I thought the idea was to charge the starter first then charge the others. I guess its not important either way. I should be able to test things now, cheers for that description. I suspect I have a dodgy connection or a dead relay because I had the engine running for a lot longer than three hours and the batteries ran down before the day was out. After I've been using my mains charger the bateries last for quite a while (over a day)...not too long as the fridge has a good go at killing them. I think the alternator is probably fine as the starter battery took a pasteing to start the engine on two successive days with no mains charge in between. It wouldn't have coped if it wasn't charging as I could hear the starter motor slowing during the first days starting. Plus the charge light goes out which is at the very least a positive sign. (I probably need to have a look at my heater circuit aswell because although it was absurdly cold it did take alot of heating)

That may be the problem. I remember last time i looked at this I found what i thought was that relay but it turned out to be for the heaters. The starting battery always seams to be ok, its the other two that get a little upset. I'll whack the multimeter on it tomorrow see what I can work out. I might invest in a fixed ammeter but I'm always a little dubious about launching all that current so close to the controls (I certainly feel that way about them in cars). How long should 3 110AH batteries take to charge from empty? I ran my engine for ages (hours) last time i was relying on it and it didnt seam to charge very much at all!

Since I've managed to get myself stranded (here) my 12v system just became a bit more of a priority. Its all fine appart from the fact the engine won't charge the lesiure batteries very well. Its either down to the alternator being dead, which I can believe because its potentialy the same age as the engine which is potentialy the same age as the boat...which is 33. OR down to the wiring. I can fairly safely discount the batteries as they charge fine off my stirling charger. I could check this reasonably easily if I could work out how the circuit is supposed to work. Its wired up (i belive) so that the engine battery charges first and you charge the lesuires last. Does anyone have a circuit diagram I can compare to my wiring to see if its doing that...or something quite different. Its probably easier and cheaper to fix the alternator charging circuit rather than get a bigger genny to run the battery charger. I've moved my freezer contents to a mates house for the moment so I dont really need 240v so the fact the inverter appears to have packed it in doesn't really matter everything else runs off 12v. Oh the joys!

We set off early saterday morning up the glasson branch to the nearest pump out as things had started to get a little stinky. About 10 minutes after leaving we started bleching clouds of steam...my water replacement obviously hadn't gone as smoothly as I might have liked. After about 2 hours of jimmying trying to get the bubbles out of the system so it could get warm without throwing its coolant all over the place we set off again. We made it up the first 5 locks fine...we were just coming up to the final lock with my girlfriend on the boat on her own while I prepared the lock...and she stopped. Bum! Thirty minutes later and with a lot of pulling on ropes we'd managed to get enough water from the top lock down to drag her off. The engine really didn't fancy that after its overheating efforts earlier so we gave it a break at galgate while we pumped her out. Then set off to Lancaster. The real fun started the next day on the way back, the canal had been quite icey but that morning it had got pretty thick. Not wanting to try and do any locks in the dark we set off anyway ice breaker style! We lost a bit of blacking but nothing thats the end of the world. The real fun started when we got back to galgate again. I wandered off to break some ice and get the lock prepared...then gave up. The top 1/4 mile of the branch looked a little strange. In fact very strange...it was missing something...something very important! WATER! Wandered down to the bottom lock and it was pissing out under the gate. By the time we'd manage to tell someone who should know about it there was only about 3 inches of water left. They've filled it up now and chocked the gates shut so I've no idea when I can get through, but for the moment I'm stuck in galgate only 2 1/4 miles from home To top it off the inverter appears to have died a death and the genny doesn't appear to have the testicular fortitude to run anything more impressive than a clock radio let alone my battery charger (which i need because the engine doesnt seam to be too happy about charging anything). My long term to do list appears to have got much longer and moved decidedly into the short term! Oh well I guess this is boating

I've got 5 doubles running off a 5 amp fuse I don't run anything which draws any level of power really. I've only blown one fuse and that was only 3amp!!! I was going to add two more doubles for things like phone chargers and clock radios. I think whoever came up with that number wasn't thinking straight. They do realise 60 foot is a very long way! Once you've plugged in the toaster in the kitchen and battery charger (mine runs off a normal socket for safety) in the utility area and the clock radio in the bedroom theres your 3 doubles used up. Forget about the computer or the hifi half way in between. Ludicrous!

my halls were self catering so the food was even worse You'd be surprised how antisocial some courses can be. It depends on the year. I definitly wouldnt have moved onto a barge on my own before now. It would have been a big mistake. Back "on topic" though...I seam to have been soundly beaten in the youngest stakes. Ah well...such is life! I'll just have to wait untill you get older!...oh hang on

It runs out in 2009 and was only done shortly after the new fit out was finished. The guy who did the survey about 2 months ago would have mentioned it if he thought anything was absurd. He did point out that a couple of the fire extinguishers were out of date (now replaced) so he was pretty thorough.

Nope no other vents...but I do have 3 ill fitting hatches and the two windows in the bathroom are perpetualy open. Admittedly it could probably do with some more, I might think about adding some mushrooms, but then again I like the roof being clear so I can clutter it up