J R

From memory, when we had our boat built (Colecraft shell) they 'blacked' the water tank with something that I cannot remember, that is designed for the tank. Its not the blacking on the hull. We also use a Brita filter jug for our drinking water. Never had a rust issue thankfully. Our tank (150 gallons) is in the bow and there is a plate/hatch that can be removed to look at the interior.

It is easy, with correct wireing and fuses etc, to bypass the inverter charger so that you can access shore power without going through the inverter etc. This is normal practice for new builds unless there has been a cost cutting exercise for what ever reason. It is also easy and cheap to retro fit this. Make sure that there is the correct fuse board and RCB.

I would be appalled if when buying a boat that I was not able to do a test cruise. What, if anything, do the brokers/sellers have to loose? Narrowboats may look similar, but they handle in different ways and you need to know that the handeling suits you for instance. If you don't get to do a 'test drive' walk away. In any event, before buying get a survey. Good luck with your search.

Not knowing the houseing of your battery box, 110 ahr & 135's are of different physical sizes, so make sure if you go down that route that they can be safely fixed. 110,s are cheaper to buy. In your question it is 6 of one and 2 threes of the other. Makes no difference, but do an electrical usage audit to make sure you have enough for your needs.

It is our experience that the person on the end of the that the person phone does not know didly squat about the boats that you be enquireing on. They are only there to answer calls and generate money for the hire companies. Best way to find out if the boat is up to your expectations is to phone the base where the boat is, who should give you all the info that you require; you are the customer after all. The hire company should give all the relevent information on their website, but this is not always the case sadly. The public, imo, are sometimes sadly duped into their expectations for the hire boat experience and receive an experience that is woefully below standard. There are also hire boat companies that also exceed the standards that we would like for our hard earned cash for our holidays.

Ant (oin) & Dec (ceis) ?

On The Dark Side of The Moon ?

We replaced our Webasto water/antifreeze this year with a 50/50 mix. Have heard a 25% antifreeze mix will work but have not tried it. Never add/top up with a different colour antifreeze as mentioned above. When you do a drain down and refill there will be air trapped inside the system. Its a devil to get out and demands a certain amount of runnning the system, bleeding valves and topping up the header tank. It is not caused by the water mix added, just trapped air in the pipes. Any thing added must be well pre mixed. Adding the antifreeze and then water will cause problems with the circulation. We change ours every couple of years to be on the safe side and get the anti freeze from the local motor factors as its saves a lot from buying from a high street out let or petrol station.

All very well disolving the snail, but what about its shell? Seriosly though, try soda crystals and hot water. Will shift grease, soap etc very effectivly. (Untried on small squishy animals, but worth a go).

Its not a stupid question at all. As far as I am aware, regular diesel from the local forecourt is the same as red diesel in composition, except red has the 'excise' dye added to it to show that it is sold at a different tax rate to the white stuff. Its all low sulphur and about 5% bio. The rules changed a couple of years ago or so due to EU regulations. Red & white can be happily mixed. Obviously if you buy from the forecourt you will be charged the full vehicle rate; not good for the pocket but no harm for the engine. As we are now in the middle of a cold period, forecourt refinery suppliers put some sort of agent in the diesel to stop it from going into a treacle like state when frozen, therefore not flowing enough to work in a car engine. White diesel is not a bad idea on a boat in this respect during a prolonged period of freezing weather. We have used red & white mixed in the past with no problems.

A new battery should never be added to an 'old' battery bank as this will cause problems. Suggest you use a drop tester on each battery to see if there is one that is faulty. If you have wet open batteries, make sure that the electrolite is up to the correct level.

Its worth noting that when the final coat is painted it will take time to cure, depending on ambiant temperature. It will 'mellow' over a period (of sometimes months) to the final actual colour. This is based on experience with International paint. Look at lots of boats, and see what floats yours colour scheme wise.

Difficult to give some sort of figure without seeing the boat, but it would run to a number of thousands of pounds, depending on finish and materials involved as well as if the windows and mushroom vents etc are removed etc. To have it professionally done would also require it to be under cover, so cost of a dry dock would be an additional expense. Think in your case, if you buy the boat, concentrate on the things that make the boat work and function properly plus bring any lapsed maintenence work up to date if necessary. The 'pretty' side can be done in the future. There is no reason that you cannot learn to do the job yourself if the T Cut and polish does not work out to your satisfaction. I would suggest that it is one of the pleasurable sidelines of having a boat. Plus you would save money. Just to add, all our signwriting and coach lines are done in cut vynal similar to vans & lorrys. We did have it done professionaly and it was worth while the relative cost.

I must admit that I am not a great fan of Victron based on the failure rates, in various forms, of the equipment on hire boats, and private boats, from experence. I would however agree with above comments above on having some sort of built in redundancy. Have positive experience of Mastervolt products and would choose them over Victron. We went down the route some years ago, having done much research on available options, on fitting Sterling units which are seperates for each function. They have performed faultlessly over the last 8 years and work well for us. Everyone will have their opinion on the various choices and all three are reptutable companies. Cost is also an issue when it comes down to it. I would add that when getting an inverter, always go for pure sine wave, not quasi sine wave. 220v stuff is designed for pure sine wave and may malfunction or break if used with the quasi version.

It never ceases to disappoint me the thefts from boats from obviously some other boaters. A recent example was the Anglo Welsh hire boat that went down in the Widcombe flight in Bath. Bearing in mind that the boat was stranded on its side in the lock and at various times flooded, the booze, 4 x 13 kgs of propane and 5 12v batteries were looted to name but a few bits and pieces. A dangerous exercise I would suggest, but someone thought it was worth the risk.

Never mix the blue and pink anti freeze. This will cause alot of problems. If you know what was used before colour wise, stick to that. It is virtually impossible to drain out all the old fluid, which should be a 50/50 mix and replaced every 2 to 3 years, but worth the effort. We get ours from a motor factors in larger quantaties and thus cheaper than buying from a high street or petrol station outlet. same applies for the central heating if you have the likes of a Webasto or Eber system.

We use a 3 MiFi which will serve both our laptops, but only at mobile broadband speeds that can be variable. However, we also have a Bear Share range extender (other makes available) whereby there is a small external magmount aerial on the roof which connects to the Bear Share box, no bigger than a fag packet, and an extension cable that plugs into the USB socket of a laptop, which powers it. Note, the signal has to come from some sort of land based wifi router. As we have BT broadband at home, we can have free access to their BT Wifi/Fon system.

Good idea to speak to the people at merlin, but you could try disconnecting the wires to the Smartguage for a few minutes and then recoonnecting. Think that there is something in the instructions about this. It will take a day or more for the correct reading to get up to speed. Hope that you get it cured as they are a valuable asset for battery management.

GCHQ?

Taking it that the OPs Bubble is diesel fired. Have had 2 (dry) stoves on different boats, last one worked well, but this one has got worse over the last 7 years and is now sooting too much. The blow back of fumes/smoke can occur on strt up/lighting when the stove is cold and there is no vacuum in the chimney as well as too much diesel in the burning pot. Solution is to turn of the diesel supply until it has calmed down and, as long as the stove is still let, proceed as normal. The flue does need to be swept periodically; you would be surprised at the soot build up that restricts the airflow. Have had to become a bit of an expert over the last couple of months as our Bubble is smoking like a bonfire. Have seviced fully the stove, and replced the seals around the door. Had the Toby valve in pieces and serviced and played around with the settings (high & low flame screws). Have also spoken to Bubble and also the makers of the valve itself. The only consolation is that the stove still produces good heat. Intending to replace the Toby valve in the hope that it will revert to the performance of the stove when it was new. Disaapointed that there is no clear blue flame; its always had yellow bits as well. We got the stove as we did not wan't to carry the additional solid fuel. The installation is by the book in the instructions from Bubble. As a suggestion, Google all of the instruction manuals on the stove; some other info will come up (Nordic Stoves?), so worth going through the whole lot. Good luck and keep warm.

Think that if you are a livaboard 6 110s is ideal. (Would caution against adding 2 new ones to an older battery bank due to the inbalances that could result etc). 130 AHR's are larger in sized and cost more. We retro fitted a Smartguage a couple of years ago (have an amp hour counter) and it shocked us how badly we were treating our battery management, and it has helped alot. We never let our domestic bank go below 50% SOC. When we had to replace our last set of domestics they were 6 years old. Not bad for the investment, but at the end of the day batteries are a maintence item. We use the Dynamic brand of wet open batteries which come with a good guarantee and there have been no problems with that brand. (Other brands available). Think that the secret on keeping the domestic bank going is good housekeeping on the discharge/recharge cycles.

WD40 for the zip and diluted soda crystals to clean the cover works well for us. Light scrubbung action with a brush and rinse with clean water.

This question has been thrashed out in the past on the forum. Think there was a vote once on the subject. The question falls into the category of whether you like Marmite or not. Opinion is divided on this subject. As is the benefits of an Eco fan. If you like it eat it, Marmite not the fan.

Lets not get into a discussion as to whether Ecofans work or not and are useful or not. Hope that the OP gets his working again!

West end of the K & A has been low for the last 6 to 8 months. Local restaurant boat has also had problems during their journeys from Bath to Bradford on Avon and back. Day to day users have also had difficulties. Not sure if CaRt, now with their new charitable status, have a handle on the situation in keeping the navigation fully operational.