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Hi we are currently heading from Thorne to Skipton and hoped to fill with fuel at Castleford but no fuel to be had. We are hold up at Lemonroyd heading into Leeds Sunday and hopefully Rodley on Monday (once locks are booked). Can anyone advise places we can fill with diesel on the way over. It feels like fuel stops are few and far between, not something I had anticipated. With diesel heating we are using constantly this time of year so I am nervous when we drop below half a tank, would like to keep it topped off in case we get a cold spell. Any advice would be greatly appreciated Gerry

Liveaboard on a 60ft widebeam for a year and looking for some advice re heating. Managed to scrape through last winter and hoping to get my heating sorted out for the upcoming! Our boat (2007) came with a Webasto thermtop-c water diesel heater, with 4 radiators inside the boat. in spring this year the heater stopped working (Would start up and then stop within about 15 seconds). Anyone experienced with these, is it worth getting the Webasto serviced and going again for heating and water in the winter, or should we look to replace it with a new diesel heater, e.g. the Planar models other threads have discussed? Any advice would be much appreciated. We don't have a stove currently, would that be a better use of money for a heating system? Thanks

Hi all, Just wondering what the best diesel heating system would be to get. I'm hoping to just run a towel rail and 2 small radiators off it, so it won't be doing hot water as well. I've heard various things about Webasto but was keen to see if anyone else had other systems and what they thought. I don't have a massive budget either, so a decent, but cheaper system would be ideal (I guess that goes for everything in life). Thanks.

Just been reading a very interesting post on Facebook regarding fitting these cheap diesel heaters and being able to use plastic fuel tanks and lines which come with them hope it has not already been posted on here https://www.boatsafetyscheme.org/media/299306/bss-interim-position-on-diesel-appliance-fuel-supply-arrangements-dec-2021-final-v10-modified-on-211208.pdf

Question prompted by another thread related to the threat to woodburners and solid fuel stoves. Has anyone successfully done this? Is there a 'kit'?

I’ve been working out the latest fuel consumption for my Webasto Thermotop central heating - 5 radiators including the bathroom towel one in a 60ft Nb. For the first 3 years after it was installed its consumption averaged about 0.33 litres per hour. However, this last 12 months since the fuel prices shot up I’ve been limiting when I have it on. Whereas beforehand in the winter it was often running for 18 hours a day (split in two parts) I now just have in on for 2 hours first thing and then for a few hours in the evening. I’ve just worked out that the consumption this last 12 months has now shot up to 0.46 litres per hour. I realise that some of this is due to it having to keep heating up a colder than before boat from scratch but I’m nevertheless shocked that it’s increased so much. Obviously there are loads of variables with different boats and configurations, number of radiators, how cold the weather is, etc, but even allowing for this, does the panel think this increase in consumption seems excessive? I must confess I haven’t had it serviced for 2 years but would that really affect it much? It’s a 30 year old boat with not very good insulation (polystyrene) and I don’t have any secondary glazing, just thick & lined curtains, so I accept my boat isn’t as efficient as it could be.

I have an old Mikuni heating system on my boat that is working ok (despite being 20 years old!) and was controlled by a Danfoss TP5 programmer/timer. Unfortunately the Danfoss TP5 programmer has broken (the metal clip that holds the batteries in place came away when I was replacing the battery). This model of programmer is no longer made by Danfoss but a few are available on ebay but it seems sensible to replace it with a 'current' device. Couple of questions: - Has anybody replaced a Danfloss TP5 unit and if so what 'modern' manufacturer/model programmer was used? - Is replacing the programmer something any electrician/competent diy'er can do or does it need to be done by a heating engineer as it needs to be 'configured' with the Mikuni unit in some way? The good news is at least this didn't happen at the start of winter so I have time to sort out a replacement! Any thoughts/ideas gladly received. Thanks in advance.

Bit of a weird one this... I've got an Alde Compact 3010 central heating system and everything was fine until a few days ago. Suddenly the 240V icon isn't showing on the panel, so it's running off 12v and not heating. Eventually, I managed to find the power for the 3010 unit and power it off and on. Voila! The 240v icon reappeared and I thought all was good. Nope. Tried the central heating and initially it worked fine and I could feel the radiators heating up. After a while the 240v icon went out and the central heating radiators of course went cold. Ah, I'll just power it off an on again. Nope. No 240v icon this time. Checked the two fuses in the top panel of the unit and they're fine. Even unplugged and plugged the panel just to reboot it. Still no 240v icon. Any ideas for what else I could check? The unit is definitely getting 240v. Checked the cable with a non-contact meter and it's definitely live.

Hi, I'm looking at a boat to buy which I love, but the toilet is a cassette toilet. Does anyone know how easy/expensive it is to get the whole system installed professionally?

I am finally at the point of finishing the plumbing for the radiators for our Heritage Uno cooker/central heating. I have an engineer from the local Oil burner service who will come and inspect and commision the unit when we're ready. For various reasons it's been 3 years since the cooker was purchased & during that time I've managed to misslay the diagram I had for the installation. (how can you lose something on a 57' narrowboat). I've installed many solid-fuel rayburns etc in the past but they have been gravity-fed. This system is fully pumped & I'm not sure of the joint between the hot water and the radiators so I'm looking for a diagram to help me out. I'm not worried about the diesel side of thing as other than fitting a separate fuel tank and pipe all the connections will be done by the engineer. Any help will be much appreciated.

Hi all, i've got a beta genset on my narrowboat and I've run into an issue lately. I'm hoping I can explain it here and get some advice on what to do. So this morning I was running my genset to charge the batteries, after about an hour or so the genset died without warning. Originally I assumed this might be an issue with some crud or air in the fuel line. After 15-20 minutes I started the genset up again and it purred along with no visible issues but then died again after only a few minutes. At this point I decided to check for overheating. I disassembled the acoustic box surrounding the genset and inspected, the engine was definitely hot to the touch but didn't seem scalding. I also noticed a faint hissing sound coming from the front of the generator near where the belt is. This got me thinking it could be something to do with the coolant system. So I figured i'd come here for advice. I've attached a video below with the hissing sound for reference. Thanks for any and all help!

Hi All Looking to install a diesel air/fan heater and wondering where to put the unit. My boat is a cruiser stern, but limited space on the bulkhead walls in the engine bay now, plus as the heaters have their own little 10l diesel tank, could be fiddly/irritating having to go in engine bay to refill. My boat will be trad layout with bedroom at the back, but unlike most boats, I'll have a separate utility room after the bedroom.... this room is NOT accessible from the bedroom (i.e. no door to it) so I'm wondering if the heater could be mounted in there.... It's no different to if I had an engine room on a trad stern and there's also going to be no door between it and the bedroom for any potential leaks? Are there any issue around BSS does anyone know?

It's getting close to the stage where I have to make some decisions, and I have a couple of questions that I'd like some feedback on... My (hybrid) boat will have a calorifier with two heating coils, one for the generator and one for the pressure-jet diesel boiler. The normal way to connect this up would be for the main cooling connection for the (9kW) generator to be the skin tank with a (smaller) branch off to the calorifier, and the main connection for the boiler to be to the radiators with a (smaller) branch off to the calorifier -- in both cases most of the water bypasses the calorifier which only has a small coil and fittings (15mm?). Both generator and boiler are capable of dumping relatively large amounts of heat into the system, certainly much more than the coils in a standard calorifier can absorb, which is only a bit over 1kW -- see here for actual measurements: https://www.perseverancenb.com/post/how-to-measure-the-calorifier The issue I see is that this means it will take a long time to heat up the water, heating rate from either coil is only about 15C/hour. Since I only expect to run the generator for battery charging for an hour or so per day in summer, this isn't very helpful for providing hot water. The same applies when running the diesel boiler if only hot water is needed (radiators off), it will end up cycling on and off rapidly since the calorifier won't absorb enough heat. Some calorifier suppliers offer customised cylinders with much bigger/finned heating coils to heat them up more quickly (can be less than an hour), the biggest are often called solar coils because these are intended to accept lower-temperature "hot" water (45C?) than would normally come from an engine/generator/boiler (85C?) -- for example: https://www.coppercylinder.co.uk/customise-your-hot-water-cylinder.html This should mean the water can be heated from cold to hot in much less time -- I don't have exact numbers yet, but maybe up to at least 5x faster than a "standard" coil, so an hour or less -- and absorbing much more heat from the incoming water, so less boiler cycling. The coils and fittings are also bigger diameter (up to 28mm?) to allow much more water flow than standard 15mm. It also than seems that there's no reason to have the coils on a side branch any more, it should be feasible to put the entire water flow through them -- so the boiler loop would go to the calorifier first and then radiators (with a radiator bypass valve for hot water only in summer), the generator loop would go to the calorifier first and then to the skin tank. This would heat up the calorifier as fast as possible without restricting cooling water flow to either loop. The feed to the radiators would be cooler than normal if the tank is full of cold water, but probably still 50C or so which is OK -- and would rapidly get hotter as the tank warms up. Does anyone have any experience with doing something like this? Can anyone see any problems with building a system like this?

Double post due to software bug, please ignore...

Anyone know of an expert in these stoves anywhere near Milton Keynes?

I'm trying to get ready for winter. What do you use to heat your stove? Wood and coal are options I'd prefer not to use but am thinking of pellets, briquettes etc.

Hello everyone! I have created my account as I am dealing with a frustrating situation with regards to my engine and haven't been able to get any proper advice. I live on a 1930s trad stern narrowboat, with an old lister petter engine that is built like a tank - it rarely breaks down and has been running a long times without encountering many issues. However recently this good streak has ended - I recently pumped out a large quantity of water that had been sat in the fuel filter. The other day I went to check the oil which showed up all the way to the top of the dipstick (overflowing, basically). The solution was black and watery. I proceeded to pump the contents out the oil tank to find about 10 litres worth of what looked like diesel mixed into the oil - resembled Guiness in colour and smelt of diesel. I got the RCR over to have a look and they took the boat for a spin, and said to remove any more diesel if it came back, and call him again if the boat breaks down. He said if I'm really worried to change the fuel pump as it could have got in through there. This didn't exactly clear my conscience and I am wary that there must be a loose seal somewhere that needs replacing as diesel shouldn't be able to enter the oil. From what I can see online this is often through the fuel injector seal which can wear away. I'm also wondering if the water that was sat inside the tank may have rusted the engine from the inside, corroding a lot of the components so diesel could enter the oil tank. Had anyone else experienced this? Is it, as stated by the RCR engineer, not a problem? Or do I need to tackle the problem before the engine is permanently damaged? Confused. Please advise.

Hello everyone. Does anyone know the difference between the diesel pump supplying my webasto and the pump used to supply a Bubble diesel stove? Are they fundamentally different specifically with regard to noise? We have a webasto in our engine room for our CH sytem with the diesel pump on the bulkhead with our back cabin which ticks loudly as everyone knows so acts as our daily alarm clock when the timer is on. I am considering changing the multifuel stove in the fwd saloon to a diesel Bubble and assume that it will need it's own pump installed in the engine room to supply the stove up front? Does anyone know if that 'Bubble' pump will be noisy like the webasto pump?? i.e. I don't want to install a new system that will end up being a 24/7 alarm clock if you follow my drift? Thanks in advance Boaty

Evening all, I have diesel warm air heating & a Taylors 079D drip fed diesel heater on board. I have the install where its has a pressurised fuel tank which you pump up and then *try* to keep at a stable pressure so it has a steady drip rate and as such a steady stable burn.... However keeping the pressure stable is a pain and as such the burn is not stable.... So I have been toying with the idea of improving the Taylors heater for some time now, looking at the manufacturers site and list of parts they have a very over priced fuel / lift pump. Looking at it its just an old SU style pump (Google part number AZX1307) which is commonly available, same pump that was on the old mini or morris minor.... Looking at how the lift pump works it holds fuel pressure in its chamber and only uses electricity when the pressure drops. By my calculations running the hear from it it would probably only 'tick' every 45 seconds or soand as such use very little electricity. It should also sort out keeping the fuel pressure stable and as such the burn stable..... So, then my throughts moved on a little... I wondered if I could use the little dosing pump like i have on the warm air diesel heater, I'd have to run up an adjustable circuit to run it but it should be really accurate and easy to set and use... I had an Arduino board kicking about so have spent a couple of hours prototyping my proof of concept. So essentially it works, 2 buttons increase and decrease the pulses per second minute. Currently has a min of 30 and max of 130. It the moment it pulses an LED but won't be difficult to drive a TIP120 or something similar to drive the fuel pump. The 'On' pulse has a set duration of 1/4 of a second and the 'Off' duration is changed to alter the pulse rate. If anyone is interested the Arduino code is attached.... More updates to follow.... Arduino Code.docx

We have had serious issues with sticky diesel ("Sticky Diesel" stops several canal boats) and the universal advice is to empty and clean the fuel tank and start again with clean diesel. So we now have about 120 L of clean-lookng diesel that I would not put into an engine. It will run a stove without problem (no injector pump ...). The diesel is in a 100 L barrel plus 20 L or so in a container that I'd like to keep. Free to anyone who can take it away. Access by water is vastly less complicated than handling the drum up the garden steps. We're in Leighton Buzzard, just south of Leighton lock.

Please does anyone know if this catalyst is complete and if so, which way up does it sit in the burner. It seems to burn better open end up but I’m still not sure.

Why? If.you have a diesel engine you can charge the batteries and heat the water at the same time - simples!

Have boaters noticed the cost of fuel hitting their pockets more or as much as landlubbers? I've considered buying a third boat (sold my second in 2020) but feel nervous that boaters living aboard might be feeling it worse than households.

I have a built in generator on my boat, it is cooled by the same skin tanks that cool the main engine, the engine cooling water heats the colarifier, could l use the generator cooling water to heat the colarifier? ,the engine is a 1ltr 3 cylinder mitsubishi engine, would the engine water pump be big enough to circulate the water or would I need a separate 12v pump ?