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Hi, Having recently purchased my first narrowboat, I am currently working my way down the (never ending ) to do list that stands before me. Any help on this and a few other like minded posts would be gratefully received. My engine room currently has: no insulation AND no air vent/ventilation system for when the engine gets HOT from use. I have been 'advised' to: a.) Batten out and insulate as much of the engine room as possible for the winter months. b.) Cut a couple of rectangles through the batten, insulation and steel to fit an air vent on each side wall to improve air circulation for when the engine is running. c.) Tidy up the battery mounts. Does anybody have any experience of doing either of these? Any things to be weary of? Any areas not safe to batten and insulate? Any ideas on housing batteries (3-4 domestic) in a tidy, simple and accessible way? Look forward to hearing what you might come up with. Thanking you all in advance. HAPPY BOATING

Hi everyone this is my first post here. I have a 1982 50ft skillcraft NarrowBoat with a BMC 1500 engine in it. Recently the BMC is becoming increasingly unreliable and has a large amount of piston slap in the block. It does not smoke but takes a stupid amount of heating cranking and more heating to get it to start and it tends to run on three cylinders out of four until it gets rather high on the revs. I have done a compression test. There is almost no compression in cylinder 1 but the rest seem ok. This engine was rebuilt 3 years ago by calcutt boats who I believe are the BMC experts. After all the hassle of keeping my BMC running I have decided to remove it and install a Lister HR3 in an engine room rather then an engine bay since my boat is ripped out to a shell and I am doing a self fit out. My plans are to have the bedroom at the back of the boat and have the engine room directly after my bedroom then my bathroom and then kitchen and living area. To install my HR3 I understand that it requires good strong steel bearers for it to live on. My boats baseplate is 5mm thick and I am thinking I am going to have to have this reinforced to take weight of the HR3 as it is 400kg of engine mounted on steel bearers in the middle of the boat. Am I right in thinking the tourqe that this engine produces could be an issue or would a 5mm base plate be able to handle the stress of the HR3. The gearbox I intend to use is going to be either a PRM 101 or a PRM 160, the gearbox is to be remotely mounted away from the engine on the engine room bulkhead under the bedroom. The prop shaft would be supported by using 3 carry bearings mounted on bearers secured to the base plate. This HR3 Is an ex Generator engine and has no variable speed but I can replace the govener at a later date. Any advice is greatly appreciated Regards TCB

Hi all, So, we're looking for some more storage space and a generally nicer looking layout regarding our engine room. At the moment, we have a trad layout with the engine room to the rear and the bed before that. I'm hoping to build a simple frame out of wooden beams, then covered with plywood. I'm removing the door to the engine room and looking to build steps up to it next to the bed. My main questions are: What size beams do I need? I'm hoping to have to avoid pillars, purely due to the lack of metalwork experience to be able to brace the pillars. The beams will span the full width of the boat (Standard narrowboat width) Is the frame I'm proposing study enough? I'm hoping the two main beams spanning the width of the boat will be the main structure, the beams running lengthways will be held by the main beams using something like this This is the "Before & After" plans I have, apologies if they are a bit crap: Before: After: Photos of the metal tabs running down each side of the engine room that I'm looking to use: