am I going to sink

[Trix]

Yesterday my shower pump became inefficient , I have only had the boat three months but I'm learning fast , so guessing a blockage I removed panel behind sink found the pump then the hair trap . It was full so I emptied and pump great again . Then I pointed my torch to the bottom of the boat and to my horror saw lots of what looked like rust , and it's a little damp. When I touched it it began to crumble . Now very worried I took deep breath and stuck a screw driver into it , about 1-2 mm came away but it is very solid underneath the boat was surveyed and apart from some small pits all was well . What worries me is would the survey have been ok if this had been seen ?is it something I should panic about ? Should I now dismantle the bath room remove the rust if it is rust and paint it ? Should I contact the surveyor and ask his advise ?

[Guest]

Yesterday my shower pump became inefficient , I have only had the boat three months but I'm learning fast , so guessing a blockage I removed panel behind sink found the pump then the hair trap . It was full so I emptied and pump great again . Then I pointed my torch to the bottom of the boat and to my horror saw lots of what looked like rust , and it's a little damp. When I touched it it began to crumble . Now very worried I took deep breath and stuck a screw driver into it , about 1-2 mm came away but it is very solid underneath the boat was surveyed and apart from some small pits all was well . What worries me is would the survey have been ok if this had been seen ?is it something I should panic about ? Should I now dismantle the bath room remove the rust if it is rust and paint it ? Should I contact the surveyor and ask his advise ?

Sounds like something has leaked over the years and water has been down thee for a while. Rust removed in this fashion often looks worse than it is. You need to find out if anything is still leaking, and get it dried out. When this happened on my boat I removed the water then dried out under the floor with a 12V desk fan which I ducted with a cornflakes box and duct tape (Blue Peter style) and I left this running for a few days (don't use heat!). The leak turned out to be a very slow weep on the kitchn tap.

 

Is your shower drain one that looks like a sandwhitch box with a bilge pump in it? Mine is one of those, and it is forever blocking up, then dumps the water into the bilges.

 

Chances are the water will have made its way to the rear of the cabin, so if you can check there then so much the better.

 

Did the surveyor do a thickness test?

 

Don't be too alarmed about water in the cabin bilges, this happens in all boats at some time.

Edited February 10, 2013 by Guest

[mrsmelly]

Yesterday my shower pump became inefficient , I have only had the boat three months but I'm learning fast , so guessing a blockage I removed panel behind sink found the pump then the hair trap . It was full so I emptied and pump great again . Then I pointed my torch to the bottom of the boat and to my horror saw lots of what looked like rust , and it's a little damp. When I touched it it began to crumble . Now very worried I took deep breath and stuck a screw driver into it , about 1-2 mm came away but it is very solid underneath the boat was surveyed and apart from some small pits all was well . What worries me is would the survey have been ok if this had been seen ?is it something I should panic about ? Should I now dismantle the bath room remove the rust if it is rust and paint it ? Should I contact the surveyor and ask his advise ?

 

Hi

 

In short without seeing it...No you are not going to sink and a couple of foreign thingys of rust is sod all as it equates to nearly no loss of the metal.

 

Tim

Edited February 10, 2013 by mrsmelly

[Guest]

Hi

 

In short without seeing it...No you are not going to sing and a couple of foreign thingys of rust is sod all as it equates to nearly no loss of the metal.

 

Tim

Very succinctly put, Tim

[simon&jan]

In my experience of rust it tends to grow on the surface of metal so chipping away is only removing the top layer of rust , you really need to dry it out first ,cos it probably looks worse than it is at the moment

As Tim says without being there hard to say

[MtB]

Indeed. As steel rusts, it expands enormously. About 100 to 1 if I remember correctly.

 

So a couple of mm of rust results from about 0.02mm of steel getting corroded away. Less than a human hair thickness.

 

In short, this won't make you sink. Or of it does, the hull must have been paper-thin in the first place, which it wasn't, and you know it wasn't from the survey.

 

Chill.

 

MtB

[bizzard]

Gloop, glug, splutter ahaaa, glug !!!!!. This is bizzard calling from the depths,'' DON'T BELIEVE EM TRIX''!!!!.

[nb Innisfree]

Not many boats have access to the bottom plate and lots of owners are either totally oblivious as to conditions down there or ignore them, a bit like keeping a car immaculate but never opening the bonnet. Blissful ignorance?

[luctor et emergo]

You are not about to sink.

[Guest]

Indeed. As steel rusts, it expands enormously. About 100 to 1 if I remember correctly.

 

So a couple of mm of rust results from about 0.02mm of steel getting corroded away. Less than a human hair thickness.

 

In short, this won't make you sink. Or of it does, the hull must have been paper-thin in the first place, which it wasn't, and you know it wasn't from the survey.

 

Chill.

 

MtB

 

Exactly what happened in the engine bilges on my previous boat. Once dry and treated, it had hardly lost any metal. I think the millscale is the first thing to part company, and that looks quite alarming.

[Tesla]

Exactly what happened in the engine bilges on my previous boat. Once dry and treated, it had hardly lost any metal. I think the millscale is the first thing to part company, and that looks quite alarming.

 

This is what we found under the bedroom!

 

Edited February 10, 2013 by Tesla

[The Lockie]

This is what we found under the bedroom!

 

 

 

Looks like surface rust to me, depending on age of hull this could be 20+ years of condensation working its way to the back of the boat. Can you lift some flooring up on the bow side of the bathroom or galley areas? Just to see extent??

 

Hard to see but it looks like the baseplate may have had red oxide previously. But it does not look like too much of a worry from the picture. You could put a twist wire cup brush on a grinder, VAC the nasty dust it creates off and then spray some waxoyl down there. Did this on my boat years ago and of still looked good when I sold her 10 years later,mucky job but if you are worried it will at least give you peace of mind

[MoominPapa]

This is what we found under the bedroom!

 

Are the mountings for your rotating bed?

 

MP.

[Tesla]

That was the before picture, it was caused by leaking shower waste. A few hours scraping and all was sorted...

 

Looked like this pre waxoyl...

 

Edited February 10, 2013 by Tesla

[blackrose]

DON'T PANIC!!

 

[Tesla]

Are the mountings for your rotating bed?

 

MP.

 

Old engine mounts, honest...

[nb Innisfree]

Slosh some well thinned blacking around it all, nice and runny so it goes into all the crevices, will act as a primer, leave to dry then slap plenty of thick coats of unthinned stuff on top.

[Trix]

Heres what i can see camera held under floor

 

 

 

 

 

[Keeping Up]

Nothing to worry about there

[mrsmelly]

Heres what i can see camera held under floor

 

 

 

 

 

 

Its nowt.

 

Tim

[nb Innisfree]

Is that a severed finger I can see?

[Teadaemon]

As others have already said, when steel rusts the amount of rust produced can be 100 times more than the thickness of steel lost. whilst this looks alarming, on it's own it doesn't mean that the boat's going to sink.

 

Of course, if it's possible to remove it and treat the inside of the hull then that would be good, but on most narrowboats (and quite a lot of steel boats in general to be honest) that's far easier said than done.

[bigcol]

are we really saying this is okay?

 

 

Im learning all the time

 

thanks folks

 

reminded me of the botom of my old morris marina, and I took that to the breakers

 

col

[Guest]

are we really saying this is okay?

 

 

Im learning all the time

 

thanks folks

 

reminded me of the botom of my old morris marina, and I took that to the breakers

 

col

It can never be said for certain from a photo, which is why I asked whether the surveyor had taken a thickness reading. I can say that my previous boat had a similar rust build up but had lost very little metal. Don't forget that your Marina bottom was only a few thou thick, but a narrowboat is somewhere in the region of 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch.

[Trix]

Thickness report on survey showed boat had lost very little my concern was did he miss that area or would the rust show up as the metal being thicker as it appears in the pictures , having chipped away at it the bottom seems pretty solid I may take the bath out and dry and paint it but that will have to wait until I have moved nearer where I need to be.