Will the movement of our boat be a problem for the thermal store and pellet stove?

[LuckyScoreThames]

Hi everyone,

 

My partner and I live on a tidal part of the Thames on a little wooden boat.

 

We're in the process of building out new dream home - a steel Dutch barge, and we're looking into the best ways to heat it.

 

At the moment we're strongly considering a pellet stove boiler, linked up to a thermal heating store. We could also link up a solar heat panel to the thermal heating store too, to give us a bit of leeway in the summer months.

 

One major concern for us that this point is that boats move! We wanted to see if anyone has any insight or opinion on the impact this could have on the plumbing, and specifically the thermal store. We're unclear on how robust the various pipes leading in and out of it are, the connections between the pipes and the store, as well as it's internal mechanisms. Is it something that could break if it moves around too much...? We could keep it as secure as possible so it isn't bumped, but we certainly can't prevent the boat rocking when faster boats whizz by, as they often do!

 

Any and all insight really welcome!

 

Big thanks in advance, Gabs

[Bod]

I feel these are questions for the manufactures, they are best placed to know the robustness of their products.

My question to you is, how do you resupply the pellet stove?

50kg bags or 500kg bulk delivery?

How close can the delivery van/lorry get to the boat?

 

Bod

[Tiggs]

I think you are worrying about nothing.

 

Providing everything is fastened down correctly and the pipes are installed correctly there should be no issues.

 

If you use one of the V shaped stores you will need to fix the top as well flange to a wall.

 

You have to have the stove fixed down anyway - for BSS.

 

I've had boats with copper pipes of all sizes and plastic pipes too, and never had any issues with them. Long copper pipes need to be set up to allow for expansion and contraction, these have banged into things all over the canal network and some rivers too.

Edited September 30, 2016 by Tiggs

[Robbo]

As the pipes in the store will be full of water but also in water I can't see any extra strain on the connections. They would have had more stress getting to the boat!