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Tuesday 19 September 2006 |
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Having already had the engine service at 50hrs there should really have been no more maintenance required this year. However, for some months it has looked to me like the hull blacking was getting in a poor state. I decided to have the boat lifted out to see what the situation was. It was taken out and power washed Monday 18 September. I went to see it today.
Out of the water again.
As can be seen, after power washing there
is actually no blacking left below the waterline. I have instructed the marina to re-black her including the base plate. Blacking of the underside of Narrowboats is not often done. However, as the canals around us are big and deep there is little danger of the blacking being scoured off by running aground so I consider it worth the extra cost involved.
After the blacking the hull looks as good as new.
The base plate now painted can be seen in this picture.
Mick who works for the marina replacing the fenders. This page had only been published 24hrs when Mark Kendall saw the pictures. He immediately offered to pay for the work! When Mark made the offer I had not asked for any compensation! What other builder would do this? Kendall's are now using a different paint on their hulls.
Thursday 3 November 2006 Over the last couple of weekends the Eberspacher water pump has sounded a little rough. I called Parkinson's who replaced the blower motor previously and they came out today armed with a new water pump. It was duly fitted and is much quieter than the old one. I'm a little concerned at this as I'm sure this heater has been run less than 150 hours since new. The engine has 150 hours on the clock and it has been run much more than the heater. Typically when we are away the heater is run for around 1 hour in a morning for hot water for showers. The rest of the hot water for the day is provided by the engine. When I'm at the marina for the weekend it is run for again around an hour on Saturday and Sunday and that's all it's done. Up to present it has had a combustion blower and now a water pump. This is fine whilst the unit is under warrantee but if this unreliability continues after the warrantee period it could be very expensive. These problems are not the ones usually associated with these heaters where they coke up and refuse to start so I may have that joy yet to come. In a recent issue of Waterways World there was an article on a firm that makes bespoke stainless steel chimneys for narrowboats. My previous experience has shown that ordinary chimneys don't last that long if the stove is used a lot. Solid fuel fumes are very acidic and make short work of chimneys, liners and coolie hats. These fumes tend to condense on the way up the chimney and run down the side of the boat making a bit of a mess. Double skin chimneys can stop most of this but they need to be a good fit. My boat has a piece of 6" outside diameter pipe welded into the roof as the collar rather than the usual casting. Most 6" chimneys on sale are also 6" outside diameter so don't fit my boat. The original one came from Limekiln Chandlery and was slightly bigger than 6" so it did fit. Anyway as I can't get ones that fit locally I thought I'd make enquiries.
The firm is Called I asked for a SS double skinned chimney 12" in height for 6" parallel collar. They also make SS ash pans for popular models of stove so I ordered one for the Morso. Although he lives in Crick, Chris and his wife arrived last week and he actually made the chimney on site so it is a perfect fit.
This chimney should last many times as long as a mild steel one (assuming I could get ones to fit easily). The cost of the chimney and ashpan was £120 (plus a donation towards his diesel as he had to come so far). If we assume the chimney was £100 it only has to last 3 times as long as a mild steel one and it has cost no more. These chimneys can be dismantled so if the liner eventually corrodes it can be replaced without resorting to a full new chimney. The coolie hat clips quite tightly onto the bolts that hold the liner in so it should never be blown off (had a normal one do this already this year). So, I'm guessing long term it could prove as cheap, if not cheaper that replacing mild steel ones.
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