…and the summer's here at last. Well, not exactly, but that's how it goes in The Curragh of Kildare which, as it happens, I sang to a group of friends last weekend.
And since the winter is indeed clearly past, we've come up to Erin Mae to reverse all the protective measures we put in place in November – fill the water tank, check all the water pipe connections, turn off the opened taps, refit the water filter, and turn on the water pump. It mostly went smoothly, except for the water filter under the kitchen sink. Screwing the cover up I didn't realise that the ceramic filter inside was out of position and being forced up against the edge of the recess into which it is supposed to fit. Eventually there was a crack and I found I'd broken a piece inside. It doesn't prevent us getting water from the tap, but the speed of flow suggests that it's bypassing the filter. My guess is that spares are not available and I shall have to buy a complete new unit.
Ah well, so long as it doesn't cost me as much as I would have paid to get someone else to winterise and de-winterise our pride and joy, I shall be in pocket in terms of hard cash, and considerably in credit in terms of experience.
Wednesday, 13 April 2016
Friday, 25 March 2016
Back to blogging
I've been reading, rather enviously, the blogs of those who are on the move. Our time will come! But it will probably be two and half weeks before we make our first run up to Erin Mae, to see how she's faired, get the bedding back on board and complete some of the 12v electrical work. And it will probably be early May before we leave harbour.
The winter months have been anything but idle. Lots to do and to think about, but this blog is for boaty stuff. So I decided to resurrect a different blog I set up when doing a course about on-ine learning. That will give me the chance to write about anything I want. Who knows, someone else might read it from time to time!
If you're interested, you'll find the Everyday Fractals blog here. Or there's a link to it on the Erin Mae page.
The winter months have been anything but idle. Lots to do and to think about, but this blog is for boaty stuff. So I decided to resurrect a different blog I set up when doing a course about on-ine learning. That will give me the chance to write about anything I want. Who knows, someone else might read it from time to time!
If you're interested, you'll find the Everyday Fractals blog here. Or there's a link to it on the Erin Mae page.
Sunday, 6 December 2015
Lagging
In follow-up comments to my post about winterising Erin Mae, Halfie expressed surprised at my statement that the boat's calorifier is not lagged. Which got me thinking and googling. I found that one chandlers describes its calorifiers as having 25mm of polyurethane foam insulation, inside the shiny blue exterior.
I don't think I even considered internal insulation when I wrote my comment, which is odd because the hot water tank in our house certainly has it. But I suppose most modern calorifiers must be constructed this way – I just hadn't thought about it when it was installed. I have memories of houses from decades ago having separate lagging jackets needing to be tied in position, and that was what was in my mind. On Erin Mae, water heated the night before does indeed stay warm enough for a morning shower, so I guess the calorifier must be insulated. Obviously my analysis lagged behind the reality.
Do any of my readers use external lagging?
I don't think I even considered internal insulation when I wrote my comment, which is odd because the hot water tank in our house certainly has it. But I suppose most modern calorifiers must be constructed this way – I just hadn't thought about it when it was installed. I have memories of houses from decades ago having separate lagging jackets needing to be tied in position, and that was what was in my mind. On Erin Mae, water heated the night before does indeed stay warm enough for a morning shower, so I guess the calorifier must be insulated. Obviously my analysis lagged behind the reality.
Do any of my readers use external lagging?
Friday, 4 December 2015
Home maintenance
We had Erin Mae out for five months this year. A great adventure! But it meant that certain things off the boat had been left for five months without our care and attention. First up was the car. But, as I reported when we got back to base, the solar panel had done its job and, after a moment of uncertainty, the car woke up and behaved perfectly.
The house was generally fine and we'd arranged for some visits by various people, to cover the niceties of the insurance. But, shortly after getting home, we realised that the downstairs toilet, while flushing OK, was gurgling a bit. Some drain research was in order. Removing one of the manhole covers revealed some water that was not draining away as fast as it should. At this point I benefited from maintaining friendly relations with the college down the road where I worked for 25 years before retirement. A quick phone-call to check, and I was able to go in and borrow their rods, which soon resolved the problem. It wasn't a major blockage – but presumably five months of not very much flow had provided an opportunity for some sludge to build up. So I did the home maintenance equivalent of dredging.
Finally there was the gas hob. Three burners were working fine, one was doing nothing at all – not even smelling a bit. So today Mike the gasman came and poked around. A jet was blocked and his poking mostly cleared it. But I was puzzled about where a blockage could come from. What could possibly be emerging from the gas-pipe that could do that? Mike, with his years of experience, pointed out the dust that had been expelled, and philosophised about the wisdom of the gas people no longer putting filters in the places where they'd been installed for the past 100 years until someone decided they weren't necessary any more. He also said that, if he hadn't been able to fix it with a bit of poking, it wouldn't be cost effective to do a proper repair – it would be cheaper to buy a new hob.
I reckon we got off pretty lightly, given our five months of inattention. But I'm not sure there's much we could do differently next year, apart from finding a friendly neighbour to come in once a week to flush the loo and burn a bit of gas.
The house was generally fine and we'd arranged for some visits by various people, to cover the niceties of the insurance. But, shortly after getting home, we realised that the downstairs toilet, while flushing OK, was gurgling a bit. Some drain research was in order. Removing one of the manhole covers revealed some water that was not draining away as fast as it should. At this point I benefited from maintaining friendly relations with the college down the road where I worked for 25 years before retirement. A quick phone-call to check, and I was able to go in and borrow their rods, which soon resolved the problem. It wasn't a major blockage – but presumably five months of not very much flow had provided an opportunity for some sludge to build up. So I did the home maintenance equivalent of dredging.
Finally there was the gas hob. Three burners were working fine, one was doing nothing at all – not even smelling a bit. So today Mike the gasman came and poked around. A jet was blocked and his poking mostly cleared it. But I was puzzled about where a blockage could come from. What could possibly be emerging from the gas-pipe that could do that? Mike, with his years of experience, pointed out the dust that had been expelled, and philosophised about the wisdom of the gas people no longer putting filters in the places where they'd been installed for the past 100 years until someone decided they weren't necessary any more. He also said that, if he hadn't been able to fix it with a bit of poking, it wouldn't be cost effective to do a proper repair – it would be cheaper to buy a new hob.
I reckon we got off pretty lightly, given our five months of inattention. But I'm not sure there's much we could do differently next year, apart from finding a friendly neighbour to come in once a week to flush the loo and burn a bit of gas.
Friday, 27 November 2015
Winterised
Two years ago it cost me £90 to have Erin Mae winterised. I wasn't pleased – couldn't see how, even at workshop rates, it could take that long, even if I was being charged for someone to just stand around waiting while the taps emptied the water tank. Workshop rates are probably fair enough for expertise that I don't have – but I can look at running taps with the best of them.
So last year I sought help elsewhere, and paid £40 for that nice engineer Keith to talk me through the work as he did it. The main issue was emptying the calorifier (the hot water tank), which you can't do simply by opening the taps. He had an old water pump, so connected that to the battery, removed the pressure valve / outlet port from the top of the tank, and sucked out the water through a convenient bit of hose.
I don't have an old water pump, so during the year I researched alternatives, which all seemed to start at about £30. Then, while in bed one night it suddenly occurred to me that siphoning would be straightforward provided I did it into a bucket, not the canal. 3 metres of half-inch hose from the chandlers did the trick, and yesterday I put it to the test. Voilá!
So Erin Mae is drained down and emptied of everything that might respond badly to an excess of cold, and we're back home for the winter. But in those normally productive reflective moments each night as I lay me down to sleep, or in those relaxed moments under the shower in the mornings, I'm now worrying about whether I forgot some crucial part of the process which will come back to haunt me. Fortunately we shall have to take a trip to the boat in a couple of weeks when Clive has done the electrical work, so I'll be able to run over it all again. But, for the moment, this year's winterising has cost me about three quid, a splash of antifreeze into the shower pump and the toilet, and a few anxious thoughts. I reckon that's a result!
So last year I sought help elsewhere, and paid £40 for that nice engineer Keith to talk me through the work as he did it. The main issue was emptying the calorifier (the hot water tank), which you can't do simply by opening the taps. He had an old water pump, so connected that to the battery, removed the pressure valve / outlet port from the top of the tank, and sucked out the water through a convenient bit of hose.
I don't have an old water pump, so during the year I researched alternatives, which all seemed to start at about £30. Then, while in bed one night it suddenly occurred to me that siphoning would be straightforward provided I did it into a bucket, not the canal. 3 metres of half-inch hose from the chandlers did the trick, and yesterday I put it to the test. Voilá!
So Erin Mae is drained down and emptied of everything that might respond badly to an excess of cold, and we're back home for the winter. But in those normally productive reflective moments each night as I lay me down to sleep, or in those relaxed moments under the shower in the mornings, I'm now worrying about whether I forgot some crucial part of the process which will come back to haunt me. Fortunately we shall have to take a trip to the boat in a couple of weeks when Clive has done the electrical work, so I'll be able to run over it all again. But, for the moment, this year's winterising has cost me about three quid, a splash of antifreeze into the shower pump and the toilet, and a few anxious thoughts. I reckon that's a result!
Wednesday, 25 November 2015
Electric action part the first
Here's what must rate as the worst and most boring photo ever posted on this blog.
Boring to everyone, except to me. We finally bit the bullet and decided to install a 12 volt fridge. Today it got delivered. And that's exciting! Also today Clive Penny came to call – he's the one who's going to put in the wiring, and today was the day for talking through on board what he will do.
Our current fridge is a normal 230 volt affair. Which is fine when we're on a mains hook-up in the marina, and a disaster everywhere else. It's powered from our batteries via the inverter, and the combination seems to drain the batteries like there's no tomorrow. No one seems to know why an inverter uses more juice than the manual says it should, but leaving it off seems to be a principal route to battery happiness.
Erin Mae has two appliances that will continue to need mains electric – the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner. We normally use them only when the engine is running. For the computer, the iPad, the phones and the mobile broadband wifi unit we can get 12 volt chargers. We could get a 12 volt TV or stop watching any, and we can probably find 12 volt alternatives for our Ikea reading spotlights. So Clive is charged (ho-ho!) with giving us 12 volt wiring to various useful points. By the time we're through, the inverter can hopefully be left off most of the time.
Finally, Clive is going to normalise the wiring around the batteries – my assessment is that the way they're currently wired is not optimal. Target date is the week after next, and that will probably give us an excuse to visit our floating bolthole and report on progress. I'm very happy that at last we're moving (hopefully) towards solutions, rather than just mulling over problems.
Tuesday, 10 November 2015
Three bags full
We knew it would probably be unrealistic to expect just one car journey at the start or end of the boating season. Otherwise, the choice would be to wastefully equip Erin Mae, as well as the house, with those accoutrements we find desirable, or to embrace a minimalistic, not to say spartan, lifestyle for our cruising months. By the time you've included guitar, piano accordion, pressure cooker, bread maker, Magimix, all those bottles of herbs & spices, seeds & nuts, flour, sugar, rice, pasta and chocolate, pillows, duvets for visitors, tools, summer and autumn clothes, the car's looking pretty full, even though it's an estate. So there have usually been two trips, with the final one ending with a thorough clean, putting the boat to bed for the winter.
This year there were extra clothes for the visit to Norway in May, and the small gas barbecue. Somehow we've shifted enough stuff onto Erin Mae to fill the car three times. To be fair, it's actually worked out quite well, because we needed to be back home in the New Forest briefly last week, up near Mansfield at the weekend, home again this week and next week, and then back up on the boat towards the end of the month for some electrical work. When that's done, we'll winterise the boat – first time I'll have done it completely myself – and that will be that. Probably. Three trips in all.
As the rhyme goes: One for the master and one for the dame, and one for the little boat that… No, that doesn't sound quite right. All this travelling's gone to my head.
This year there were extra clothes for the visit to Norway in May, and the small gas barbecue. Somehow we've shifted enough stuff onto Erin Mae to fill the car three times. To be fair, it's actually worked out quite well, because we needed to be back home in the New Forest briefly last week, up near Mansfield at the weekend, home again this week and next week, and then back up on the boat towards the end of the month for some electrical work. When that's done, we'll winterise the boat – first time I'll have done it completely myself – and that will be that. Probably. Three trips in all.
As the rhyme goes: One for the master and one for the dame, and one for the little boat that… No, that doesn't sound quite right. All this travelling's gone to my head.
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