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Went to visit Son at his boat yesterday. Fortunately this is not quite the adventure it used to be, now he's in a permanent mooring. Long may that last! But he had unplugged the shore power when he was at ours for the holidays (because rain tends to get in the socket and trip the breaker), and his fridge/freezer had defrosted, indicating that the solar power panels were not working. So we went along for DH to see if he could fix those.
Son had been keeping his rotary washing line on the roof, but there had been high winds while he was away and it was now missing. So the first thing we did was go fishing in the marina with a magnet on a string. Yep, there was the missing washing line, lying invisible in the mud. We got the boat hook around one of the arms and pulled it out, and after a quick wash to get the mud off it was as good as new.
I had hoped to make a start on painting the bow decoration - traditionally sun, crescent moon and diamonds - but it was raining, so that was out.
(An example of the kind of narrowboat bow design we're thinking of. Not Son's boat, unfortunately!)
Instead Son and I applied temporary plastic-film double glazing to all but a couple of windows. (We left a couple untouched for ventilation, since the boat is heated by a woodstove and carbon-monoxide is a concern.)
It's important that the solar panels are delivering charge to the batteries, because Son's mooring is for 11 months a year. For four weeks of the year he has to be out of the marina, and at that point he needs the solar panels to keep the batteries charged so the engine will turn on and he can have lights/charge his phone. So we were keeping an attentive ear out for DH's success in that department.
Fortunately, it turned out that the problem was just a blown fuse which had automatically turned the solar panel box off. Once the fuse was replaced and the switch flicked, DH declared it fixed. Then DH installed a light in the engine room, which had heretofore been a bit of a black hole, and we called it a day and walked into Northampton for KFC.
Not quite the Herculean and heroic efforts of previous excursions, but it is nice to make small (hopefully incremental) improvements and leave the place more functional.
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Date: 2023-12-31 04:56 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 12:39 pm (UTC)From:Thank you! Yes, that's what we're telling ourselves. There's still a long list of things to do, but a lot of it is on hold now for better weather. The hope is that the more we get done, the more often the issues will be small and easy to fix :)
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Date: 2024-01-01 06:53 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 10:50 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 12:47 pm (UTC)From:Ah, sadly that's an example of what I want the bow decoration to look like, and not Son's boat at all. I should have said, but I couldn't figure out how to do a caption in Markdown. I'm going to have to do it now because you're not the only person I've inadvertently deceived.
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Date: 2023-12-31 01:36 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 02:34 pm (UTC)From:Thank you! I hope so :)
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Date: 2023-12-31 11:27 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 12:52 pm (UTC)From:Ah, unfortunately that was just an example of the kind of bow design I want to put on the boat but haven't yet managed to. I should have captioned it, sorry! If only Son's boat looked that good! But yes, I'm also amazed and relieved to have found the washing line :)
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Date: 2023-12-31 05:20 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2023-12-31 06:57 pm (UTC)From:Entirely my fault! And thank you :)
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Date: 2024-01-01 09:52 am (UTC)From:I imagine the plastic-film double glazing might make quite a difference. Boat windows are real heat losers. Mind you, being on water probably doesn't exactly help with heat loss...
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Date: 2024-01-01 11:20 am (UTC)From:TBH I'm not 100% sure the solar panel problem is really fixed. We often have issues when we think 'that should fix it!' and then it turns out it didn't. We won't really know if they're working until Son unplugs the boat from shore power and then waits a day to see whether the battery charge goes down, so a final test is waiting until a day when he wants to be away from the boat anyway.
Yes, it's surprising how much difference adding insulation in the cabin makes considering that below floor level the boat is a metal hull sitting in cold water. But I suppose the floor insulates the cabin space fairly well from below, and the wall panels have insulation on the back of them, so it's only the windows that don't have anything at all, and are drafty as well.
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Date: 2024-01-03 12:00 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2024-01-03 11:14 pm (UTC)From:Certainly there was a lot of condensation on the windows before we put the window film on, but it has mostly fixed that. We must at some stage take a wall panel or two off to see if the walls get a lot of condensation too, and then make an inspection hole in the floor to see if the bilges are filling up and need pumping out, but if there's a real problem with that he'll notice the floor getting damp, and so far that hasn't happened.