NB Caveat Emptor Blog

Come on, Paul!

How long has it been?

After handing this blog back to Paul so I could concentrate on not updating the CreamCheese blog very often, he has done...well, nothing! Caveat Emptor (was Bouncing Ben, but name now painted over with dodgy emulsion) is still floating
and doing everything you'd expect from a 30 year old GRP topped narrowboat. Yep, leaking! Usually on my head, wherever I decide to sit or lie down. Ah well, saves on the showers.

The aga-y-thing is still just a lovely ornament, but I have a new cooking gadget and I think I may be in love. My dad got us a Remoska for Christmas and so far it has been fab. I may well blog about how great it is, with pictures of our Christmas dinner, or I may follow Paul's lead and keep it all a secret

Tick tock, tick tock no more!

Right, blimey, it feels like a long while since I've written anything here - at least Ms Creamcheese has been keeping things going.

The news is out, as predicted, and you can discover more of why we've been quiet and busy at:

CreamCheese Blog

Enjoy, and I'll be back soon with a proper update on our plans for BBen/CavEmp, and what's happened since September!

PC

Tick tock, tick tock

It's been over a month again. Oops. Now I know why we have no readers. Ah well.

Boating outings are still few due to work for Paul, and job hunting for me. I could post more often, but would anybody even want to know about my daily routines? Nope, thought not.

Exciting news ahead though, so all those who aren't reading, watch this space

A whole month of nothingness

I thought it was about time we provided another update as it's been a whole month. Boat work has been somewhat lacking during this time as Paul is no longer an unemployed bum and has to actually go to work five days a week. Ridiculous. I'm getting very close to finishing my degree so do nothing excpet for sit in front of the computer reading ~~other people's blogs~~ interesting journal articles about a range of fascinating psychological topics.

Aside from the usual exciting trips to the water point, usually in the rain, we've only managed to get out on the boat once and that wasn't very far. We popped up to Knowle for the weekend so that we were in walking distance of a different range of pubs to the usual Lapworth ones. Well, I say walking distance. Paul has lived in Knowle most of his life and I trusted him to know how far it was from where we were moored to the pub. "A couple of minutes", said Paul. Not quite, was the reality. Ah well. Paul's parents came to visit and kindly brought a crate of beer so it saved us having to carry any around. A very plesant interlude before returning to the realities of work.

I'm sure there are pictures from the last few weeks around somewhere, but not sure where at the moment so will return to edit this later.

I did finally meet some real, live people from the Canal World Discussion Forums which was very exciting! I was just about to pop out with the hound when I noticed a post asking where the nearest pump-out was to Kingswood. It seemed easier to go and tell them than to reply, so off I pottered to approach complete strangers and talk about pooh-stuff. As was pointed out to me, perfectly normal behaviour for boaters!

Oh, and this is Kate posting not Paul as it says. I'm sure he gave me my very own login to the blog software, but I'm buggered if I know what it is.

Paint!

Aye, I know I've not started the catching-up-with-now bit for the blog, but here's an update anyway!

We've been thinking of a paint job to freshen the old girl's appearance up a bit, but we're a bit perplexed by how to remove the flakey paint on the roof without damaging the gellcoat finish...

Anyhow, here're some pics:

Suggestions?

PC

We're back!

Right, it's been forever since we updated the blog and a whole world of things has happened since then - so this post marks the resumption of normal service, and I'll be catching up with all that's gone on soon!

To mark this event, here's some pics of a boat we went to see today, with a view to purchase as a second project boat!

This is a 45ft ex-Gordon's Pleasure Cruisers hire boat, apparently dating from 1972.

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PC

A full weekend...

No update yesterday, as I was knackered by the end of it, sorry. Up reasonably early today to continue the work.

A cold morning for all I guess - I was surprised to see the marina frozen over with a half inch of ice. There was ice on the inside of the boat windows too - perhaps too much ventilation here?

Anyhow, yesterday started with a trip to pick up some concrete slabs in an attempt to re-ballast the boat, as well as some fittings to try and remove the air from my steam-engine plumbing system.

I've rarely had cause to move 600x600x50 slabs around, but they're heavier than they look. To be honest I'd already looked up the weight at 50kg each, and decided that around six would be enough to trim the boat. I can only conclude that the combined weight of cupboards, shelves, converting bed, cooker and fridge add up to less than the 250-300kg of the Esse cooker, as the boat trimmed even more to the right [starboard?] when back in the water.

Anyhow, in the end, the slabs stayed in the car with the fridge until today - too much other stuff going on.

It ended up being a day of plumbing and stove fiddling, trying to get it to work properly. I've had contact from a chap at Esse UK who reckons he can help get it working if I give him a ring on Monday, so we'll see.

In preparation, I'd had the hotplate off again, cleaned the soot out from the rubbish running recently, and taken a piece of wire to the airflow holes in the pot, to see if that would make any difference. The hotplate rope is old and knackered, and someone had glued a new bit over a very old bit underneath, in places. I cleaned all that out, and just fitted the most recent piece again, bedded on silicone to see if that would 'flesh' it out a bit, until I can buy some.

Started off by fitting a new reducing elbow and a bottle trap at the top of the boiler, on the output feed:

I wanted also, to make a few adjustments before firing the system up again - including getting a couple of the radiators plumbed in, so the system is actually capable of circulating properly.

I remembered to extend the vent pipe back over the header tank, for when the system is up to temp:

Plumbed the towel radiator in, finally:

I know it looks a bit untidy, but it'll be boxed in at the bottom of the hull sides...

I decided to put the radiator for the bedroom on the end of the cabin, rather than on the cabin side, as the sides slope inwards towards the bow, and mounting would have been a pain. It doesn't affect walking past it very much, as it's quite thin and mounted on the smallest side of the mounts. The wall will becoming white, very shortly! Long live the 70s, perhaps not.

This is the little bugger that's been giving me grief... As you can read, I took it all apart the other day, and now I'm hoping it's set up about right...

I ran the cooker on 5ish for most of Satuday to get the system up and running to temp, mainly to see if I could get the flame to appear blueish and "jet-like" - it does actually do that on the higher settings, once the flue is pulling and hot. Rubbish on low still though. I'd refilled the plumbing system again before lighting, with the pump running - the auto vent did its job, and I just needed to bleed the radiators a little to get it sorted. You can tell quite easily when the pump is pumping air - it makes a right racket - it's not as loud as I thought when working properly.

For some reason, as the water temp in the cylinder came up a bit, the PRV started weeping - maybe corroded on its seat, as a few turns [with a bucket to collect the expelled water] seems to have sorted it. Temporary kitchen roll in place to collect the spillage...

Anyhow, with the cooker coming up to temp, I had a look at the bath plumbing. I ditched the idea of using the sump box, because of concerns of it flooding and leaking under the floor - and instead used the old shower pump. The old pump is rubbish and won't self prime, although I was hoping it'd at least manage to drain the bath...

...which it didn't. It sort of makes the right noises, but won't quite start pumping. I've found a price for the overhaul kit of £28+vat, so that's not too bad. Will see if I can afford that this week.

In the mean time, it was nice to see the CO detector was still showing zero!

At the end of Saturday, I let the cooker run down to nothing, and left the pump on the pump stat at 20deg C and called it a day!

Sunday started with lighting the cooker, then hulking the concrete slabs onto the boat... I had to pump the tyres up on the sack truck to get it to cope with the weight...

Yes, I realise that they're not a very aesthetic feature in the lounge at the moment, but I'll try and convince Ben to cut them up to go under the floor, as he's got a nine-inch grinder... [ooer indeed].

The good news is that with six of them, the boat is now trimmed level, and sits much better in the water - much less 'bouncy'. I managed to move the cooker off the wooden chocks I'd used to get it level, and finally it can sit back on its aquapanel hearth.

Next job was to get the fridge in place, which just about went through the doors. I need to remove my tile-supporting lath to get it to recess back so its level with the front of the cooker when the appliance-door is on, and cut the worktop to size for the top of it. I'm in two minds as to whether it'd benefit from a carcass panel of 19mm being added to the right of it - the fridge is plenty sturdy enough to cope with the short section of worksurface on top, and it's not like I won't be able to just move it in the future if needed...

It took longer to assemble the drawers and compartments than to put it into place. Quite impressed with the door hinge though, which cantilevers the door out to avoid something right next to it - not a problem for me probably, depending on what I do with the 150mm service space next to the cooker.

Then, working down my 'big list', I took a new flap disc on the grinder to the old tile adhesive, from where the solid wood stove used to be - I need this reasonably smooth as it'll be painted with white emulsion soon, with luck...

You wouldn't believe the amount of dust that created - the Vax has been getting a fair bit of use recently...

I knocked up a quick TV shelf, and got the TV back in place - feels good to have News 24 back on again! My woodwork is coming along slowly, I think.

It was an hour from darkness then, and the little security-light-on-a-stick had gone again, so time to get working on some lights. Ben had kindly labelled the cable locations so out with the holesaw set:

This all went fairly smoothly, and took about an hour to get the basics hooked up. There's currently three downlighters in the bedroom, as well as two in the bathroom. The bedroom has an extra feed for when the above-bed storage is done, to run down to feed a possible lamp under there - as well as the reading lights.

I picked some 'quality' cast downlighters, rather than the really cheap pressed-steel ones, and I think the difference is enough to warrant the extra pound or so...

Temporary bathroom light switch arrangement here - I'm planning on these black switches and sockets throughout, but this wall is a 19mm one with nothing on the other side, so I may have to find a black pattress or build something on the kitchen side to hide it...

Bedroom is nicely illuminated now... Note more soon-to-be-gone dodgy 70s yellow...

And a quick view back on the kitchen as I was taking it easy in front of the TV watching the cooker cool down a bit before calling it a day. I'd tinkered with the low-fire rate during the day to get the cooker to a sensible temperature, whilst still vaporising. I think I've just about cracked it, but I'll flow-rate it again when I'm next there, to see how far from Esse's 5cc I'm actually running at...

Hopefully next weekend should see the finishing touches come together a bit! Just in time for Christmas!

PC

A bed, finally!

Been a busy week at work, so I've not had chance to do much boat tinkering until today - hence the lack of updates.

Managed to work from home today, so spent it at the boat, fitting in some tinkering around the real work!

I was up and there early this morn, in order to have a bit of a tidy up, and try and get the cooker working to get some heat into the place. I'd brought the manual for the BM30B oil control valve, as I had a suspciion I'd been turning the wrong screws. Looks like I had, too!

I took the thing off the cooker and dismantled it completely, which allowed me to clean the debris from the bottom of the float chamber - no idea where all this gunk comes from, as it'd have to get past the screen filter, which was present and not blocked.

Managed to get it all back together, and then cold flow-rated it using measuring cylinders and a stopwatch. I should have managed to get it set for around 5cc/min on low fire, and 20cc/min on high, there or there abouts.

I thought it'd be worth a test fire, so managed to light it using the firelighter method from the Supreme and Bubble conversions manuals for these pot burners.

Whatever I tried I couldn't get it to burn with a blue flame - I just got rolling yellow ones - on low or high. I suspect that this is due to inadequate flue draft, or perhaps air leaking into the flue where I've not sealed it well enough to the top of the cooker. I've borrowed a 28" chimney to see if that improves things and I'll give some extra heatproof silicone a go tomorrow. It was clearly drawing though, a bit at least, when I took the lighting port cover out. I wonder if I cleaned the burner pot out well enough - particularly the little air holes around the rim - might take it apart again tomorrow for another look.

Despite the incomplete combustion, it did get up to a fairly warm temperature after an hour. So much so, that I realised a slight issue with my plumbing... I'd ended up with an air lock at the top of the boiler output, with no way of bleeding it out. The pump was running, but it can't pump air, and hence was failing to shift the water around the system. The boiler eventually generated some steam in the system, which caused a few odd noises and a bit of a drip from my vent arrangement. I turned the cooker off, starting the 30min cool down process, and slackened the top boiler connection to bleed a bit of air out. Eventually, it started pumping water, and the calorifier circuit got hot, despite the cooker being in cool down. I'll have to try and arrange a bleed screw tomorrow!

Anyhow, I got on with more useful stuff afterwards, like building the bed:

The frame was constructed by ben - apart from the dividing timber, which I installed today - a piece of 4x2 to match the rest. The slats are 3x1 planed, supported on CSE studwork battens, screwed into the frame, like so:

Still really happy with my cheapie circular saw, with 'genuine' laser guide...

I remembered to go and collect the under-counter fridge I'd bought, the other day, which hopefully might get installed tomorrow...

Also today, I managed to carefully measure and install the new wall, to replace the one I demolished - it hides the calorifier and header tank, and provides something to screw the TV shelf to! I only had to take it down two or three times to adjust the finished shape - quite impressed given my woodwork is generally useless...

Managed to find a back-nut to screw on over my new basin drain fitting - since the silicone idea is clearly a bad one! All connected and draining properly now!

The final task of the day, before it got too cold, was to fix the bathroom heat-leak towel rad to the wall - this is mounted slightly oddly with three mounts on the right, and one on the left - as the battening behind the oak is along that line of three! Looks okay to me, but symmetry purists may be horrified!

Lots to do tomorrow, including finding some storage boxes for all the junk, getting the cooker working properly with a bleed and generating hot water, plus getting the radiators up and fridge installed. Should be livable on soon, again!

PC

Back to work, but still progress made...

Yup, back to work for me today - but luckily not out on site, so a chance to work from home, and try and relax a little. At least it's a change from the last twelve days of physical hard work...

My hound is feeling a bit sleepy after her holiday - it always takes it out of her, but as usual, she came back happy - didn't want to leave the kennels to be honest...

After the day's work, I managed to get over to the boat, via picking up the new built-under fridge from the warehouse, and a trip to Screwfix for plumbing bits and a big tarpaulin to cover the remaining wood which will be moved to the roof shortly - or I won't have any space at all to get around the bed end!

Unfortunately also picked up a puncture on the trip, so that was a pain - need to go get a tyre tomorrow as the space saver is a bit lively, especially since I'm in Somerset on weds when it's forcast to snow...

Anyhow, started off by leveling the range, in lieu of leveling the boat, with some chocks of wood - needed to put my back in to it to shift it!

This is temporary measure to get the burner oil level to act properly...

Also installed an oil-spec ball valve on the feed line so I can turn it off to work on it:

Sealed the bottom of the flue properly, and also removed the hotplate again, to run a thin bead of the heatproof stuff over the knackered rope seals - I'll need to find a supplier of the stuff soon...

I relit it after that, and it does run properly, although only really on 'high'. I really need to set the high flow screw properly, but that requires I find a graduated measuring cylinder and find out what the values are supposed to be! The low flow screw is missing, from the faffing around with the remote actuation (seized) pin by the previous owner... We'll see... It did throw a little heat into the boat, for the hour I ran it though, and the chimney pulls okay once hot...

I did a bit of plumbing too, replacing that knackered tap tail, and re-gluing the waste fitting into place, as it fell out. I've got a feeling that idea isn't going to last! If anyone knows how to connect small hose to a 32mm fitting, let me know!

The actual host is fitted to the skin fitting and clipped along to the basin, in a temporary way...

More stuff to do, the next bits being as above; the moving of the remaining materials, and the setting of the oil, so I can fire the cooker up full time.

I then need to test the hot water system, make a wall, and finish the bed - I should be able to put the TV back in place, fit the new fridge and move back on board - a busy weekend coming up I think!

PC

Sunday - return to base!

Yup, an 8am start in the freezing cold to be able to get back to Alvecote at a sensible time, meant being up early and going equipped with a flask of coffee, warm clothes plus hat and gloves.

Properly cold and quiet at that time, but the engine started a treat, despite no glow plugs and being 30 yrs old!

Looking back at my home for the past ten days:

A nice day to be out and about though:

The essential gadget to gauge speed and whether my prop and engine were happy, showing a cracking pace of 3.5mph...

Such a good pace in fact, that I caught this single-hander up, who was towing a very short butty - a bit like towing your garden shed around I suppose. Can't imagine it was cheap to build, given the bow and stern are the expensive bits!

He pulled over for me, and I got a move on again...

I got back to Alvecote in the same 4.5hrs it had taken me on the outbound journey, but mainly due to queuing at Glascote locks - at least that meant that there were people around to work the locks for me, or help at least.

I had a mare of a time mooring in the wind that had gotten up by that point, having two attempts at it then having Rick, my neighbour, suggest that I tried it approaching from the other direction, which worked a treat. I'm sure I'll get some grief for my poor show at the job...

I legged it back to pick my hound up from her holiday - my was she pleased to see me! - and then back to the boat in the eve to collect some tools (which I forgot anyway) and to try and sort the cooker out.

I spent an hour or so taking the oil valve apart, working out that the bias pin was seized wedging it to full power, and then spotting someone had turned the high flow screw right down to try and work around it... Took ages to get it working, but I managed it, just about. Still need to set the flow screws properly though.

Got it lit:

Major relief that it's been lit finally, but it leaks smoke from the hotplate seals, and since the boat is badly trimmed, all the oil collects on one side, so I need to fix both - the latter by either trimming the boat or the cooker!

PC

Saturday - back in the water!

Not too many pics from today, I'm afraid - time was just too tight to get many taken.

I started at 8am at Streethay to get on with making the boat ready for the water... Lots to do, including doing some last minute weather proofing with running a bead of silicone along the gunnel joint at the stern of the boat where it's gone a bit holey, as well as moving the massive amount of waste wood from the roof into the car for disposal, moving all the supplies for ongoing work onboard, putting the weedhatch back in, and emptying the loo etc...

I paid the bill as well, which came to about what I'd expected. Definitely can recommend Streethay, the people were brilliant, especially the two Rays (boss and welder expert) - everyone was friendly and the facilities were really good, including the ability to live onboard.

One of the things moved on board were the doors for the cooker:

Plus an awful lot of wood and other materials - saves carrying them from the car when I'm working at my normal Alvecote base:

Believe it or not, I'd done loads of tidying to get to this state, it feels like I'll be living in a building site for a while!

I managed to find time to lay a layer of fibreglass on the roof hole - there's a plywood reinforcing section in place on the inside, with silicone bonding agent to hold it in place. I'll fill the depression in this hole with PU foam, like the rest of the double-skinned cabin, and then glass over the top later on...

I plumbed the basin in too, only to find the cold flexible tail as supplied with it, is broken and spouts water! I'll have to pick some more up from Screwfix.

In terms of plumbing, I also bought some fittings and pipe and connected the waste for the bath, as well as adding inserts to the Speedfit and connecting the bath mixer - that all works fine, but I suspect I'll have to make the bath 'unlevel' with the walls in order to get it to drain - perhaps I should have put it the other way around!

In the face of concerns from members of Canalworld, I decided not to use the shower sump box, but to use the old pump and get it overhauled at some point soon. This is mainly due to concerns over the lid not being sealed very well and leaking! The basin will drain via a convenient hull fitting not far away, where an old vanity sink was connected.

I've got some plans for the basin waste, but we'll see how it works out...

The last thing I managed after re-floating (and she does still float!) was to chop the flue pipe from the old stove down to size and get one end held in place with heatproof silicone - at the top end. The bottom will be sealed with traditional fireproof rope and then silicon to assist.

So another busy day, with a planned early start on Sunday to get going!

Another day, more progress...

I've been a bit lax on updating this over the busy weekend, so this is Friday's update...

I'd mentioned, but not shown any pics of the welding that was being done to correct the exposed base to side-plating join along the boat. We went ahead with welding sections of D-bar, fully seam welded above and below... This required moving the boat on the trailer too, to enable them to reach all of the sections.

Looks good, and hopefully will last the next ten years or so...

I got this all blacked so it had time to dry a bit before being back in the water on Saturday, while Ben got on with finishing the battening in the bathroom and getting on with installing the bath and re-installing the loo...

This was Ben's last day, so it's good to see his hard work coming together...

And I tried to make some progress with the plumbing - very slow work if you're working it out as you go along - it always seems to take more time than you think...

Flue terminal sealed and installed...

Pump installed, and running via a pipe stat, but it's flippin' noisy. Sounds like a screenwash pump! I'll have to do something about it, otherwise it'll drive me up the wall on cold, quiet evenings... Maybe mount it on foam and/or box it in. It's in the return leg to the boiler, as the two ends of the boat are parallel circuits, so it couldn't be inline anywhere else...

More completion of the calorifier pipework, including (without intending too much contention on this) an NRV before the cold feed into the tank - and yes I know the cold in and hot out are on the bottom - don't ask me, it came like this and the fittings don't exactly unscrew easily...

Chimney collar removed from old hole in roof, this will need sealing up with something before the rain gets in!

This is the location of the calorifier, with a wall to go up in front of it. I managed to get the header tank cut down a bit and installed too, to fill the system with, with a vent from the feed leg going up to the tank level...

And, finally, Ben got the travertine basin in place, sitting on the blockboard 'shelf' with a very smart tall monoblock mixer.

In the last half hour of Ben's time, he managed to completely build a bed frame for me, too. This will be covered with removable 3x1" slats, stringed with fabric tape, to keep the ventilation good...

Plenty of space to walk down the left side, as the bed's a three-quarter, at 6'3" x 4'.

So that ended the week on the slipway, more or less, and Ben's time working on the project. I'm trying to convince him to come back for a one day spell to create the under and over-bed storage.

Big thanks go to Ben for all the hard work put in during the week - I don't know whether Ben would consider working on another boat, but if you like the attention to detail and quality of work, let me know and I can put you in touch!

Walls, and a frustrating day of plumbing...

Today was one of those days where I felt I was getting nowhere fast - don't get me wrong, Ben's work continued apace, but my own challenge of sorting out the plumbing of the new cooker and calorifier didn't go well...

To start with, the new cylinder is an old one, and although cheap, does have it's downsides - like really odd, possibly 3/4" imperial compression fittings on it - completely impossible to move without damaging the tank. I couldn't think of anywhere to obtain back-nuts for imperial compression on-spec today, so we came up with the idea of filing 22mm copper pipe down to an insertable size, then soldering it to the brass fittings.

A quick test on a spare brass fitting showed that the joint seemed sound, so we went ahead and turned the tank into a dalek...

With some more prodding, I managed to get this to a state where there are 15mm connections coming out at sensible directions:

Note that the cylinder is upside down in these pics. Also note that I've capped one of the connections - I've just realised that this is wrong. The cylinder has four connections on the bottom and one on the top fitted with a PRV. I had been wrongly thinking that the output water came from the PRV outlet, but of couse that's rubbish and it's just if the PRV blows that I'll get water from that. So it looks like the input and output are currently on the bottom, on each outer connection whereas the loop for the boiler is definitely the pair in the middle.

That's a bit odd, as I'd expect the hot outlet to be at the top! I wonder if the original installer of this couldn't work out a way to put the PRV at the bottom but still keep the valve upright? I'm also wondering if I'm going to get much hot water out of it, taking off from the bottom - but just maybe one of the bottom fittings has a standpipe going up high?

Anyhow, the range plumbing was a bit simpler, with the spare water take-offs capped, and the main ones fed down to the radiator circuit. I've just realised that the pump needs to go into the return at this point, but I'll fix that tomorrow.

And on down to the radiator run:

The diesel feed for the cooker comes from the drain fitting on the tank, which I know isn't ideal as it'll pick up some sludge and the like. The drain is actually just a stop tap with a blanking plug in the outlet - and Ben found a fitting for 10mm pipe which screwed in. That runs through a bulkhead sealing fitting and on down the cabin to the cooker. A fire valve will be added later!

Whilst I was getting stressed at the plumbing, Ben was working on the last of the insulation, completing the ceiling and getting the oak-veneered walls up. It really does look fantastic, like a new boat, and I can't wait for the end of tomorrow to see it with some furnishings and fittings in place...

Top work Ben:

So lots left to do tomorrow. I'm going to site at 8am to make an early start!

PC

The range cooker is onboard - finally!

Yup, what a day!

It started with a trip to B+Q to find some Aquapanel [Masterboard etc], a cement particle board which is waterproof and often used for showers, if you can't be sure of being able to tile to a waterproof standard... It's also used now and again as it's heatproof and forms a barrier between things like the new cooker and combustible surfaces. Comes in 4x3 sheets, and weighs far too much. Popped from there to my storage unit to collect some Cat5e cable for the boat network, and a radiator I'd bought a while back which is one of three going into the boat. As some singer currently is saying, I'm going to be warm this Christmas.

It took getting on for three hours to get the cooker on board, with lots of ingenuity from Ben!

We managed to get it out of the van and down to the boat using a pallet truck, then started slowly lifting it end by end onto higher and higher collections of things. The most interesting surprise was that a milk crate can take the 300kg or so of the cooker...

In the background of this one, you can see that Ben had borrowed two steel 'saw-horses' and used some constructional timber to make a platform strong enough, but only a couple of feet lower than the deck.

From here, we knocked up a ramp to get from the milk crate setup, up to the new platform. The ramp's screwed together to make sure nothing moved too far.

Then from the platform, up onto a few fence posts, planks and plywood, then up into the air on the balance point and over onto the deck:

Despite the quick few pics, it did take a long time! Ben's either looking pleased or horrified, not sure which...

Another ramp was created to get it down onto the boat floor, although it was a tight fit through the doors:

Then down and into the boat...

From here, whilst Ben was getting back to insulation, battens and the start of the bedroom tongue and groove ceiling, I got on with putting the Aquapanel down where needed to form a hearth, and with Ben's assistance, put a battened arrangement up to form the base for tiles behind the cooker. These needed to be fitted before the range was pushed (!) into place.

Tiled these with some of the spare bathroom tiles:

There turned out to be no insulation whatsoever behind the hull side lining, so I tried the trick of installing some Celotex - turns out I'm useless! I just can't get it to turn out right, and ended up playing with the new foam gun to bridge the gaps:

Which was fun, but not a very professional job - but at least the cooker won't be spending too much time heating the canal.

Ben, meanwhile, was getting on with more useful first-fix stuff:

And by the end of the day, the bedroom ceiling was more or less done - top work, Ben.

We pushed the range into place, slightly, after the tiles had dried a bit. The Mapei adhesive is good stuff - sets quickly but stays flexible - so much so, it won't come off my hands!

A couple of gratuitous pics to finish:

So a good day, but delayed by spending so much time winching the cooker into place. We'll have to get cracking with things tomorrow. Ben'll no doubt complete the rooms and start fitting out, whilst I get on with plumbing.

On that note, I've just returned from yet another trip to Screwfix, picking up some plumbing fittings ordered in the week, and Ben's requested some more of the Ceresit construction adhesive. None of that in stock, so he'll have to make do with Gripfill...

PC

Insulation, framing, wiring and the ever-so-big cylinder...

Another busy day..

We started this morning with a shopping expedition, going to EH Smith to pick up a total of six full sheets of Selotex insulation in varying thicknesses - not quite as cheap as I expected! The boat'll be holding the heat well I suspect when all this goes in.

The last, hopefully, timber purchase was to collect the Oak-faced ply which has turned up courtesy of Johnson's in Tyseley. It looks okay and was well wrapped, although two of the boards seem to have a reddish hue, so we'll see. Ben wanted some more 2"x1" lath timber for the side battening, which was cheap enough, as well as another skeleton gun after the plastic one self-destructed yesterday.

On site, Ben got on with installing the side battening:

We put some of the first-fix wiring in place, mostly for lighting, and for feeds to the corners of the bedroom for speakers to be fitted at some point in the future. Wiring supplies have come from Vehicle Wiring Products, and are all calculated to minimise volt-drop, which has meant some large cables and a large bill!

Whilst Ben was getting on with that, and having removed the old cooker to the skip, I got on with stripping out these gas pipes, and capping them off just after the Morco on the other side of the galley. Much credit goes to Ben for thinking about reusing the old taps and fittings for capping off.

Ben working hard with the insulation and cabling:

I managed, finally, to remove the tool cupboard on the end wall, near the main steps from the stern - this was a right faff to get out, well attached from inaccessible places... With it out, I could stand the cylinder in place. Going to knock up a mounting frame for this tomorrow, and install the header tank above it, which is the whole reason the wall needed moving...

Incidentally, I calculated the capacity of the cylinder at around 85L - so huge by boat standards. It has one coil and apparently two main inputs, which is a bit odd. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers. The main plumbing plan is now done, this eve, so I should be able to get things on the go tomorrow.

The boat apparently does have some ballast, although only at the stern it seems...

And by the end of the day, most of the insulation and all of the battening was in place, thanks to hard work by Ben.

It seems that we've spent a lot of time doing preparation on these rooms, but I reckon it'll all fly together now that that's done.

Ben wants to winch the new Aga-like cooker into place tomorrow, so that'll be interesting. Then it's my job to get an oil line to it, and get it connected up. Should be interesting! Watch this space...

PC