Warmth in the morning

I woke up this morning, pushed the button, rolled over and went back to sleep for half an hour. When I woke up, guess what? Yep, toasty home.

Now all I need to do is get the timer working and I can wake up warm whenever I want :-)

Thanks dad.

S.

Working central heating

So there it is... a working central heating boiler on a boat. The radiators are all toasty and warm which is slightly ironic as it is a lovely sunny day but at least it proves that the theory works.

Now we have to finish off the diesel supply to the boiler because at the moment it is running on a plastic pipe from a bottle full of diesel. By the end of the weekend it should be running on a nice fireproof copper tube from the heating diesel tank in the bow.

This is so exciting for so many reasons. Well done to Ian for his efforts in working out how it should all go together.

For those of you with a short memory... Relativity now has a wood burning stove in the saloon which is very romantic and kicks out a huge amount of heat but it is relatively confined to the saloon/kitchen area. She also has 4 radiators connected to the engine to provide heat whilst we're chugging and also connected to the boiler to provide heat whilst we're not chugging. Now I can be warm in front of the fire in the evening and wake up to a reasonably toasty bedroom in the morning.

Hmmmmm.

Ian and I will be connecting up a hot water tank as well but for the moment the gas boiler will have to do.

S.

How not to do it

Now here is a challenge for you... drilling a hole in the side of the boat without either sinking the boat or electrocuting yourself! Drill it from the inside and you risk getting it too low. Drill it from the outside and you're messing with mains electricity far too close to a big pile of metal sitting in a very large puddle!

I ended up sitting in the kayak jammed between Relativity our next door neighbour Onion with the power cable trailing out of the bathroom window. There are plenty of electrical safety devices on-board Relativity but just in case of accident Ian had his finger on the "off" switch.

"Why are you drilling holes in the side of a boat?" I hear you ask. Exhaust pipe for the central heating and to tidy up the plumbing in the bathroom. Both the shower and the sink drained through the same hole and that tended to mean that the sink filled up via the plug hole (yuk) when the shower was being used. Now they are separated that won't happen (yay).

More tomorrow.

S.

Succumbing to the dark side

For six months I've lived without TV but the time has finally come and I could put the evil off no longer! I have installed FreeSat so now have 150 channels of rubbish to choose from to help relieve the long winter evening boredom.

Having said that it is surprising how much I had missed the BBC weather forecast!
And Torchwood.
And Dr. Who.
And Top Gear.

The boys will be delighted because they'll be able to be telly addicts whether they are at the house or at the boat now. I shall be rationing them hugely and access to the remote control will only be granted after the chores are done!

Setting up FreeSat isn't as hard as one might think - once you've learned a couple of tricks. My neighbour Pete and I spent two hours getting my dish aligned properly. His took less than 20 minutes. The key sequence seems to be to start with the dish pointing too far East and slowly bring it West until you get a signal from the satellites. Then stop and get the elevation right (pointing up and down). Now you can continue to get the azimuth right (East and West) and then a little fine tweaking of the elevation. This sequence was so much faster than any other sequence.

Next week will be the final (I hope) installment in the central heating saga :-)

S.