Kitchening

Work has started on the rear of the boat. First up was sorting out the leaking calorifier (marine immersion heater that heats water with the engine or an electric heating element). Although not a serious problem I'm keen to have a dry hull - I'll sleep better at night. So the calorifier was removed revealing a fair amount of water but no corrosion once the grime was scraped back.



The hull was cleaned out and the rinsed out calorifier given a nice bed of insulation that will also catch any future leaks. On the left is the heating kit we've just got with lots of hot air ducting pipe that I need to install.


I also found some uninsulated metal, obvious with all the damp staining on the wood next to it. This was generously covered in insulation.


The hull around where I was going to build was also scraped out and dried, a job I'm doing as I go throughout the whole boat. The prepared area was then ready for some building:

The kitchen is going to be a galley type based on a boat we'd seen before, that we liked the look of. While I'm constructing the kitchen I'll keep the other as well so we can have a few comforts like cooked food.

Looking for that toasty feeling

Heating the boat jumped up the priority list a fair bit when we had a couple of cold mornings recently. There is no definitive way of heating a boat, on online forums there is no consensus as all boats are different as are the people that live on them.

The boat had a diesel burning water heater in the past with a few radiators down one side of the boat. Sadly this disappeared and I can only think it was sold - a similar unit costs nearly a grand - or it broke. So our options were open as to the heating plan.

In our opinion, after much research, wood is the greenest form of heat we could realistically implement on the boat. Thing is though they're not so great for cold mornings as they take a while to heat up. Also, in the summer we don't want the fire going and may want a quick warm up after a chilly night so another form of heat is needed. The most common are diesel burners which we're not a fan of but there is an option of using bio-diesel* with certain burners.
After much deliberation an air heater was best suited to our needs: quick to heat up, compatible with bio diesel products, and a drying heat to help get rid of condensation.

The rest of the heating will rely on a wood burner, which we have already. The problem is it points the wrong way and heats the arse end of the boat only. To heat the whole boat we'll need to turn it round with the surround pointing towards the rear of the boat to reflect heat in the right direction. To do this we're going to swap the kitchen with the lounge...

*Bio diesel from renewable sources, not produced by countries that chop down forests to produce it.

Drawers

Are a pain in the arse. Especially so when nothing lines up which not much does on the boat. Spirit level is out the window when the boat lists to the left a bit. Sooo, lots of trial and error, fuzzy logic, and swearing later...


There's a fair bit of storage now and I'll probably fit some temporary handles and leave the drawers as they are for the moment as we're not totally sure what the decor should look like yet. There is also the more pressing issue of Clare's desk and work area!

This should be a relatively simple task... Ha, of course it won't! Electricity will throw up a few problems as running multiple 240 volt appliances through an inverter will burn it (£900), plus the shower is next to the desk area so here's hoping it's sealed ok. Whatever 'das boot' throws at me it's all good as it's work on our own house - albeit a floating one with no space to swing a cat.

Also found a leak around the water filler fitting, which is dandy as I was wondering where the water staining was coming from! So, off it came:


Some brushing, treatment, painting, and silicone later a rust free, water tight water filler:


My days spent derusting the mini were good experience! I'll fit some screws in later but the silicone will do better than the lumps of rust it was held on with before.