tangledfooted

well that told me. Thanks everyone. I'll definitely oppose residential but expect to have to swallow the rent increase. cheers

Stonebridge South Permanent Leisure Moorings (SSM) are offside moorings on the River Lee between Tottenham lock and Stonebridge lock, there are 43 boats at present. SSM is gated at either end with vehicle access from the South only. There is a dirt track, unofficial but long established gardens and onsite parking. There is no water or electric. Mooring fees this year are £188 per meter per annum. This site was inherited by BW about twenty years ago and some users have been here since before that time. CRT (Waterside Moorings) want to put in electric and water and improve the access road, add some finger moorings and hike the price from £188 to £300 per meter per annum. Works will start in April and finish in July. Price hike starts in April. Oh and at the end of it all - go residential. We have been in consultation for over a year and made some progress and enjoyed some concessions. They have actually listened. We expected prices to go up after electric and water went in by about 15%. Following the consultation CRT (Water mooring) published the attached proposal. We want to fight the increases in fees as mauch as possible. Has anyone had any experience of this sort of action from CRT and has anyone had any success as countering it. Can you suggest things we could do? Advice desperately needed. (PS I thick about 14 boats here are used as sole or primary residences)

Thanks very much. Really fast replies. So no relay then. The pump uses 600mA . I though of a cylinder stat but its going in a quite prominant place and the pipe stat is more discrete the stat is NO normally open and activates at 70C and returns to open at 55C. What sort of temperature range do you set your cylinder stat at?.

The pumped section of my solid fuel central heating system follows after the thermosyphon section. I want to automate the pump so it comes on when the temperature at the thermosyphon radiator reaches about 60degC and goes off when the temperature falls below. The pump and the pipe stat are about 7 meters apart so I thought a simple switching relay would reduce voltage drop at 12V. My question is how do you wire up a relay. ? And is there a better relay than the one I've suggested or should I not bother with the relay? The relay i have in mind is a 5 pin relay with the following connections 30, 85, 86, 87, 87A I have the following prospective connectors A 12V positive from battery B 12V negitive from battery C positive from circulation pump D negative from circulation pump E, F from the thermal switch So according to You Tube I need to connect A (12v+) to E through (thermal switch) F to 86, then B (12v-) to 85. I also connect A 12v+ to 30 (or jump 30 with 86) and C (load) to 87 and D to B (12v-). Is that right? and is there a better way? Should I use a switch with a different temperature 50degC? 70degC? Thank you

Thanks everyone. The general consensus seems to be that coal is cheaper than bought hardwood - though not as fulfilling aesthetically. That you can burn anything in a stove as opposed to an open fire as long as its seasoned. And that living in London is bloody expensive! So - I'm going to buy some coal and use up the firewood I have left and work the two together, banking up with coal at night which might take the pressure off the Alde in the mornings. Once again CWF come to the rescue.

Well I found out that : 1 kg Firewood = 057 kg Coal. Problem is what does a cubic meter of firewood weigh? Also I reckon cubic meter of Oak weighs more than a cubic meter of Poplar. But maybe they have taken that into account with their 1 kg FIREWOOD being some kind of mean or average. I've also discovered that 1Kg Uranium = 4,736,842 Kg FIREWOOD. But usefully 0.123 kg coal = 1 kWh

I lived at Springfield Marina on the Lee in East London for 7 years. The place is raking it in with boats selling for £20,000 over market price just to get a mooring. Officially it's a leisure mooring but 80% are live aboard's. If you let slip in the marina office that you live aboard the Marina manager (very dour) say something like "oh no you don't, No one lives on their boat they just stay here a lot" Or "Its nor rent it's mooring fees". Since then I've got a CRT leisure mooring upriver and live on that. Again about 80% of these moorings are live on. CRT as I understand it consider staying on your boat for more than 52weeks per year as living aboard but even then its not in their interests to care one way or another. Without live aboard's the only users would be holiday makers and CRT would be bust. Of course, there is no mail delivery and you need to have an address (friend or family) where you get your mail. Bank account, car insurance mobile bill and of course mooring fees and boat licence etc But otherwise its a breeze.

Last winter I started scavenging wood for this winter. By September I had quite a pile. And when cut and chopped i thought I had enough for this winter. It was about 3 cubic meters. (We have a CRT Mooring and a wood store) Its mostly Willow, Chestnut, a little Ash and some Poplar and London Plain. Its not fully seasoned all of it but its done us fine so far and it is mostly free ( a bit of petrol for collection and cutting etc) Well, since October its mostly gone! I reckon I've got about a cubic meter left. Which, if the mild weather continues might get us to Christmas. So here's the question - Coal or wood? Its to late to scavenge as the wood would be unseasoned and anyway it's cold and wet out there. So Im going to have to part with some money - gritted teeth. Locally (London River Lee) I can get delivered 3m2 bags of seasoned Ash/Oak for £200 or buy coal Homefires 25kg for £16.50 at Springfield Marina. I think I would prefer wood but not if it's going to cost me significantly more. Any thoughts about how to compare costs? Will I use less wood if it Oak and Ash? Of I found this ditty : Beech-wood fires burn bright and clear If the logs are kept a year; Store your beech for Christmastide With new-cut holly laid beside; Chestnut's only good, they say, If for years 'tis stored away; Birch and fir-wood burn too fast Blaze too bright and do not last; Flames from larch will shoot up high, Dangerously the sparks will fly; But ash-wood green and ash-wood brown Are fit for a Queen with a golden crown. Oaken logs, if dry and old, Keep away the winter's cold; Poplar gives a bitter smoke, Fills your eyes and makes you choke; Elm-wood burns like churchyard mould, E'en the very flames are cold; It is by the Irish said; Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread, Apple-wood will scent the room, Pear-wood smells like flowers in bloom; But ash-wood wet and ash-wood dry A King may warm his slippers by. cute!

Hello Mike Im not saying I'm definitely going to try it - vzv to New World oven - just that if it was simple to do it would be a shame not to, especially as there is so little chose out there. Chances are I'll end up with a Spinflo, but if it was possible to convert the New World Oven to lpg - well that would be better. And it would be really annoying to discover later that it was really just a simple matter and perfectly possible. Just like with the Cannon Connemara - Cannon said it couldn't be done but in fact it was in the end quite simple. Especially with Cannon's own instructions. And while I have every consideration of guests and boaters near me. My main concern is my own safety as I'm fond of myself.

As a temporary measure I bought a second hand Cannon Connemara to convert to lpg -until such time as I can afford a new worktop, built under oven and a separate black glass hob - which is what i fancy. Having collected the Cannon and brought it back to the boat. I phoned Cannon/Hotpoint/Indesit to order an lpg conversion kit - now that I had the exact model number. I was told categorically the the Cannon Connemara could not be converted to lpg. I pointed out that Cannon make an lpg version of the Connemara and that the manual that came with my Connemara gave instructions for converting to lpg. They said they'd get back to me. Of course I never heard from them again. The manual give the spec. for the lpg jets so I went ahead and ordered them anyway. They arrived the next day and I fitted them and made other adjustments to the by-pass etc as specified in the manual. Works great, nice blue flames all looking about the right size. FFD on all burners only down side is 240v ignition - but I can live with that -using a match when the inverter is off. So when Im rich I want a built under oven and grill separate cavities with a 4 burner hob above and a new work top. The oven can be 50 or 60 cms wide preferable in black glass and Im not bothered too much about the ignition although 12v would be best. I've got a maximum depth of 57cms. And of course lpg. I has a spinflo Caprice on my last boat but was not very happy with it. I could get a Spinflo half midi prima which looks nice and is 12v, but the Caprice had a feeble grill and was all a bit flimsy - designed obviously for caravans used for the few weeks a year. IF anyone has this midi prima - I'd appreciate a review. Belling do something similar but I think it has an electric grill and its not pleasing to the eye and ain't cheap. So the oven I like best is the New World NW701 (in black) and this finally is my question. Accorning to New World the NW701 cannot be converted to lpg. there is no lpg version. What possible reason could there be for it being impossible to convert this oven to lpg. If I knew what size jets to fit to the oven and grill burners and reduced the valve by-pass to minimum what could possible go wrong? I dont think air intake is a problem (but it might be if there is a fan involved). I mean it may well be the case that New World just havn't bothered to get the appropriate EC accreditation or something so don't sanction conversion for legal reasons. I don't want to spend £400 on the oven only to discover there really is a good reason this can't be used on lpg. In which case I guess its the Spinflo - unless anyone has a better suggestion. Baumatic gas ovens are signal cavity I want a separate grill. Someone said look on French websites but my French isn't up to 'built under lpg double oven/grill'

Just an update: Firstly thanks for all the advice. I had finished the plumbing and filled up with water and found leaks at the pump and on one solder joint. I went to tighten up the pump joints and managed to snap the pump in half. 30 litres of water heading for the bilge via the newly laid engineered oak flooring! Cleaned up with old towels removed the pump fixed the solder joint and filled up again. No leaks. Lit the fire and had heat at the far radiator in half and hour. I managed to get a nice slope up just following the gunnel - keeping the flow pipe 4 inches below the gunnel. I used 28mm from the boiler to the first radiator and then 22mm on to the second. 15mm on to the expansion tank. I used full bore 15mm level valves on both radiators and no valve at all on the returns from the radiators. I kept the radiators parallel with the gunnel so they slope slightly up and join the flow to the radiators at the higher end further from the boiler so they would self bleed ( thanks Smilypete) and joint the return closer to the boiler. The return pipe is parrellel to the flow until it has to rise to the lower entrance of the back boiler. Thats where I put the pump with the venturi. So inspite of the pump being absent and there being some restriction on the return with an extra 90 degree and the venturi the whole works really well - even with a full water tank. The only concern is that i didn't bother with a return from the expansion tank -reckoning that the last radiator would do the job - as an after thought I took the level of the last valve so i couldn't close the valve. Do you think I was being stupid/lazy not adding the (feed) to the return? I just could'nt see why I would need it.

Very much like the venturi T. But positioning. The 28mm return comes in a bit below the lower connection for the back boiler, The pump has an natural 90degree in/out which would bring me vertical for a 90 or two 45s into the boiler. I was thinking of starting the by-pass with a T up from the horizontal then a 90 to bring it back the the other side of the pump on the vertical before the turn into the boiler. So T would put the Venturi T at the point on the vertical where the bypass rejoins the pump return. IS that right?

Thanks Peter, Pete and all. So looks like I don't need a by-pass and that in the event of a pump failure the thermosyphon will work throw it. Get a cheapish pump if necessary and use either a contact thermo switch or a cylinder stat but wired for normal open. Cheers.

Thanks Peter That makes sense now.