mark_hookway

I get quite a lot of condensation in the boat and wondered if anyone had any advise about best ways to reduce it. I live on it, but have mains hook up so electricity is easy to have if needed. Reading previous discussions on here it appears dehumidifiers dont seem a good idea, but I wondered about maybe an electric oil filled radiator or something like that which may dry the boat out more than the wood burner. The boat is 57' with a wood burner in the front with a back boiler that supplies a radiator at the back bedroom, but this does not dry the boat out as there gets quite a bit of condesation on the port holes and in various parts of the boat. Or maybe a bit of condensation is not really a problem and I should just stick with the wood burner? Any thoughts, advice or experience will be greatly appreciated? Thank you in advance.

How exactly does that work and how much does it cost? I have a filter already, but i dont think there is anything in the water, just being tainted with the bitumen.

I recently cleaned and blacked my water tank. I used a bitumen polish that although was not graded 'potable' the same stuff used to be and my guess was that it was not now due to tighter health and safety laws etc. I applied two coats and left it for 3 days to dry. I then filled the water tank up twice and emptied it to give it a clean through, however 2 months later the water is still tasting and smelling horrible, whereas it used to be drinkable. I guess 3 days was not long enough for it to dry, but I thought it would be enough. Has anyone experienced this problem before and have any ideas of what I can do to sort it out? My plan at the moment unless for any better ideas is to empty it and dry it out with the cover off for 2 weeks (whilst I go on holiday at the end of the month), and failing that get some sort of liner to put inside. Thank you in advance for any advice.

It is difficult to tell from the picture, but that looks massive compared to my switch. What I dont understand is how you connect this to the water pump. my switch is inbuilt into a piece of casing which is screwed onto the end of the pump and that looks nothing like the switch in the link? Thanks Mark

It seems I am defo going to need a new alternator, you can see on my reply to blodger above that I have found in the survey the size of the alternator and the suggested size. Do you think by changing the alternator this will solve the problem? My original problem came from the fact that after running the engine for a while the voltage still didnt hold above 14v, although I have read that it can take 12 hours to reach maximum voltage and it wasnt this long. I assume if it takes 12 hours with the right size alternator that with a small one it would take even more? This may sound a bit thick, but I dont understand how to do your tests, firstly I am not sure where to take the readings from for the alternator and I am not 100% sure which are the charging cables and output wires etc, although it does appear to be obvious. Mine does have a plastic back on, but I cant find a small stud? There are a couple of really small nuts on the back, but these look to help hold the plastic cover on. There is a nut which is on the top and there is a cut out in the plastic for this, but I cant see any stud and would not be easy to adjust without bending the plastic a bit. On close inspection I did notice an empty terminal on the top which looks like it could/should have a wire connected. The charging cable and another electric cable appear to be at the bottom, could this have something to do with it? I hope I am explaining myself OK as I dont know the names for any of the parts, but really appreciate your time and help. Thanks Mark

I do have split charging, so when the engine is running it charges both the starter battery and leisure batteries. I switch it to leisure batteries when off and the solar panel is connected to the leisure batteries via charge controller. After work today i measured the voltage, a reasonably sunny day so the batteries were at 12.8v, this is without the engine having been run. The starter motor was at 12.6v. From all the comments it seems sure that I need a need alternator. I have dug out the survey of when I bought the boat and the Alternator is a Lucas LRA101, he says the physical size suggests an output rating of 40amps. He does say it would be beneficial to fit a larger alternator with an output of about 70amps and to resize the charging cables if necessary. I always knew this was a job that was on the 'to do' list, but it seems it should have been higher up the list. The reason I first posted this question was that I thought even though small it would still do the job, but just take longer to do it and even after long periods with the engine on it didnt really make much difference, the voltage would still drop.

Thanks again, Getting a new alternator is on my list of things to do/buy but was low down, maybe I should get one and will look at the different measuring systems considering the importance. If this is any use at all I ran the engine for about 1 hour 30 mins this evening and using the voltmeter I had a reading of 13.4v, after turning the engine off it read 13.04v and 2 minutes later it read 12.87v, now 10 minutes later again it reads 12.66v. I appreciate from further posts that batteries need to be still for a while to get an accurate reading, but I thought I would mention it. Mark

That is a lot of information to take in, thank you. I cant say I understand it all, but will try to answer what you have said in the hope it will help me further. My alternator is old and I could do with a more powerful one as this was mentioned in the survey when I bought the boat. I dont know how old it would be though, the engine is a reconditioned BMC so I would imagine the alternator was new and certainly newer than the 70s. I just had a proper look at the warning light, it says charge underneath (I take it that is the same one as there is no other light), when I turn the key it lights up, it turns off when the engine is running, but if you turn the key off whilst the engine is running it turns on again. I am sure I only have a cheap voltmeter, cost about £30, it takes several readings but cant be sure how accurate it is, just assumed it must be right. At the moment the batteries have a higher charge in the morning than when I go to bed as the solar panel charges them up when it first get lights, when we have had really sunny spells then it would charge them to about 13v in the evening as well. I have never let them drop below 12.2, i normally go off 12.5v as a warning. I have a gas fridge so the batteries are just powering my lights, pumps and laptop and radio for about an hour each evening. I am conscious not to ruin the batteries as I ruined the last lot when I first bought the boat as didnt understand the importance of keeping them charged up. Thanks again for any help Mark

That could be the case as I did previously have maintenance free batteries, but how do you change the voltage regulation? That could be the case as I did previously have maintenance free batteries, but how do you change the voltage regulation? My fridge is gas and the power I use is only for LED lights, small fan for the compost toilet, radio & laptop for an hour and water pump when it is working!

Hi, thanks for the help. I am using a voltmeter to test the batteries and this is when the engine is turned off. If I measure it with the engine running then it will show up to 14v, and will be perhaps 13.3v before starting to drop. My solar panel is 130w and seems to do a pretty good job as I rarely have to run the engine. On a sunny day it will run the batterys to say 13v and if I put the engine on it doesnt seem to make any difference apart from when it is on. The ignition warning lamp doesnt do anything. Thanks for the advice on battery maintenance, they are practically brand new so want to look after them. Hopefully I have given you the information you need. Mark

I bought 3 new leisure batteries a few months ago when I fitted my new solar panel as the others were knackered, not helped by me not looking after them. What if anything should I do to these batteries to ensure the same doesnt happen apart from keeping them topped up? Also they never seem to charge any higher than 13v even if the engine has been on all day cruising and not running anything on electric, is this right?

This may sound daft but how do you know that with the inline filter and accumulator it is perfectly fitted? I never used to have a filter in the old pump and now I do I am having problems. It does seem to be fitted well and the same with the accumulator I have tested it before and it pumps the water smoothly, but makes no difference to hitting the pressure switch. Mine has since stoped completely without a small tap so your shower story may occur here tomorrow!

This does sound the easiest for me to understand, but if I just insert the float switch within the brown wire will it not work unless I turn the manual pumping switch on? If so then I am npt gaining anything by having it? It looks very simple, but I still find it hard to imagine how it will work with my switch. I could probbaly start again following this diagram. Do you have any idea of where I could get a switch like the one in the diagram. Also does it matter what colours the wires are as in the diagram or as long as the follow the right path will it be OK? The float switch has 2 grey wires coming out, whereas the bilge pump has a brown and a black.

That sounds like it could be a factor and something I have perhaps discounted as checking all the wiring wont be a simple job, although the switch is defo faulty I am sure as not working at all now without a tap on the front. I have removed them on previous pumps and will try this again. You only need a screwdriver on the pump I have. The switch is a seperate piece on the end of the main pump, but I am sure they are different on different types of pumps.

My bilge pump is currently wired up to run manually when needed. I am lending my boat to some family so thought I would fit a float switch as well so they dont flood the boat when cruising! It looks like it will be much simpler to keep this manual switch and put the float switch in alongside. The instructions provided are pretty terrible for a beginner like myself, but I can see that I run a wire straight from the float switch to the negative terminal of the battery and I understand it is best to put a fuse in here. The other wire from the float switch goes to the bilge pump. The bilge pump has a black and a brown wire coming out, the fuse being on the brown one and then these connect through into a loom which goes to the battery and the manual switch. I hope I am explaining this OK, but as far as I can see the wire from the float switch can connect to the bilge pump in a number of ways: 1. Connect to the black wire that goes pretty much straight through to the positive part of the battery. 2. Connect to the brown wire of the bilge pump before it is fused and then runs to the negative terminal (although can create a circuit with the positive wire through the bilge pump). 3. Connect to the red wire coming from the fuse holder and then onto the negative terminal. The confusing part for me comes from the fact that I think each the bilge pump and float switch has a positive and negative wire coming from it (I dont know if this is the case). If the float switch is connected to negative and the bilge pump to the positive then the float switch has a remaining positive wire and the bilge pumps a remaining negative which I wouldnt have thought can connect. I am sure I have made this sound much more compicated than it is, my guess would be to choose option 2 and connect to the brown wire as although leads to the negative after the fuse can still make a circuit through the pump and it does have a sticker on the brown wire saying to only connect to positive even though I thought it was a negative wire. Thanks so much for any help and I hope I have not left you wandering what the hell I am on about! Maybe it will be easier to disconnect from the manual switch and just powered this way.