Hello, So I'm moored up at Swarkestone on the Trent & Mersey, just south of the city of Derby.
I decided to pay Canal & River Trust to have some winter moorings here. I've
paid for November, December and January, because that will allow me to stay put
for all three months and get on with inside the boat. Normally you would have
to move on after 14 days but this has allowed me to stay. So today, I'm off
to get some wood and I've ordered a load of sockets and back boxes and things for
the electrics, because I am progressing inside, it's been quite slow because I've
been really busy with work. But I'm getting there.
Today's job is to buy more battens. I purchased 22 x 38 millimetre or
2 x 1inch treated timber. As they'll be behind the boats paneling, there's no
need for them to be nice and smooth, and rough sawn is cheaper anyway. So inside
the boat I had a couple of issues with my walling below the gunnel. The gunnel
is the bit of the boat that you walk on on the outside and there's always a lip
and the inside will then be angled outwards and then the top bit will be
angled inwards. So it's a bit like that. I had battened it and I wanted some
tongue and groove, I wanted a groove going upwards because then when you look
down the boat, all the lines aren't going horizontally and it will make the
boat feel wider. I originally bought some wooden pine tongue and groove. I fitted
it on, I probably did about that much and every time I went past it, especially
with Molly bashing and crashing down steps and into the boat, it flexed and it
moved and I thought, well if it's flexing and moving at this stage, what an earth
will it'll be like in a couple of years time. So I wasn't very happy with that. So
I removed that and then went back to the drawing board. I was going to buy sheets
of MDF that had already got the groove in. I had found a good supply for that
but their slats were that way and I didn't want the slats that way. And then
a viewer called Andy, on his boat Lillian Rose, he stopped
me and said Jono, go and have a look inside the boat. I think I know what the
answer is and I was like, right okay. So I went down inside his boat and could see what
he had used below the gunnels and it was laminate flooring. Very, very tough, very
strong. He had put the grooves upwards like this, so I walked into his boat and
I could see exactly what it would look like and I thought right, that's the
decision. Laminate flooring, if you get it in deals, certain warehouses, there's
a chain called B&Q here in the UK, that do offers. And this laminate
flooring is waterproof, its splash proof, it's got a special seal in the join. It's
covered on the backside as well and it was reduced from I think £39.99
a square meter down to £7.99 which is rather
a good offer. So I knew how many how long the boat was, so I bought a
shedload of it. I filled the car and came back. Before I could fit the laminate, I
needed to cut away excess foam and it caused an awful mess. I filled any gaps
the original foam had left, with fresh spray foam and as a sort of belt and
braces approach, I also added a foam sheet behind the panels. So I've cut the
tops of all of them and I have screwed them at the bottom and then I've secret
nailed upwards, because I didn't want to see lots and lots of screw marks all
down the side and then the top bit here, will have the cable tray and then the
wall above but it's so far very strong, really tough. Although this colour is
really nice, it's a nice grey colour. I probably will paint it.
I like the groove and I like the fact that it's got a slight, wood effect
as well. So I'm really pleased with this and I've done virtually the whole side
of the port side of the boat. And then I'll have to move all my wood and
everything over to the port side, so I can do the starboard.
Before I'd moved Alice to the final winter mooring spot, it looked like it
was snowing outside! Nope, it was just ash from a series of huge fires on the other
side of the canal. The farmer who was also a Journey with Jono viewer, was
burning off the fields remains of hay. It wasn't suitable for livestock and this
type of hay is the only sort that can be burnt. Luckily the fire brigade had been
notified, as it looked quite a sight.
Originally, I laid all the pipes behind the wall. There were battens and I
screwed them to the top and the underside of the battens. Now that was
fine and that would keep them out of the way and it would look nice and clean.
However, I had a leak on one of my connectors on to the radiator itself, in
the main sort of living area and I sat there thinking, right if and I could see
it because there was no wall and I sat there thinking right okay. If the wall
was there, I wouldn't have seen that leak and the water would have gone down the
wall and underneath the floor and the next thing I would have known, the
heating wouldn't have gone on because there's no water in the system and I
thought, right, okay, I don't want that. So I've taken the pipe work off the battens
here and put them on the floor instead. This is a more traditional way of doing
it. I would say probably 90% of all Narrowboats have their pipe work on the floor,
because of the fact that you need to be able to regularly access it, inspect it,
check for leaks. Because it's not like a house, the leak would come out onto the
floor. On a boat, it'd go down below the floor and fill up your bilge. I didn't
want that. So I've got three connectors, they all connect together, they snap
together, which is quite nice and then they've also got a snap on the top and
I've screwed them all down and spaced them accordingly and all my pipe work
throughout the whole boat, both sides, will be on the floor and then I will put
another batten on the outer side and then probably some angle joins on the
edge. And I will probably use some off cuts of this, to make it go out and down.
I'll have to line the lines up because my OCD will kick in otherwise, if they're
all skew-if. All the lines going out are not exactly lined up, I'll lie in bed or
sit at the settee and I'll be annoyed about that. So that's another time, but
I'll make that nice sort of trunk and then I can take it all off and have a
look at the joins when I want to. At the end of the pipes
I added drain valves, just in case I need you to empty the
system at a future date. Next time I'll go over how I'm tackling above the
gunnel, my new water tank and what type of sockets and back boxes I've decided
upon. Until then, see you later.