There has been plenty of maintenance work to do on the BBB this year. It hasn’t all got done, though. We have planned to do it, but planning isn’t always enough.
We have started most things…and finished some!
Achievements
I’m quite a positive person, so I’ll start with what we have done.
- Electrics. Well, not us. We paid someone to do it, but I think that still counts! We have changed the fridge from a 240V fridge and freezer (like house appliances) to a 12V fridge with freezer compartment. And had some USB sockets attached to the 12V system to charge mobile phones etc. I’ll try to explain why we removed a 1-year-old fridge and freezer that were working well…
The BBB has four 12V batteries. That is great, they provide us with our domestic electricity. They are topped up by the solar panels and the alternator on the engine (as the engine runs it tops up the batteries). The plug sockets are 240V. To get the electricity from 12V batteries to 240V sockets we have an inverter. An inverter is a very clever piece of kit which converts the electricity from 12Vto 240V. But it uses a lot of electricity to do it.
So – the electricity was stored in 12V batteries, then some of it was used by the inverter to make it 240V, to operate the plug sockets, so the fridge and freezer would work. Now – we have a fridge that works straight from the 12V system, so we don’t lose electricity converting it to 240V.
Mobile phone chargers reduce the voltage from the (240V) plug socket to around 5V. So it went: 12V (in the batteries) to 240V (inverter to plug sockets) to 5V (through the charger plug). That is crazy!
Now we only need to put the inverter on occasionally, to watch TV, use the washing machine or charge laptops (although I prefer doing that at the pub)! That makes the charge in the batteries last longer, which is great in the low light winter months (when the solar panels can’t do as much).
- Toilet. I have mentioned this a few times, and I keep promising to write a post about it, and I will – one day! We now only have one toilet. A Kildwick composting toilet which is much more practical for us.
We did that ourselves. We removed the old pump out toilet and all of the pipework, which was quite frightening on a new boat! I’m glad we did, it looks great in the bathroom!
- Chimney and stove. We have been cleaning the inside of the stove and the baffle (the bit at the top, before the chimney) fairly regularly and a good friend Ryan from Sootloose swept the chimney for us. Great, because we are needing the fire again, now!
- Engine maintenance. We did a very good job on the engine maintenance course. We have checked (and topped up) the antifreeze and adjusted the fanbelts. That brings me quite nicely onto the next section…
To do list
I think this list may be the longest section…
- Engine maintenance. I think we will do this one quite soon. The engine is still very new. It works great, thankfully! We really should get around to changing the oil, the oil filters and the fuel filters. It will keep the engine working as well as it is at the moment!
- Cupboard doors. We took off the doors when we removed the fridge and freezer (they were integrated appliances). We still have the doors, they are next to the sofa! Mr BBB made a lovely cupboard where the freezer was, and the fridge stands in the same space as the old one. But both the cupboard and the fridge need the doors reattaching! They work fine without, though.
- Painting. The BBB is made of steel. Which rusts if it gets wet. It is very thick steel, but if it gets rusty it is a big problem. The beautiful blue and cream paint protects the metal from rust. There are lots of layers and the paint is hard, so it is quite difficult to damage – but we have managed it!
We have been quite sensible, though. We have quite a few places where the paint is damaged, so we covered them before the winter weather got here. But we couldn’t always cover them straightaway with the correct colour of paint. A lot of the areas needed primer or red oxide to protect the metal. So The BBB is mainly blue, with patches of gray primer and red oxide. It is starting to resemble a patchwork boat!
But at least it won’t rust!
In the spring we will paint them all blue again.
- Once the BBB is a lovely shade of blue, she will need cleaning. And then cleaning again, and again…
Looking at the two lists, it doesn’t seem too bad. I think we have done quite well. The BBB is still keeping us warm, the engine and electrics are working brilliantly and the things we need to do are mainly cosmetic. We did all of the things that we needed to do.
I think we should celebrate!
