First month - insulating my narrowboat

Time flies, so they say... I've just realised it's been a month since the last post!

Once Calbourne was safely in the water, it was time to take stock a bit. The departure from XR&D had been chaotic, to say the least. All the tools and materials, which had been conveniently stacked outside the boat in the DIY shed, had been more or less thrown into the boat while the crane and lorry were waiting!

So it was a case of sorting things out and trying to store them where they would cause the minimum of obstruction to the next jobs. Easier said than done, but the space in the forecabin was very welcome. The bulkiest material was the 50mm Celotex, so it became a priority to get this insulation onto the walls. 

Not much room to move!

When floated, the boat was already sitting with the stern higher than I would have liked, so I decided to complete the filler pipe and breather for the water tank and do a test fill. I needed to see the effect of a full tank. I had a flow gauge, so I connected it up and turned the tap on. And waited... for nearly two hours. Finally, with 923L showing on the gauge, water came out of the overflow. The bow was now 3" lower and the boat had listed quite a bit to port. Clearly, I needed to shift a lot of ballast toward the stern and to starboard. This was made more difficult, as the cooker was bridging two of the plywood floor panels, but I moved what I could access. 

Fitting the Celotex was fairly straightforward - cut and then fix in place with spray glue. But first, all the battens needed to fixed. Most of these were cut to size in the workshop to save time. After fitting the panels, the gaps behind the steel angles were filled with expanding foam. Once set, it was trimmed back and all joins were covered with foil tape, to provide a continuous vapour barrier. 

Because the cooker was hard up against the port side, it was logical to concentrate on the starboard side. I was keen to see how the 'underfloor' heating pipes would sit in the hull sides, so I pressed on with fitting the horizontal battens. These had to be carefully spaced, to make sure they would accommodate the six pipe runs and the cabling conduit above. A first attempt at fitting the panels revealed an issue - the need to allow room for the pipes to sweep round at the end of each run. This involved some adjustment to the cutting of the polystyrene panels, but I soon had the first two installed. These will be permanently fixed in place with PVA adhesive.

Spot the problem?

A 40mm x 25mm plastic conduit was fitted above the top batten, which left a gap to allow for a section of 30mm Celotex to insulate the bottom of the gunwale.

I then pressed on with getting the port cabin side insulated. With the weather getting colder, I was keen to make my floating steel box a bit cosier! While doing this, I allowed for a channel, to allow the combustion air for the cooker to be drawn up from the bilge.

Next, I started on the ceiling insulation. I found that Celotex is not very bendy, so instead of fitting 25mm as planned, I would have to fit two layers of 12mm, to allow it to follow the curve of the roof. This was quite straightforward, just a bit repetitive!

In between doing the insulation, ProCast finally turned up with the remaining chimney collars and hatch. This was quite a relief, as I'd had to glue pieces of plywood over the holes to keep the weather out.

The hatch is very heavy!

They also brought the porthole liners. It was a relief to see that they fitted neatly into the holes I'd cut in the insulation. They are made of glass fibre, but look remarkably like wood - and should solve the perennial rotting problem.

Although the marina has the benefit of mains hook-up, the supply is limited to 6 Amps. This means that even modest hand-held tools, like a circular saw, kick out the breaker. In order to use more powerful tools, I need to get the inverter connected up.

Outside, Calbourne is going a bright orange colour as she starts to rust. This is causing a few raised eyebrows and more than a few questions! The reason for this is simple. The boat will be grit blasted and painted next Spring. The grit blaster has told me that the millscale will come off the steel better if it's allowed to rust first. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to seeing her looking more respectable!