It’s been an eventful month in my new narrowboat home with pretty serious flooding in the local area, and work progressing to turn Lizzy from a leisure boat to a cosy liveaboard with winter on its way. I’m also getting a routine in place with boat checks, chopping wood and carrying water.

Farewell dinette

Lizzy came with a very clever home made dinette that converted into a small double bed. It was a real credit to the previous owner’s fabrication skills but sadly didn’t provide me somewhere comfy to hang out and read, and I don’t need a second bed. I’m mostly at the computer working or relaxing with the tablet. Sitting straight up at a table wasn’t very relaxing and the foam cushions weren’t going to last long in daily use. In a timely coincidence, I was talking to a very handy neighbour and he was just about to make a dinette! I offered him mine in return for future help when I alter the kitchen, as he used to be a builder and has all the tools. I’d been noticing him building himself a VW camper over the last few weeks so know he’s got the skills.

To replace the dinette, I found an oak & leather IKEA POÄNG and footstool in a nearby British Heart Foundation shop. I’ve bought a sofa and footstool from the Nottingham one before and they deliver, which is a massive bonus as I don’t have a car/van at the moment. We took the dinette apart and BHF dropped the chair, foot stool and a small table off and took the old footstool away the next day. Amazing work, supports a good cause and I can now relax with my feet up.

There’s a flood lock under there somewhere..

Floods!

We had serious flooding last weekend, the worst for 20 years apparently! The boats rose a couple of feet to just above the pontoons and the mooring rings/poles got a good workout. It all happened quite slowly, giving us time to prepare and the marina time to makes sure everything was ready. The Trent burst its banks, overwhelmed the flood lock nearby and also started coming over the towpath on the canal outside. We could see the water creeping up while chatting on the bank and had time to get fuel, fill water and stock up on snacks for what looked like a day or two of flooding. It was very exciting rising up with the floodwater and the mooring poles did their thing admirably. I had wifi, coffee and books as well as my comfy new chair so it didn’t seem like a hardship.

The marina staff were available to advise and reassure as well as being on flood patrol for the whole time, including overnight. Absolute legends. So glad I wasn’t out on the canals or river when this happened.

Secondary Glazing

Condensation has already been an issue next to my bed, dripping down from the porthole onto my bedding. I don’t want cold, mouldy bedding so that needed fixing ASAP. Some people use film over their windows, using a heatgun to shrink it into place. That looks a bit of a mess and it would be nice to be able to remove any covering if I want the windows open. I saw a neighbour’s secondary glazing with perspex discs so had some of those cut to shape locally (for a good price at Marlin plastics) and sent off for magnetic tape. The metal tape does not go round corners however, so another approach was needed.

I spotted this secondary glazing kit on eBay and it worked a treat. The install looks neat and I can remove the perspex to clean or open the windows and in Spring when it warms up again. We’ve had some cold nights since the install, and condensation is hugely reduced as well as it slightly soundproofing my bedroom. Not sure I’ll do the whole boat unless it gets really baltic!

Preparing to Paint

I’ve noticed some rust blistering under the non-slip mats in the well deck, so have removed most of those and started collecting materials to repair that when we get some sun. It might have to be Spring now as it’s starting to get damp and cold. I’ve got some red oxide, plenty of sandpaper and some Teamac deck paint in black to match the current paint, which contains beads for a non-slip surface.

Lizzy’s interior is very.. yellow. After researching chalky furniture paints that don’t require much prep work, it seems Frenchic is mega expensive and Rust-oleum better value. They both do some lovely muted shades and I’m thinking smoky blue on the bottom half with vanilla on the upper panels. I’m going to leave the wooden trims as I like the look of other boats that have done that. Nothing is getting painted white as it looks bleak to my eyes.

My carpeted steps were looking very worse for wear so I ripped all the carpet off and removed the 18mm ply bottom & front to help reduce weight at the front of the boat. Stove fuel can be stored inside the steps and I can now keep two pairs of shoes under the bottom step. I used some offcuts of the well deck matting to make antislip mats, and painted the steps blue with a Dulux tester pot. Not feeling the strong blue but it looks way better than dirty plywood!

EcoFlow RIVER 2 MAX powering a PC aboard a narrowboat

Power cuts

We’ve had some power cuts this weekend caused by shoddy electrics on boats (hopefully not mine..). My PC and Mac Mini aren’t going to like that happening regularly and it can fry hard drives. I started looking at small uniterruptible power supply (UPS) units. Then I wondered if something like a small EcoFlow with a Lithium battery would work as a UPS, and yes they will. Another kindly neighbour that keeps giving me things has three (!) of them, so lent me one to try out. It works great as a UPS so far and even shows how many watts my PC is pulling. It instantly switched to battery power when I pulled the plug out to test it, and time will tell if it works in an actual power cut.

Another bonus of running an EcoFlow on a narrowboat is that I could add solar panels next Spring, with it having a built in solar charge controller. Much easier than separate units and associated wiring and helps be more sustainable. Only snag so far is that it has a noisy fan which comes on when it’s under load. It wouldn’t be a long term power supply though in my case – just on long enough to shut the computer(s) down properly.

Skip diving

The bin gods smiled upon me this weekend, firstly providing lots of clean foam panels to help insulate the bedroom gunwhales where I was getting draughts from. I couldn’t believe my eyes later that night when someone was chucking out a solid wood drawer unit! It was missing two out of three drawers but can either be modded to add a shelf where they were, be used for materials (have you seen the price of wood these days?!) or worst case, chopped up and burned for heat.

Summary

It’s been a feature packed second month aboard narrowboat Thin Lizzy, and it’s starting to feel like home.