We have now been aboard Amy for 5 months and can report on our progress so far.
As previously mentioned the heating and hot water is provided by a Refleks Diesel stove. Compared to the old Squirrel solid fuel stove on lady Elgar, this system is marvelous. No bags of coal to store or lug around, No Ashpans to empty, it can be left on all day without needing attention and feeding and the heat control is at the turn of a tap. It couldn't be simpler, or so I thought.
Just as the snow had reached its peak and 2 weeks before Christmas the stove suddenly and without warning went out. Luckily we have 3 electric radiators so we were able to keep the boat nice and warm albeit at the expense of the electric meter.
I just couldn't understand what had gone wrong with the stove which had been burning away merrily one minute and then stone cold the next. I checked the fuel tank and there was just under half a tank left, so I foolishly set to work on the regulator behind the stove which I was convinced had somehow become clogged up either due to water in the fuel or maybe dirt from the tank.
It was several hours later and much messing about had been done to the regulator before I finally sat back and realised that I had been an idiot. Yes, there may well be fuel in the tank but the blockage could be in the pipework to the stove.
To cut a long story short I eventually found that there wasnt any fuel getting to the stove at all. This was purely and simply the fact that its a gravity fed system and although there appeared to be enough fuel in the tank it wasnt enough to force the fuel through to the stove.
I quickly solved this by nipping down to the boatyard and topping up the tank with 4 barrels of fuel. We couldnt take the boat as the canal was frozen over.
The fuel started to flow but now the regulator wouldnt let fuel into the stove. In my tinkering with it I had obviously upset the balance of the float and no amount of tinkering would solve it. The yard eventually solved the problem by fitting a new regulator. A complete waste of time if only I had thought things out logically before jumping in with spanners and both feet.
The rest of winter passed without incident and we remained lovely and warm.
The end of march saw Wilsons of Kinver arrive and finally fit our long awaited Stern Hood. This canvas hood now covers the whole of the rear deck giving us effectively an additional room and somewhere to hang wet coats when its raining.
Heres some pics
Finally heres a couple of pics of Lilian now at 10 months old
