There's never a dull moment when boating. Last night the diesel heater decided to switch itself off. OK, fair enough, it was warm in here so I didn't think any more of it. I just switched off the control panel when we went to bed. This morning it wouldn't fire up despite voltage meter reading over 12 volts. I thought I'd fire up the engine and try again. Guess what? Starter battery dead flat despite running the engine 'til 20:00 hours last night. Now as it turned out, the two faults were not connected. The alternator that charges the starter battery is ph^(<3), and together with last nights frost the battery refused to play the game. So I phoned Paul and spoke to Ken. (Don't ask). He said as we were in Trevor Basin ask Anglo Welsh if they could help, (saving a call-out fee), and they were happy to help. Tony from Anglo Welsh jump started the engine from the domestic batteries, and tested the alternator while the engine was running and this confirmed our thoughts. The quickest and easiest way around it was to connect a link between the domestic and starter batteries, and let the domestic alternator charge the starter battery aswell. We now have to be careful not to let the domestic set run down too much.
Next, on to the Webasto heater. Oh! dear, how sad, never mind. The rubber water supply and return hoses connected between the heater and the water circuit had collapsed stopping the flow to/from the heater so the pump had stalled and the water in the boiler had over heated hence the auto switching off last night. Tony removed one of the supply hoses and there was no water in it. I checked the water level in the expansion tank and that was 3/4 full, it was then I noticed the valve under the tank was off! Of course, that's it! With the valve off the water cannot expand with the heat so the rubber hoses expand and probably there's some loss of water, possibly through a pressure relief vent. When it all cools the water contracts and hence the hoses collapse. So the solution was simple, connect it all up again, turn on the valve and try again. Success! after a smokey start it was away. Tony fitted some curly wrap around the hoses to help re shape them and re terminated one of the hoses removing the flattened part. And it was all serviced last week, I reckon someone forgot to turn on the valve again. A big thank you to Tony from Anglo Welsh for getting us out of a sticky spot.
The vacated Llangollen Marina - a sorry sight.
Llangollen Town
On to more normal things and we'd planned to go by bus into Llangollen today- we did, but much later than expected. After lunch in the Corn Mill (very nice) we did some shopping in the town and its not change much since we were here some four years ago. The old coach company next to the canal has gone and flats have been built in its place, and that's about it. The rest is much the same, which is good in my opinion. The canal is still closed at Trevor, but on our bus trip which runs next to the canal for some way we could see no evidence of any works being carried out, and the canal is full all the way. There are no boats up there only the trip boats, and there were no boats in the marina either.
Back to TQ and I stoked the stove and tested the heating, all OK, and then I went for a walk across the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct to the lifting bridge in Froncysyllte and back on the other side of the cut to the aqueduct, then under it and back up to the towpath again. A lovely late afternoon stroll.
The weather forecast doesn't look good, there's a high possibility of snow over the next few days, we'll have to keep a watchfull eye on it.
More tomorrow - hopefully.
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1 comment:
I'm surprised that you had any assistance from Anglo welsh - our experience with them was terrible. Here is OUR story of Anglo Welsh!
We hired an ANGLO WELSH boat from Wootton Wawen for 5 days with another Australian couple. The rear toilet leaked all over the floor, spreading a dark stain into the companionway. We complained. They tried to fix it - I think they should have replaced the boat, but we were told to continue our trip and continue to take the boat back to base. The toilet continued to leak, filling the boat with the smell of S%^T, and the stain got bigger and bigger and the smell got worse and worse. The other couple (who were bunked next to the leaking toilet) decided to leave the boat. We prevailed on them to stay, but we agreed to take the boat straight back to base, which we did. We took the boat back early. The people at base said they were concerned and told us to ask for a part refund when we got back to Oz. The response to that was that our ruined holiday was our fault because we didn't complain enough. Evidently we should have complained again !!!!
DON'T use ANGLO WELSH they provide badly maintained stinky boats and from our experience are unprofessional in their dealings with customers. We have hired sailing boats in Australia in Moreton Bay and the Whitsundays, The Greek Islands and have sailed from Phuket to Langkawi on a hired skippered boat, been on Houseboats in Surfers Paradise, and canal boats in France. This was our worst experience EVER and we would recommend that you don't give ANGLO WELSH the chance to do to you what they did to us. We will never hire a boat from ANGLO WELSH ever ever again and we recommend that you don’t either - Use someone else, use anyone else – no one could be worse than Anglo-Welsh.
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