All go - Oh my aching back!

Oops. Been a while since I last blogged so I had better put that right. Spent most of this week catching up with the garden and harvesting. All the potatoes are now up and are drying in trays before bagging, there are plenty of other goodies still to come out of the greenhouse

Thursday saw me out with the Grantham Canal Society work boat recovering branches and other general rubbish from the cut. Another tiring but enjoyable day in the company of like minded folk.

Friday, back in the garden getting things ready for Stathern Horticultural Show on Saturday.

Saturday down to the show at St. Guthlacs Church and batter me down with an onion – A first and three seconds, not bad for a first attempt.

Today saw me back down at the boat. I concur with Tom and Peter’s comments to the last blog but am keeping my fingers crossed that there may still be some use left in the batteries. Last week when we left the boat I did not connect the shore line and switched off the inverter as well as operating all the trips except for the bilge pump.

Today this is what I found.

That has got to be a hopeful sign.

Even so all the domestic batteries have been removed back to the workshop which was quite a job in itself as it looks like the batteries were installed and then the compartment built around them. On removing the batteries one of the terminals was found to be corroded and one of the links in the live run was found to be lose. No sign of arcing but if it was slightly higher resistance it may have affected the charge to the last three batteries. Back home the batteries were cleaned checked for electrolyte – 1 found to be a bit low – terminals polished and greased as no form of protection had been applied on installation. The plan is to trickle charge all the batteries to full capacity and then monitor them for a week recording it all on an XL spreadsheet. Batteries tested today on return give a voltage average of 12.98V and SG readings of 1.294 to 1.305 which gives me hope.

Further to the other concern regarding the fridge/freezer.

The cupboard door has been removed pending cut outs for ventilation.

I am also looking at the possibility of making a vent to come up at the back and vent through the splash back.

Whilst I doing this I want to see if I can re-hang the cupboard door so it opens the same way as the fridge.

Also wondering if there is any way we can access the wasted space beside the oven.

On top of all this I plan to line out the battery compartment as the forward bank of four batteries butts up to the saloon bulkhead with the live terminals very close to bare metal. At the same time I intend to mount mahogany laths for the batteries to sit on as there was water trapped underneath from before the deck drain was bunged. Once that is done the compartment will be repainted on the inside and reassembled.

Usual story – one job sorted – ten more found.