A Sunny Day In March

1st of March and the sun is shinning at last...

For the past few weeks every visit to the boat showed up more and more leaks around the windows resulting in puddles on the floor. I had already laid the new floor and was worrying about the damage this new onset of leaks would cause. I decided the cheapest option would be to add liner tape (used on guttering on houses) on the inside of the windows....Took a whole day, felt really proud of myself, then it started to rain....the leaks were worse, much worse..

Nothing left to do other then fit new windows..After spending £1400. and waiting two weeks the windows were in, all looked very nice (now dreaming of curtains), following day same thing puddles on the floor..Yep my neighbour said, that's just condensation..£1400 pounds later and a 3 week delay back to stage one.

Next onto the insulation, when I took the floor out there was no insulation,in fact there was nothing, I had assumed there would be loads of bricks etc like you see in canal magazines selling sail aways, I can only assume that after it was re-plated the bricks, or ballast as I believe I'm meant to call them, needed to come out due to the increased weight. I have now fixed insulation under the floor boards I have no idea if I was meant to do this, but it seems like a good idea. Next I fitted the polystyrene insulation to the walls and ceiling, leaving the gap were I intend to fit the dog box (blame canal boat magazine for this little idea) above the kitchen area.

Still the leaks came.... So I have now fitted plastic sheeting all around the inside and stapled this on, the thought behind this was if I get condensation it will drip under the floor and into the bilge, again seems like a good idea.

1st March no leaks !!!!!!! Well kind of, still plenty of water in the bilge is this normal ??? Who knows.. If I'm still afloat will up-date blog shortly..