NB "Electra"

Good friends Bernie and Leigh have done a fantastic undercloth conversion on their historic narrowboat "Electra".

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 Following my work on gravity fed central heating systems they asked me to have a look at their vintage Caledonia solid fuel range in the hope of generating some hot water. Electra is a gasless boat, and they wanted to keep it that way. The cooking range is in more or less constant use and therefore a good candidate for a gravity fed hot water system.

Due to the age of the stove and the risk of cracking potentially brittle castings it was decided to opt for a new non invasive boiler mounted on the side of the fire box. Many old French cooking ranges used to generate hot water using a similar system, drawing the hot water directly out of a tap on the front of the stove. 

 

Using a custom made calorifier (not as expensive as you may think) with a one inch coil to promote pump free circulation, the system works very well providing hot water for at least two showers and plentiful washing up every day. Being fond of bling, the Captain now also has some posh copper pipe in the saloon to polish to keep him out of mischief! The cylinder does have an immersion heater fitted as a back up, but so far it has not been necessary to wire it up.