NB "Spacehopper"

Nb "Spacehopper"

Spacehopper is a recent boat by Nick Thorpe and an ongoing project. New to boating the owners were misadvised on the plumbing system for their Rayburn cooking range. As you know from my posts on the subject ( Narrowboats Barden, Isis and electra) you cant beat a maintenance free Gravity fed circulation system for even heat, minimum fuss, and virtually endless hot water. Fed on 22mm pipe via a 240v central heating pump to a standard calorifier, the owner was having to start the engine at ungodly hours to power the  circulation pump to stop a potential explosion... who wants to live with that kind of stress!

Rayburns are great on a liveaboard if you get the plumbing right!

This more modern Rayburn has higher boiler tappings and is also raised on a sturdy plinth. This necessitated bending the laws of physics more than usual on this kind of job to generate an adequate thermosyphon without the pipework looking impractical and ghastly!

Anyone got any wet socks?

Preferably the pipe would all run below gunwhale level but that just wasn't possible due to physical limitations. Ideally you would mount the Rayburn at true floor level at the planning stage of the boat. As it is now the front of the boat is toasty warm due to the heat radiated from the pipework without the need for wall mounted radiators. Arguably its a quality bit of industrial art in your living space if your into that sort of bling!

Notice the drain cock installed at the lowest point of the system

In a perfect world the return would flow gently down straight into the bottom of the boiler. In a direct run of over 30m of 28mm pipe there is a short but sharp rise of 250mm into the boiler feed. It is the minimum I could get away with in this case, and does not affect the performance of the system.

Whats hiding under your bed?

This is a custom made 125 litre twin coil marine calorifier with 28mm coils. Secured to the bulkhead with ratchet straps there is a short flexible connection to negate any bumps and bangs. On commissioning day the fire was lit and we had useable hot water in two hours. After two days of operation not only were the crew enjoying some home cooked food again, the supply of hot water for a family of four was almost limitless.