hello every one,

i am a complete newb so this may sound completely crazy.

my partner and i have put a deposit down for a sail away standard, 35ft narrowboat which we intend to live on.

the crazy bit; this means that everything on the interior will be have to be installed by us. the the rooms, the hot and cold water, solid fuel burner and of course the electrics.

our ideal situation would be to be able to run the lights, mains and hot water from renewable sources and to not have to turn the motor unless we were moving to charge the batteries.

from asking around we have been led to believe that lighting and mains is quite possible with decent batteries. however the most common solutions to heating water on a bout involve the motor (already onbt ideal) or gas, but gas is now no longer legal in a narrowboat.

does any one have any idea of what methods if any would work with renewable souces and could you point me in the right direction for a begginers guide to this type of system to help us get started?

thanks

rory and becki

Good luck.

Lighting can be done with solar PV on a boat that is docked with stationary panels. Cooking, heating, and cooling no way Jose. If you have enough deck room you might be able to do solar thermal hot water for shower water. Solar thermal is not my thing.

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Dereck, PE, MSEE
Moderator

So what does the motor run on? I assume you mean LP or CNG? From my understanding boats use an auxiliary diesel engine for environmental power like heating, cooling, hot water, and cooking while away from port.

If the boat is docked why not just use shore power and save you a bundle of money and maintenance?

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Dereck, PE, MSEE
Moderator

The boat will be constantly cruising, so there will be no shore power. We don't want to run heating for the boat or a cooker, just lights mains and maybe hot water as and when?

the engine is a desial 25hp izuzu. we had looked into a wabasto as an auxillary motor for water but wondered if we could run an applyanace off of a battery to heat water?

regardless we still need solar for the lights etc, and would be greatfull if you could point us in the right direction to get started, readign etc?

Well if you are cruising a lot, not sure a solar PV panel is going to work as it has to pointed into the sun all day to generate power. How would you do that in a boat?

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Dereck, PE, MSEE
Moderator

I think a "batch tank" solar water heater would be the best way to go. Using PV to heat water gets expensive real fast.

I guess the PV panels would be nounted flat on the roof of the narrowboat. You will have to derate the panels in your calculations because of that. Otherwise it wouldn't be much different than designing any other off-grid system.

1st step is to calculate how much power you are going to use in WattHours. Don't have time to find them right now but sunking does of a sticky or 2 on that.

Bad thing is I think you'll find a full PV solar system will cost you more than the boat did.

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