The Rebuild Process - Misspent 1
The cheaper the boat, the more work is required by the new owner. All I knew is I wanted to be challenged and kept interested so I acquired a cheap project boat to keep my mind occupied over the upcoming winter with a boat ready to cruise the canals of England at the end of it.
Stage I – Extraction
When I first bought the boat, my partner and I would drive from Stockport to Burscough most weekends, a journey which took an hour each way with dozens upon dozens of trips to the local tip to extract the soggy remains of this poor old boat that was literally rotting away on the water.
The first to go was the macerating pump-out loo complete with holding tank, which luckily for me didn’t require emptying so the deinstallation of that was rather painless.
90% of the boats interior was removed. Everything was water logged, rotting away and soggy. The electrics were in such a bad state with rusty wires, I ripped all that out too.
Stage II – Insulation
Like most boats of this spec, my cruiser had zero form of insulation inside. I began with a layer of foil coated camping mats and bubble wrap insulation. The camping mats work pretty well as they have a layer of closed-cell foam with a thin layer of foil on one side. The bubble wrap insulation while cheap did little or nothing to help me keep warm and in my opinion is a complete waste of money.
Following several discussions on various online forums and only after I’d built the galley, I realised much more was needed to properly insulate the boat. So that’s when work began installing rigid foam insulation bats, filling all the gaps with spray foam. £500 later and my boat is pretty air tight but looks like a scene from an Alien movie.
Thermal curtains are fantastic. You wouldn’t think it but these really do help keep the heat in. I’ve recently replaced my curtains with a proper blackout ability ie dark colour. If you’re on a shoe-string budget, you can cut up 1 curtain to produce many. That’s exactly what I did. I used metal clips with hooks to install over the windows and I still use them today.
As for silicon, CT-1 is by far the best stuff I’ve ever used. It’s so good, it cures fast and you can even use it under water. The high temperature silicon was used on area around the stove, such as the lining the flue hole.
I used various thicknesses of foam bats according to their location in the boat. For example, I only used thin foam on the ceiling so I wouldn’t lose what little headroom I had already. In the main saloon under the gunnels, I used much thicker 50mm panels.
Installing the ceiling is a real pain as you need to prop up the bats using sticks so the silicon has time to cure. Then you need to fill the gaps with spray foam. It’s a very messy job.
Stage III – Ventilation
Ventilation seems to be a bit of an ugly word in boat world and is probably the least understood but it is vital to ensure that clean, fresh air is drawn into the cabin for the purposes of living. Humans need fresh air but so to do most of the appliances we use on board such as LPG cookers, wood/coal stoves…In fact, all fuel needs air to burn. Providing an adequate supply of it can be a real challenge, especially as we need to keep warm as well.
I’m putting ventilation in the insulation column as the two work very closely together to help maintain cabin temperature but also to help eliminate condensation which often forms when there is inadequate ventilation throughout the boat and a build up of moisture inside. Simply having a stove isn’t enough on a boat and speaking from experience, there’s nothing worse than damp duvets and bedding to sleep in.
I have 3 high levels vents installed in main saloon and another in the front (sleeping) cabin. Up until recently, I had zero low level ventilation installed in the front cabin.
My stove has its own dedicated ventilation shaft but it also acts a ventilator for the rest of the boat when the stove is not in use.
I also have a cat flap which also acts as a kind of a low level vent as the cats tend to pop in and out all day.
Low Level Vent
The hole cut was quite large but it’s the only one in the entire front cabin. The green mesh acts as bug filter and was made using a recycled piece of a kindling netting bag.
Now, I get a lovely breeze into the front cabin and a very noticeable reduction of moisture buildup.
Carbon Monoxide Warning
Despite being compulsory on all boats in the UK now, there is one thing I’ve noticed that is particularly disturbing. Some boats have both the smoke and CO alarm built into the same unit, mounted above head height. Smoke rises, but carbon monoxide (CO) sinks to lower levels in your boat.
I have installed 2 CO alarms. One is mounted in my main saloon at waist height. The other is installed right next to my pillow in the front cabin. I test both at the beginning of each month.
Practically every device that uses fuel on your boat produces carbon monoxide. It’s odorless, colourless and tasteless but it can be fatal if not managed properly. This is why adequate ventilation is so important in a confined space like a boat.
Stage IV – Floor, Galley and Bulkhead
As you can see from the pictures below, I used whatever wood I could find. I did recycle some of the existing wood from the boats interior and used it as my flooring. As it was hardwood, I thought it would be the best to use. Everything else in that boat is made from material I found in skips.
The underside of each floor slab has camping mats adhered to them. Another thin layer of closed-cell foam was used between the floor and the carpet tiles. I laid carpet tiles on the floor as I figured these would be the cheapest and best as they are hard wearing while providing a sense of warmth rather than having a bare cold vinyl floor.
Stage V – Interior Decoration
Once the saloon area was largely rebuilt, the rest of the renovation was relatively straightforward as the interior required more decorating rather than building. I used stretch van carpet along each of the exterior walls, choosing a darker (mahogany) colour and applying it with TrimFix spray adhesive.
The stove was a pain to install in terms of getting the positioning on the roof correctly aligned with the bulkhead I built below. An extra pair of hands would have been welcomed that day.
Logistics
Having moved the boat from Burscough on the Leeds & Liverpool canal I moored it in Altrincham near Manchester on the Bridgewater canal for 5 months. Being a privately owned canal (ie Non-CRT), I had to pay £200/month for a permit to use the canal. There’s the first thousand gone.
Despite the high cost of the permit, I chose this location as it was the closest point to a railway station that would enable me travel to the boat from our house in Stockport. With no car, I had to carry all tools, equipment and often heavy materials to the boat in my 120L hiking backpack.
I would scour the streets for skips as I made my daily grind to and from the boat, picking up bits and pieces of foam insulation and building timber along the way and then carrying it in my backpack to the boat. In fact, I made dozens of trips from my house in Stockport to the train, then from Navigation Road railway station at the other end and then to the boat. I lost 8 stone (112 pounds or 50kg) in weight during the entire renovation process.
Train travel to/from my chosen station cost £22/week.
The Weather
Trying to renovate a boat on a canal in Manchester in the middle of winter was not tons of fun. I had no heating of any kind and some days just weren’t worth getting out of bed and that’s exactly what I did much of the time, which is why the project took as long as it did.
Snow halted production at the end of January so I took a much needed break and enjoyed the beautiful white dusting Manchester received that week. The Bridgewater canal had frozen over and without heating, try as I did, it was pointless trying to do any DIY on a boat in the middle of winter with ice all around you.
Looking Back
Looking back, the project almost broke me mentally. While most of the rebuilding and decorating elements were fun and kept me busy and challenged, the beginning was a tedious, quite unpleasant process and my mental health suffered quite badly. I had two breakdowns bringing me to tears as I uncovered even more damage and stuff I had to replace and fix. Being in the middle of winter, that’s when I would sink my brain into my PS4 for a week and have a break from it all, cause there were times, in the middle of winter when I wondered what the hell I had done.
I think if I had the money at hand I would have pulled the boat from the canal and done the renovation in a boatyard where electricity was available so I could have had a fan heater on board and of course use more power tools. I would have spent extra money on materials like marine plywood and proper stainless steel fittings…but I’m very proud of my achievement given that most of it is made from scratch using mostly recycled materials. I’ve made it into a very comfortable space now with the recent addition of a proper memory foam mattress to sleep on and a 12/240v system allowing me a few extra creature comforts like a coolbox.
Like most owners I know, a boat for a liveaboard is always a work in progress. There is always something to fix, to remove or improve. It’s a constant DIY project that challenges you at every turn. But the rewards are very satisfying and knowing that I’ve survived comfortably in the floating home I built myself is an achievement never before rivalled in my life. I finally achieved what I’d set out to do and my life since then has never been better.
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