We had a phone call list night, pal Mark, asking if he could join us for our cruise on Llangollen Canal, “of course”, was our answer “but we are already on it”. After discussion it was agreed that we would meet him at Ellesmere which we thought we would reach by Wednesday and he agreed to meet us there, leave his car somewhere, and complete the rest of the journey with us to the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct turn at the winding hole after Trevor Basin and return with us to Ellesmere where he could retrieve his car and return home.
The journey to Ellesmere was quicker than we anticipated and by Tuesday evening we were moored just after the Ellesmere Tunnel around a mile from the town centre and 3/4 mile from a Tesco Superstore. The next morning we walked the towpath towards town and found a couple of moorings less than 400 yards (350m) from Tesco and swiftly moved the boat to one of them. Getting to Ellesmere a day early enabled us to stock up at Tesco and the independent stores in town and get the laundry up to date, as there was a laundrette within easy walking distance of the mooring and even found a place where we felt Mark could safely leave his car.
A couple of nights ago with the nights drawing in and getting cold we lit the stove. We had bought a number of “instant light heat logs” and used one to get it going. The boat filled with smoke and we coughed and spluttered while the smoke alarms went berserk. After some research we discovered (from social media so it may be true or may be complete Boll rubbish) that this could often be a problem on the first lighting of the season. We tried again and on second lighting all was well and we had a warm cosy evening. Last night we tried and tried but could not get a fire established. I stripped the stove and cleared the flue, which after just a couple of hours use since last brushing, was blocked solid. I looked at the stove scratching my head and thinking that something I was looking at wasn’t quite right vaugely trying to remember something I had read or something I had watched on YouTube and . . . .
Ta Da!!! - A lightbulb Moment!!!!
A friend had written and published an article on his website about having a new stove fitted on his boat which proved to have been fitted without removing a factory fitted smoke hood. This can be very dangerous as it may cause the boat to fill with carbon monoxide fumes as the flue will not draw properly.
I downloaded a copy of the Morsø Squirrel Multi Fuel Stove installation manual which quite clearly states that: -
“ . . .The smoke hood must not be fitted if the stove is installed on a boat where the flue height is likely to be less than 4.5M. . . ” (source - Morsø Squirrel 1400 Installation Manual)
The part number 1 in the stove cross section diagram above (copied and pasted from the Morsø Squirrel 1400 Installation Manual) is the smoke hood refered to in this blog update.
On RoJo the flue dosn't reach 2m high and 10 years after being installed by a “professional" installation engineer, the smoke hood was still in place. The effect was that the flue never got hot enough to draw efficiently so when fuel was burned tar and creosote was produced and had, over the years, deposited inside the flue in such quantities that the flue was no longer 4” (100mm) diameter but just over 2” (50mm). The flue was blocking when a chunk of the solid tarry material flaked off and fell across the flue.
I tried undoing the two bolts holding the hood in place - well that was never going to happen so when pal Mark arrived he ferried me to Screwfix in Chester where I bought a cheap and cheerful angle grinder, that very quickly sorted the problem., after which we spent a considerable time getting the caked on scale off the inside of the flue - an ‘orrible and messy job.
After all that the stove started quickly and easily with no smoke coming into the boat just lovely heat and a cheery glow in the door glass.
I now have to relearn how to use the stove as it behaves in a totally different way to last winter. It seems more controllable and less greedy with fuel but time will confirm or deny that.
The greatest concern is that all the cases where I had heard about this installation error have been installations made by so called “experts”. Owner installers it seems read the instructions when installing the stoves, “experts” don’t seem to feel the need.
After writting the above about our stove I was shocked this morning to read on a Facebook narrowboat group a post about this very subject and was amazed at the number of people who still have this smoke hood fitted, most of whom seemed to have adopted the “well it was fitted by Morsø so it must be OK” stance despite several people trying to draw attention to the manufacturers installation instructions. None admitted they may have a problem, some even spouted nonsense reasons for keeping them.
Will it take some poor boaters death from carbon monoxide poisoning before people start to realise that a huge number of social media experts are experts on every thing.
Particularly those things about which they know absolutely nothing.
OK rant over!! on with the blog.
By the time Mark arrived and we had fixed the stove we didn’t get going until Thursday morning. It started badly, I mentioned earlier that bridges were difficult to negotiate because the speed of the current rushing against us through the restricted space caused a sharp increase in the speed of the current. Going through one bridge I was not quite square to the current which immediately took control and slammed us into the bridge tearing a small hole in our super new cratch cover - Oh Blow!! I’m fairly sure that was the expression I used.
Friday was a long but exciting day (11.5 miles, 18.5 kilometres), shortly after leaving the mooring we went over Chirk Aqueduct - WOW!! Almost immediately after the aqueduct was the Chirk Tunnel although at only 421 metres long it is quite short but the current against us made it a quite an experience as we crept through at a snails pace despite very high engine revs. We later spoke to several hire boaters who, until we explained about the current, had intended to phone their hire companies to report engine problems.
We were still in the thrall when almost immediately we cruised onto the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct - WOW WOW and WOW again. I don’t have the skills to describe this World Heritage Site adequately so hope the videos (below) and the photos will give you an idea of what a special place it is. Although sadly I was so enthralled with it videoing and photographing took second place to looking about with my mouth open.
I have also embedded a Canal and River Trust YouTube video about the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct.
Immediately the other side of the aqueduct is the Trevor basin where many boats turn around and go back over but we elected to carry on to the next winding hole. After the aqueduct the canal was wide enough for two boats to pass but both sides of the canal were very shallow. We passed just one boat and as we passed each other we both went aground.
Quite soon we reached and used the winding hole and had made our way back over the aqueducts and through the tunnel mooring at the end of an exhausting but exhilarating day with summer 2021 cruising objective complete.
We moored that night just south of bridge number 19W just a short distance from the appropriately named Bridge Inn where Mark treated us to a very pleasant meal.
The following day we arrived back in Ellesmere where we managed to get a spot on the 72 hour moorings just opposite the services point and less than five minutes walk from both Tesco and where Mark parked his car.