Well, it’s November the 24th and here I sit , at home, having not gone near the boat for months.
Normally I winterise the boat in October. Even when we occasionally went out in October, I would winterise the boat before leaving it.
So far, due to global warming, we have not had the usual below zero frosty mornings, so I live in hope of it still being afloat when I finally get to it! I exaggerate of course, the boat will not sink, but if a pipe bursts and both water tanks empty onto the floor/bilges, we will have some serious repair costs.
So, what are the chances of a disaster?
First I leave a frost stat connected to the Webasto, so anything below 5॰C should start up the Webasto fired Central Heating and keep the temperature above freezing.
Second, all of the plumbing uses plastic piping, and I am assured that, even if full of water, the pipe will expand enough to cope with freezing.
The same is NOT true, of course, for the Brass tank fittings or the tanks themselves. And the cold tank is under the well-deck at the front where it can’t be warmed by the central heating.
So if we get a deep frost, the Cold tank risks rupturing. It is stainless steel so won’t cope with ice expansion – except for a few millimetres at the bottom once it is drained.
The rest will be OK, so long as the Central Heating works. But in the past the thermostat has failed, the webasto itself has failed, and one time the fuel in the tank got so low it went below the take-off point of the webasto fuel line.
And if the Webasto fails the Hot tank will rupture.
I was told, when we first had the boat, to just drain it all down and leave it to freeze over winter, but that didn’t work either. The winter certainly went well below freezing, and both tanks were fine with just a little water in the bottom, and so were all the pipes and taps. But the feed to the Thetford toilet went via a non-return valve so the pipe section between the valve and toilet never drained, and one of the brass couplings cracked. The valve is a requirement of the water regulations, to prevent soiled water returning to the drinking water feed pipe, but I only found that out after an extensive leak detection and repair session. Nowadays I drain it as part of winterising.