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In 1977 we hired our first narrowboat from Anglo Welsh at Market Harborough.From that moment our destiny was set. In 2006 we finally purchased our own brand new 57' narrowboat which we named 'Free Spirit'. Our aim is to travel the length and breadth of all the navigable rivers and canals of the UK. This will be our story as it unfolds.

Tuesday 24 September 2013

A new fire door.......same problem!

True to their word the new stove door arrived yesterday. Unfortunately we were not at our sons to receive it. In fact no one was at home when Fedex tried to deliver so a quick phone call last night to Fedex and arrangements were made for us to collect. Unfortunately again for us their depot was about 30 miles away on the other side of Aylesbury so having our car was a godsend. Anyway we fetched the door this morning and as soon as we arrived back at the boat we removed the old door and tried to fit the new. Same fire make and model so should be same door. In every aspect it looked similar bar one. It had a silver surround instead of a gold surround but hey ho as long as it kept the smoke in we didnt care. Then we tried to close the door. It was having none of it, no way could we close it! The nut holding the handle kept catching on the casing. With a lot of brute force and ignorance as well as fiddling with hinges and washers etc, Ian managed to get the door shut. So now for the smoke test and this is what happened.

Lighting the smoke pellet



Oh no not again!!!!!


Coming through the door as well as the ash door
Ian got straight back to the manufacturers. They were again very concerned and started asking questions about the flue. Turns out that these fires were never meant to be fitted to a narrowboat needing at least 4.5metres of chimney for it to draw properly. Ian pointed out that most narrowboats can only have about 2.5metres of flue and that was where the problem lies. So the chap suggested we light the fire and get the chimney hot (works better with a hot flue) and keep him informed if smoke starts to escape again. He also seems to think that the amount of smoke generated from the smoke pellet, as well as no wind to help draw the smoke out, could also have been the problem. So once the sun goes down and it starts to cool off we will light the stove and hope for the best!

And finally:-













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