Pipe Cleaning

The toilet piping in one of the hireboats has been replaced because the toilet tended to flood.  Whilst the engineer had the original pipe on the bank I took the opportunity to inspect the ‘build-up’ on the interior lining.  The diameter of the sanitation pipe had been reduced by approximately 20mm.  This mostly consisted of a very hard crystalline substance which I assume is uric scale.  The build-up was worse in the metal ball valve where the bore had been reduced to the diameter of a pencil.

All of this reinforced to me the need to ensure we establish a toilet maintenance routine.  The engineer from Leesan who check our new ‘Headmaster’ toilet recommended we use a produce sold by Leesan so I went to their website.  They have a product for descaling (LeeScale Bio-Degradable De-Scaler) which has a safety data sheet that I downloaded.  According to the data sheet the product primarily consists of phoshoric acid, citric acid and water.   A Google search for natural sources of phosphoric acid revealed common sources as lemon juice and vinegar.  Rather than purchase a proprietary product we might just use lemon juice and vinegar.  However reading further I discovered coke cola has even more phosphoric acid.  Perhaps we should tip a can of coke cola down the toilet on a regular basis?  Nice to know diet cola has been keeping my own pipes clean for the past 20 years!

This morning Richard did a final sanding of the front doors before cleaning them down with compressed air.  They were then taken into the meal room (relatively dust free area) where I gave them two coats of ‘Impreg’.

The Impreg has started to bring out the colour and grain in the European Oak.  Richard’s plan is to give the doors three coats of gloss varnish over the weekend before fitting the doors early next week.  The front door frame on Waiouru was then given two coats.

Whilst this was happening Darren had sanded the handrails and gunwales.  They were then brushed down followed by cleaning with Tac cloths.  Darren then painted the first topcoat of red.

Nick and Mark prepared the inside face of the portholes by applying waterproof rubber tape which has adhesive on one face.  I then fitted them to the relevant openings using just one or two screws.  They will need to be fitted properly at a later date.

The gunwales have received their final coat of gloss, however Darren is going to mask the tops up and then apply two coats of grit.  Later tomorrow he will probably paint the second topcoat of red.

Whilst attempting to connect a power socket in the rear cabin this afternoon I inadvertently ‘tripped’ the earth leakage breaker (ELB) when I cut 6 inches of excess wire off the end of some 240v 3 core cable.  I thought the wire had been ‘live’ and got quite a shock (not electrical) when this occurred.  In Australia and New Zealand the power distribution system is multiple earth neutral (MEN) which means you can only trip an ELB if you make a connection between the live wires and either the earth or the neutral.  However Andy informed me the UK only bond the earth and neutral at the power station so the system isn’t MEN.  Apparently this means in the UK the ELB can be tripped by short circuiting the neutral and earth.