barge wiring

adamh · Apr 18, 2009

has any1 ever wired up a barge before? lol my uncle has bought 1 and apparently its had a load of water in it so no power i was gonna start off with an insulation ressistance test on all the cables and then i need to replace the invertor/transformer i guess any1 know a website or decent wholesalers to get 1. i'm assuming it will have a few batterys connected to the alternator then off to the invertor and finally the DB sound right? any info appreciated thanks adam

boatnik1 · Apr 18, 2009

Have been involved with a few houseboats and their problems. am a firm believer in only using 110v on boats as damp is always present and a shocking surprise is always better than getting dead.

Wooden or Steel hulls are always damp as wood needs to stay wet to stay watertight and steel causes condensation like crazy. General rules are that the system is totally insulated (inc. Earth) and that anything that is earthed should not be fixed directly to the hull.

Preference is for a dual system with battery voltage, usually 12v or 24v dc for lighting and a small donkey engine driving a 110v genny for the power while charging the batteries through a charger.. Standard inverters have a poor survival rate on boats, particularly where sea water is about and are a pretty inefficient method of producing mains power. Typical rate of 80amps from a 12v battery to produce 3a at 230v (inc. losses).

Emergency lighting florescents can be rewired to run from various voltage tappings from the battery if you get batteries with the external connectors between cells.

adamh · Apr 18, 2009

good points but im sure he would need a 230 volt supply for a tv etc?

boatnik1 · Apr 18, 2009

Most TVs and a lot of other appliances work on 110v. They're made to work on the US system as well as ours. A bunch of flat screens also run on 12vDC.

gnuuser · Mar 20, 2014

i dont know what the regs are for boats in the uk
but I would think that you would want to make as much of the electrical system water tight as possible
and as much as you can with low voltage (12 and 24 volt dc)

Plonker 3 · Mar 20, 2014

gnuuser said:
i dont know what the regs are for boats in the uk
but I would think that you would want to make as much of the electrical system water tight as possible
and as much as you can with low voltage (12 and 24 volt dc)

5 years for these pearls of wisdom.