Vlog 81, Narrowboat Fit Out - Flexible Solar panels

Hello everyone, In this episode we stick down the Solar Panels and finish all the last bits on the roof.

[@susansisk455]

Wow! Its looking really good.

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Cheers Susan 👍

[@shortcircuit7149]

Nice to see you using grommets on your cable entry. ❤ Electrician 35 years in the trade.

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Thankyou for your comment . It is reassuring when someone in the trade is happy with what we done. Glad you are watching 👍

[@thomascoyne157]

Very neat and tidy work well done 👍 👍👍👍

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Thankyou Thomas 👍

[@stevecapper9321]

great job guys your breezing through these job now won't be long before your on the water at this rate you will be on the water before we are. Looking forward to the next video keep up the good work. Steve & Sandra. 🛥🛥😃

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Thankyou you two, Yes it's nice seeing everything starting to come together now. 👍

[@caroleguest313]

Looking really smart,the boat that is🤣

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Cheers Carole, 🤣🤣🤣

[@keithweybury5212]

Hi guys and love the solar panels and the painting of the exterior is taking shape. Cheers Keith.

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Thankyou Keith 👍

[@jeanwray9406]

Another great episode. Love the colours Jean x

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Cheers Jean 👍

[@kevinmartin3859]

Another excellent video cannot fault your dedication to perfection ade I am like when building model boats got to be right solar panels look great and look better than the normal big clonky looking one well done

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Thankyou Kevin 👍

[@smullen2000]

A man after my own heart. There’s no rushing a good job and that roof looks the business. Well done guys! 👍 Steve

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Cheers Steve, We are pleased with it 👍

[@chrismears-inslowtime]

Great night last week. I don’t think it was a reflection on you both that I was falling asleep. I was very tired. Top hatch and hand tail looking good and the solar too. When you do a job, while there’s learning taking place, there won’t be the benefit of saying, “ok, on the next boat, I’ll do it this way”. You both have been hard core in your approach and effort. Hurry up and get on the cut!

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Cheers Chris, Yes lovely night. hope all's going good at your end. We are about to watch yours now as we never got time yesterday. will give you a call later to see how you are getting on 👍

[@leealibuildingtheblackswan2098]

Hi guys, we think you have just made our minds up for us regarding the type of solar panels to have. They look amazing . We love watching your vlogs and you certainly help us with understanding on how to complete various tasks throughout the build, so a big thank you to you both. Not long now😁 Lee & Ali

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

We are going to do a runner after this build just incase they are rubbish 🤣🤣🤣. Brill thats what we hoped for and what we liked about other channels we watched before our build. It gives you a chance to think yeah thats a good idea or Jeez what they doing that for. Yes hopefully not long now. Money is very tight now and we are just waiting for income to come in each month to purchase the more expensive stuff we need now. Still got plenty we can get on with while we wait. The list never gets shorter. Good luck with yours. We are trying to catch up with everyones vlogs this week as we are really behind on them. 👍

[@stephenbowker824]

Hi we’ve got 6x125watts on our roof 3? In series each side then parallel into the mppt controller they are from midsummer great people I even have a 37 quid battery protect switch from Victron it’s. Set to switch on at 14.2 volts and off at 12.8 volts it heats the water via a 12 volt solar dump water heater. At the moment we don’t run our engine other than to move. I have room for another panel at the back off the boat midsummer couldn’t help as it’s not on of their standard panels, via the manufacturer I’ve ordered a panel 1293 long x 990 wide (3 panels manufactured together) giving 188 watts added to the existing panels we’ve had tilting panels from onboard solar on a previous boat and these are far far superior due to the cells having diodes between them there’s no shading effect. You will not regret your choice 👍👍🖐NB Fiddlesticks.

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Cheers Stephen thats good to hear. Yes them having the diodes swung it for us too. All this electrical witchcraft is a bit of a minefield to us so we are glad someone gives us a bit of reassurance that we have chosen right . 👍

[@buzzysboaty]

Another GREAT video. We will be painting our boat ourselves too so it really builds the confidence to see how well yours is coming along. I love the colours too. Really enjoyed this one... nice straight lines, that what I like to see : )

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Cheers Buzzy, Thats good to hear. Good luck with yours. We will have a look at your channel tonight 👍

[@buzzysboaty]

@@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg Thank you... be gentle, I only started it 2 weeks ago : )

[@cskeise]

💙👊😎💙👊😎

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Cheers Carl-Samuel👍

[@garyhollywell2112]

Great progress both, CT1 is a great quality product so hopefully all should be good longer term. Look forward to the eventual launch.

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Cheers Gary 👍

[@philstansfield2629]

We fitted 2 x 120 peel and stick panels to our narrowboat 2 and a half years ago.we also sourced them from midsummer and I have to say they were extremely helpful. The panels have worked perfectly.we are not live aboard boaters so the two panels are more than enough for our requirements. The boats looking great guy's, been watching plenty of vlogs and these are my first comments.. love the way you explain things.

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Thankyou Phil, Sorry its a late reply. I have just noticed I hadn't replied. Thats really nice you commented. Yes we found Mid Summer really helpful too and we love the look of the panels and hopefully we will be connecting them up next week 👍

[@grousesoul]

It might be a bit late to suggest this but you might want to consider some diverters on the roof at the stern. The water doesn't half come down the inside of the handrails and straight on to your rear lockers. Looks great, keep well both. George

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Cheers George, Yes We know what you mean. It's that bit between the run off point and the end of the stern. We have seen people using a bead of CT1 to divert the run off so might try that 👍

[@stephenbowker824]

Hi again grandad 👴 I will be changing our batteries when they give up 3 years and still doing great. I’ll be going for 6 volt Trogan x 6 at 105 amps which at 6 volts will give 1260 amp hours. Just a thought as you’ve not installed as yet. 👍🖐 NB Fiddlesticks

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Cheers you two, We better start changing our clothes more often if people are binge watching 😂😂😂.

[@martinworrall5888]

Haha you have answered my question, I was a bit premature haha

[@tonycamplin8607]

Another job ticked off of the list. I'm very surprised that the +ve and -ve connections on the solar panels weren't coulor coded red/black or brown/blue so that Grandad wouldn't have had to test them. Great music.

[@Dave-bu6bc]

Can't speak for every brand of panel but normally one's a male connector and the other's a female. The convention is that power comes out of a female connector and goes into a male, so the female is +ve.

[@tonycamplin8607]

@@Dave-bu6bc Thanks, that sounds sensible.

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Cheers Tony. Yes what he👇says 😆

[@midwestconcertvideo]

Another excellent job. I was a little surprised to see bare wire on the internet antenna connections. Are you going to terminate those yourself as well? Edit: I kept watching, and then see you actually pushing the center pin down onto the wire with your bare fingers! How thick are the calluses on your hands?!? For those who haven't soldered, the soldering iron is literally hot enough to melt lead!

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

hahaha yes asbestos fingers. Years of soldering Gas Pipes I suppose 😆

[@conniepothas9760]

i have got stuck watching all your videos and i am jumping forward and backwards. So I am hooked, now I would like to try one aswell. I am living in South Africa. it seems you are working out of a container in a boat yard. is it possible for you to tell me where it is? some people i noticed work with the boat on the water but then it seems to have issues on noise etc. hope you can give me some advice where to start. thanks

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Thankyou Connie, Nice to know we have viewers in South Africa. Yes not many marinas allow you to work on your boat especially if it is in the water. We make a lot of noise. There are however many marinas that have areas on hard standing like ours to enable us to work on the boat. You are best to start with finding a boat builder you can trust and like and once your boat has started to be built then look for a place to do the fit out as the marinas are quite full at the moment. Good luck with your search for a boat 👍

[@henrybromberg7752]

What's the fire risk on these type of panels ? I know in Australia in the early days they were catching on fire or melting, I never would have thought that a problem here, but with the weather forecast for next week its a lot warmer than I would have thought. I used to have Panels on my house but they always have a gap so air can circulate. Was just thinking that's all.

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Hi Henry, Good question. We can't find any information showing these panels could be a fire risk but will look into that a bit more. I do know the company that made them have designed them to go onto steel panels for cladding buildings so should be able to cope with the heat with no airflow and our type was adapted to go onto Boats/RV's. Yes we have always had panels that have an airflow in the past so this is all new to us. Time will tell if we made the right decision 👍

[@DIYGUY1-2-3]

Hi, I believe these panels suffer from the heat of the steel roof in summer and the cold in winter. Newer panels now have an air gap underneath to help alleviate or prevent this. Whats your thoughts on this.

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

Hello Dave, It will be a wait and see for us really as we don't know how they will do until we have had them for a while but these panels have been designed to fix on to steel sheets on building and our type have been adapted for boats. We read a lot of good things about how these work on buildings before we decided to give them a try. Time will tell 👍

[@RealRedDread]

can i know the name of this pannel please

[@makinganarrowboatwithnannyandg]

They are SIGS type panels, 120w BIPVco peel and stick flexible solar panel and we got them through Mid Summer energy. So far they have been great 👍

[@martinworrall5888]

What made you go for the self adhesive panels?

[@tonycamplin8607]

Personally I'd have used ones that you could angle towards the sun. They're much more efficient.