Hot Water down the Paddington Arm

Bulls Bridge to Alperton, Paddington Branch, Grand Union Canal, 6 miles 0 locks

It was a quiet mooring outside Tesco at Bulls Bridge. A 24 hour Tesco that wasn’t quite as it closed early on Saturday and Sunday evenings.

Backed up a little this morning to make the turn into the Paddington Arm, only to completely misjudge and smacked the boat head on just about where that bollard is on the right of the bridge in the pic below, not making the turn properly. A few dislodged bits from the cupboard in the galley with no doors on was the only damage done thank goodness.

Again I was very surprised by the amount of ‘green’ on this canal through what looked like urban housing on the map. A clean canal with very little rubbish around. It was nice to see more regeneration by way of modern housing taking the canal as an asset for a selling point. Good to see that at last this country seems to be realizing that the inland waterways are a useful place to jog, bike, fish and generally enjoy, as well as living with a watery outlook.

Caught up with Chas and Ann on Moore 2 Life at lunch time and chatted about the problem with us having no hot water. Vic had completely checked there were no air locks, we were at our wits end trying to think what had happened here… Talking with Chas round the table, going through everything we had done Chas suddenly put his head in his hands “I know what it is, I know what you have done!! Gimme a bit of paper and a pen!”

Here you go then…… The two stop taps are there because the washing machine has only a cold fill. I wanted to be able to fill it with hot or cold or a combination of both, so fitted a tap to hot and cold pipes. That is fine UNLESS you leave BOTH taps open. A diagram might help explain.

So then a hot tap was opened…. yes the hot water was coming from the calorifier, but also cold water was getting into the hot pipes via the pipe through to the washing machine with both the stop taps open!! DOH!!! Switched one of the stop taps off, and hey presto lovely lovely hot water emerged!

Off to Paddington Basin tomorrow, am looking forward to seeing Little Venice, a place I have always wanted to visit ever since I became interested in the canals in the 70’s. Just hope it’s a nice day to take some pics. Snow is forecast…. doesn’t normally snow in London though!