Our Taylors Heater – A Hot Story
From the very beginning our Tiki was equipped with an almost indestructible Taylors oven. Many ship heaters are operated with diesel or paraffin. It wouldn’t be any different with ours if – yeah, if maintenance hadn’t been forgotten.
Fuel
Our little heating friend gets paraffin from his own tank as fuel. It is housed in a cabinet in the bathroom and was not only leaking, but also very difficult to fill. We don’t know why it has become leaking, presumably age and maybe even filled with the wrong stuff. The tank can be seen on the picture, the top (screw cap) is the filling opening, 2 inch above it the storage is out and you can’t tilt in without a hose and mess. (The cable chaos in the right part comes from our Shredder, our electric toilet flushing – the cables in the upper part of the picture go on into the sleeping berth – all this is also optimized)
Operation
Thankfully, thanks to gravity, the paraffin wax flows through a thin copper pipe to the furnace and is brought drop by drop into the combustion chamber. Of course, you don’t do this yourself, but there are valves that regulate the drip rate and lines that place the drop to death where it should go. There is also a thermal or magnetic switch to prevent dripping all the time.
All in, it is a clever system and very reliable – if, you already guessed it, it is maintained. Through a small viewing window you should be able to see the drops almost every second. In our case it took at best 8 seconds until the next drop came to an end. Too long to keep the flame alive.
Remedy?
Get to the tools, dismantle the furnace, disassemble, clean it, check the seals,… so the plan. The reality caught up with us after the dismantling, we could not disassemble it without destruction. Nice shit, really.
I’ll just find the manufacturer and call in Great Britain. After a short, nice talk, John offers me to take a look at the piece without obligation. Well, it’s a small step in the right direction.
In Austria we pack the oven and send it to Southhampton via the canal. In Germany the shipment stays a few days *sigh* but arrives after more than a week after all. Catherine from Taylors is in mail contact with me and keeps me informed. Frequently I get an email with the request to call John in due time. The conversations are always a highlight and last far too long :). This is due to the fact that we are able to keep the business short and in between sensationally funny. I’m looking forward to every mail Catherine sends me so I can talk to John again.
Interim Result
Not only we were not able to disassemble the part into usable parts, it was simply not possible any more. In the combustion chamber parts are missing (rusted away, torched, or wear parts) and John tries to explain to me carefully that some spare parts are needed. Well, what can we do?
Well, a new Taylor’s stove costs about 1700 Eur, so some spare parts will pay for themselves. After a lot of amusing telephone calls and some common chores we are ready.
Strictly speaking, John sends us back an oven, which – if at all – consists only of homoeopathic parts from the original heater. Well, it also costs a little something, but compared to a normal-new one it still costs a bit of a snack.
On every phone call, a spare part is discussed again and in fact I can’t remember anything that is still the original “our” stove.
John and the River Deben
In our long conversations John also talks about sailing and where he was, where he was going to sail again and where he would not go. Of course I also tell him what we have planned and John invites us spontaneously to come along the east coast of England along the River Deben, where he will gladly provide us with his mooring – as long as we like. “For mooring and beer,” he says. I think our plans could change slightly;) Eric has never been to England anyway – and we have tiiiimeeee…
wait-and-see
Currently we are waiting for the arrival of our new oven. I wonder if we’ll recognize it. Except for the exhaust pipes, the passage into the open air and the mounting plate, we have nothing left here.
Read more about our Tayors oven – the story continues
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