With Winter fast approaching and the likely periods of heavy rain on the way, I thought it would be good to highlight one of the most important routine tasks for all narrowboat owners – drain hole clearance.
On most cruiser or semi-trad stern decks, there will be a series of drain holes, that route any falling water away from the deck and in to the canal. This avoids any chance of the rain water ending up inside the boat or engine room.
The River Canal Rescue (RCR) organisation regularly cite that blocked drain holes are the leading cause of narrowboat call-outs and in extreme cases, sinkings.
Keeping these drain holes clear is a relatively quick and easy task and one that should be done at regular intervals, particularly if moored in areas with lots of falling leaves or if, as in our case, you have a dog(s). It is incredible how much fur our two Border Terriers (Bill & Ted) create and it all seems to make a beeline for these drain holes.
This is the equipment I keep for this task, namely one small watering can, one length of tubing and one piece of rag.
On “Old Nick” we have four drain holes under the deck floor board, that gives us access to the engine room. With the deck board lifted out the way, I could see the drainage trench that routes the water to the drain holes (one in each corner). I started by running the rag around the trench, collecting together and removing all of the larger pieces of debris and fur.
Then I used the tubing to “rod” the drainage hole and loosen any compacted material that might block the water flow. Once happy that the drainage hole was clear, I emptied a watering can of water in to the hole and made sure that all of the water flowed away in to the canal.
After repeating this process for all four drain holes, the task was complete and I could put the decking board back in place and be confident that whatever nature decides to throw at us this winter, our rear deck and engine room will not become flooded.
I mentioned how much fur our boys created, and this last image shows just some of the matter than came out of one of the drain holes, so it was a job well worth doing.
For the front deck, we have a couple of larger drain holes that allow the water to flow through the side lockers and out in to the canal. These larger holes are not so affected by fur, but do become blocked with leaves, spider’s web and anything else that finds its way in to the well deck. A good clean through with a small brush is also worth doing at the same time.
How often you do this task, will vary from boat to boat but the key thing is that you do it at least once at the start of Autumn/Winter and before you leave the boat for a long period. That’s us done for a couple of months and I hope this advice is useful info for anyone new to narrowboat ownership.