When installing the TVs, I decided to be able to utilize OTA TV, streaming (from the hot spot on my phone), and other sources. Here's a few pics and descriptions...
A bit more work on the plumbing and the power inverter...
Water control - There's a series of valves under the bed that allow easy diversion of the water flow to supply the boat from the slip or from the on-board fresh water tank, or to be drained during a period of inactivity when there may be freezing conditions. You can see those (black "T" handles) in the RH edge of the first photo below.
Water supply - When operating in the winter months at the marina, there is no water from the shore tap on our slip. We have to be able to operate from a self-container water source. There's a water hydrant at the shore to fill the on-board tank, so it's not too hard to keep the 42 gallon fresh water tank filled, we just need a pump to push it through the taps on the boat. For this, we have a 3 GPH water pump and filter under the bed. It comes on at 25psi, and cuts off at 45 psi. It's powered by the on-board 12 vdc storage batteries. You can see the pump in the RH side of the first photo below, beside the valves mentioned previously.
Hot Water - I installed a 1500w on-demand 115 vac hot water heater, for the small amount of hot water we need. The shore power tap o the slip is 115 vac @ only 20A, so I have to be careful of the things in the boat that run on AC 115 vac electricity. We have a small split heat pump and a refrigerator that are always on AC power. The microwave, toaster, and air fryer (all lighting is LED) are used with care (not on at the same time) on 115 vac, to keep the usage below 20A total. Since it was out of the question to use the hot water heater on 115vac, I installed a 16,000 watt AC inverter to convert high current 12 vdc from the batteries to 115 vac for the hot water heater. The HWH only runs in small bursts, so this seems to fit our needs (at least during testing). It is bolted down in the equipment area below our bed frame, along with our HWH. You can see the hot water heater, the white unit strapped to the wall, on the LH side of the first photo below.
Inverter - Along with being used to power the HWH, the 16,000 watt inverter can run the heat pump, refrigerator, or other AC items during a power outage, if needed. This was another reason for buying such a large inverter. A generator will be added to the back deck for auxiliary power at a later date.
You can see the AC power inverter, bolted to the floor, in the center of the first photo below.
I wanted to add some mood lighting to the cabin area of the houseboat...not to be used for general lighting, but rather a mood setting night lighting. I picked up a spool of "cut to length" LED lights and controller from Walmart for about $30. I installed the controller in the port side upper cabinet, and installed the LED strip under the front edge of the cabinet for it's full length. I cut the strip at that point. I wanted to match the lighting under the edge of the starboard upper cabinet, so I soldered a piece of 4 conductor thermostat wire to the cut end of the port side strip, ran the wire in the ceiling and across to the starboard cabinet. There, I connected it to the next strip, and it worked great, with the wiring totally concealed. This will generate a bunch of different colors, and can be dimmed to act as a night light in the front of the houseboat. Here's a few pics with the brightness all up...
Debbie is working to best utilize the overhead cabinets. With the odd angular interior, it's a bit of a challenge to do. She wanted her dishes and saucers standing on end, accessible to either without them being in contact with each other. Here's what we came up with and a pic of the finished plate holder...
With the tight quarters of a "tiny-home" concept, we found the gas cooktop being immediately next to the couch. No matter of a splatter shield on a frying pan, one can see that some cooking spray would make it onto the cloth upholstery of the couch. To hopefully get around the need for covering the couch while cooking, and provide another functional item to the kitchen, I decided to build a "splatter shield" that would double as a chopping block. We located a nice chopping block for the kitchen, installed 3/8" steel dowels, and match drilled them into the storage pocket for the dining table top. Here's a few pics to illustrate the implementation of this idea...
The bed is finally finished! A hatch cover was cut in for easier access to the system water control valves, the queen size mattress was unpacked / unrolled / allowed to expand, and the linens were put on. Wow, this is a good feeling bed! I can't wait to actually get a night of sleep on it, but the initial tests feel great. Here's a few pics...
We got a few more things done since the last post. All of the plumbing "up top" (inside of the houseboat) is completed and tested. All supply lines, drain connections, on-board freshwater system and pump, low capacity on-demand hot water heater, and freshwater drains are connected, tested, and ready to rock! Here's a few pics and descriptions...
