We have found the leaks! At least we have found three – and hope there are no others.
The biggest was the roof of the water tank – at the “inspection cover.” It was held in place with 22 bolts. Okay, I exaggerate. It was not held in place at all. The threads in the roof, all 22 of them, were stripped. Each bolt could be yanked out with two fingers. Nothing was holding the hatch in place. Once we had used a hundred or so litres of the 3,000-litres of water in the tank, this would not be a problem. But every time we filled the tank, water would come gushing out around the not-so-tight bolts. Because of the design of the garage, the inspection cover is not at the highest point of the tank. So… every time we filled the tank, we’d also be filling that gap between the roof of the tank and the bottom of the floor. All that area that was turning to rust – all that area that was invisible until we removed all the flooring. The only solution was to order a tap-and-die set. Then I had to tap each of the 22 holes – enlarging and threading them to take larger bolts. A long, painstaking process. Something I had never done before. Owning a barge has been a learning experience. You can see all 22 holes in the blue lip – along with my brand new tap-and-die set immediately to the right in the photo below.
Tapping the tank meant tiny metal particles would be falling into the tank. Not what we want to drink. Before I started, I emptied every drop from the tank. Of course, that meant no water onboard Aleau. Not for cooking or drinking, not for washing. We couldn’t even use the toilets. Not until all the work was done. We did figure out after the first day that we could fill a bucket from the tap on the pontoon and pour it into the toilet to get it to flush. But it would be quite awhile before we’d, once again, have running water on Aleau.