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Over 70 years of seeing ordinary folks being ripped off and virtually lied to by advertisers and people trying to sell products. Its worse now the likes of Ebay seem to have no ethics and are more than happy to collude in avoiding tax and in the supply of low quality and counterfeit goods. If you know of a handyman then for the OP then instead of making worthless posts tell her. If you have up to date and well informed information about the disposal "problems" related to composting toilets then again tell us, including sources, so we can all be better informed. If you can't or won't then it says all we need to know about your opinion and how helpful your comments really are..

As far as I can see you are the only one being silly. The OP is a new boater who stated they intended to fit equipment that a very recent topic suggested that changes in legislation may well make that equipment difficult or expensive to use and may prevent the OP using certain marinas so the OP was warned to research very carefully. No more and no less. Then Joh 87 came on and implied they had credible knowledge but refused to share it, preferring to keep it secret and not open to "peer review". That is not credible advice and some could legitimately claim that is silly. I suggested Joh 87 should give the advice in a manner that allows it to be scrutinised and they have so far declined. Then you come on, ignore the OP, address Joh 87 and add nothing whatsoever to the discussion so who are the ones being silly? Those who are simply trying to help a new bater avoid a potentially expensive mistake or you and Joh 87 who have added nothing to the topic?

So taking delight in winding the speedwheel full on on the covered locks on farmers bridge as the cyclists sped past the other morning shouldn’t be encouraged then.....??....oh well....it made me smile! I’m afraid I’m not giving up either the JP in my boat or my 40 year old Land Rover as my daily drive without a fight...

Yeah price amended because I did the sensible thing and e-mailed the guy to point out his error. He was grateful somebody pointed the typo out to him Phil

Its all gets so difficult BSS checklist: Remove all crap from gas bottle locker and hide behind hedge so BSS man won't see it. Borrow fire extinguishers from boat behind. Borrow CO meter from boat behind. Wipe all leaky fuel unions and remove dip trays from below unions (or whisky bottle if you have a Kelvin). Remove covers from air vents. Remove underwear that wife has wrapped round stove flue to warm up. Did I forget anything? ..................Dave

I think you misunderstood my post that you quoted, it was not directed to you but at Joh87 who is not willing to subject her/his advice to discussion and prefers to keep it secret. I am concerned that such "secret" advice may not be as informed or as independent as one may wish. Sorry to raise the toilet question but I would hate you to spend money now and later find it all has to be junked and something more conventional fitted at extra cost.

Then there are issues over historic craft. Take the Bolinders out and fit electric motors?!? May as well scrap them.... They could easily be a casualty if this dubious initiative gets legs. The exhaust of a Bolinder is so far away from the modern requirement for a diesel (well, they’re not strictly a diesel, of course, they’re a crude oil engine, but I digress) that they don’t even speak the same language. Modern engines are measured in p.p.m. of this gas, that gas, how much NOx etc. Bolinders are measured in the output of BCBs (Black Crunchy Bits. BTW we thought about that before Terry did - RIP-). If I hear weasel phrases like ‘we all have to do a bit’ to justify an initiative that sideswipes these pieces of living history out of existence, I shall scream! I’m doing my bit alright, low emission vehicle, here I come; house insulated out the whazoo; videoconferencing rather than jumping on planes or even trains, bring it on. BUT leave my historic craft alone!! /end rant. I do hope - should something be brought forward - that a suitable arrangement/derogation for these old craft can be worked out. Or they’ll just disappear, with a few forlorn relics sitting in museums..... it’s a super-Herculean task for them to be kept going as it is. Here’s hoping. Tim Noakes

Yes but you are not comparing like with like. I agree that hotel boats and hire boats should have alarms, this aligns with HMOs and other rental properties. But owner-occupied houses aren’t required to have alarm no matter the number of family occupants, and thus neither should private narrowboats. It is not a matter of what is good practice, it is a matter of ensuring the BSS doesn’t exceed its remit and consider it thus has power to control our everyday lives. Creeping nanny state syndrome.

Has anybody any knowledge of an organisation empowered to insist you do stuff running a consultation that wasn't a foregone conclusion? Even from the BSS ofice's comments above, it's pretty obvious this is going to be done, whatever the "consultation" results. Interestingly, I had a conversation with a boat electrician who was apparently part of the team that worked on what new stuff goes into the BSS, and, again, it was pretty obvious that this was an empire building business to make sure more and more regulations would be imposed. I presume this is to justify the endless increase in the cost of the tests and to make sure the testers get paid enough to make it worth their while continuing.

Your secrecy, and he's not being negative, rather pointing out constructively to the OP in checking carefully before commiting

That was a short discussion!

Anyone who lives/sleeps on a boat without a CO alarm is a fool, if they use any gas or solid fuel. But they are a fool only to themselves. My concern is this could be the thin end of a large wedge. I believe every other BSS requirement is designed to address risks that may affect OTHER boaters. But this, for the first time, strays into the realm of Big Brother dictating how we should live "for our own good" even tho it affects nobody else. How long before they add "no smoking" or "no alcohol" or whatever on boats, because its "safer" for the individual? Smoke alarms could be justified because any boat fire puts other boaters at risk, but CO does not. So however life-saving, sensible and desirable CO alarms are, they should not be dictated by the BSS. They should be encouraged by other means.

If you are properly qualified to give advice on the legal implications of composting toilets then why not educate everyone on here instead of offering private advice that the recipient may not be sufficiently informed to judge the validity of your advice. I would suggests that the answer may possibly be because you do not want your advice questioned and discussed. I smell vested interest.

A public consultation on a proposal to introduce mandatory new Boat Safety Scheme (BSS) Requirements for carbon monoxide (CO) alarms on boats opens today Friday 17 August and will run to Friday 9 November 2018. The Boat Safety Scheme (BSS) is running a public consultation on proposals that have the full support of its stakeholder and management committees. It is proposed to introduce a mandatory new BSS Requirement for suitable carbon monoxide (CO) alarms in good condition and in suitable locations on all classes of boat with accommodation spaces. The changes affect all classes of BSS examination, private boats, boats used for hire and other non-private boat classes. The BSS proposals are presented as both necessary and proportionate risk controls and your comments upon them are welcomed. The consultation is open until 16:30 on Friday 9 November 2018. The BSS will also be taking the opportunity to seek the respondent’s views on the future possibility of introducing similar checks concerning smoke alarms for private boats. Please share news of the consultation https://www.boatsafetyscheme.org/abo…/co-alarm-consultation/

I dont advise that. I would use fresh grease each time.

Remember the fiasco over plastic and metal fuel spill rails, and fuel lines in general?

Finding a ideal boat is like finding an ideal partner, they don’t exist. You can make all the lists in the world but the one you’ll end up with will be the one where your eyes light up as soon as you saw. They may smoke a bit, and have few rust spots but you’ll still love and want. After saying that, I really like the bow on mine! Stern not bad either.

^^^ So True! Ditch the spreadsheets and get out there looking. End of.

Everyone is being very kind and helpful. If you know nothing about boats, live hours away from your proposed business and prefer the lazy option there might be other opportunities for you.

And the more you learn, the more you will come to realise there are NEVER two narrowboats that are equivalent. Keep taking the tablets.

He said house B

And of course it also means that the alternator is running well within its capacity. One of the worries written here in other threads is how long a 60A alternator would last, pushing 60A continuously for a couple or three hours.

You are entirely missing the point. Boats choose you not the other way round. They reflect who and what you are and your values, as well as your needs at the time. i have had 40 foot colecraft cruiser, a composite unpowered butty, ( with a houseboat mooring) an converted yarwoods motor, a converted station boat, and now a cut down but with 12 foot extension cabin motor. All very different, all at different life stages. Which do i regret selling , all bar the colecraft. Go and walk on a lot of boats, suddenly the light will go on, then you are in trouble.

I'll just leave this here... https://www.greathaywoodboatsales.co.uk/shop/sarah-kay/

....but that seems to defeat the object of having to charge for hours and hours. You need to keep you FLA's at 100% every few days otherwise they will sulphate so you need 3 or 4 hours of engine running etc in winter. The beauty of the lithiums is you only run your engine for an hour a day in summer (plus solar) and maybe 2 hours a day in winter with a 90A alternator and a 120Ahr usage overnight. I would be happy to manually switch my alternator supply to a 'dump' or off after an hour, set my solar to 13.8V and then rely on an emergency over or under voltage to disconnect etc.

A neat looking bit of pipe work, and a very smart basin, which as you say, will easily sit on top of a new corner unit, with ample drop to the outlet. My only caveat on these new (to you) systems is that as there is no trap, U bend or sump etc, do take care what gets dropped down the plug hole! Small items of value could get deposited in the cut all too easily.

"Hour" is not a unit of distance though.....

How about a boat scrappage scheme?Any boat over 20 hrs old would be replaced ,at government expense, with a brand new solar/wind power /nuclear,powered alternative.Problem solved!!!!?

Their out of there minds, I agree.

This is a potential consequence of the twisted logic used to make CO alarms a compulsory, rather than advisory, check. If you're protecting against CO generated in the boat, then an alarm in any space with a fuel burning appliance is sufficient. If you decide that the problem has to include external sources of CO then logically the alarms must be in every space with an external opening. I have a CO alarm which protects the space with the stove and gas cooker and water heater. I don't consider it necessary to protect against external-source CO in other spaces. I don't want to be forced to do that, especially when the motive for that is not a dispassionate risk assessment, but a way of bending the rules to move CO alarms from the advisory to the compulsory category. I assume that smoke alarms are not included in this because there's no way to use the same argument. Lack of smoke alarms doesn't endanger third parties. There is, of course, an argument to have a smoke alarm in every compartment, as fire can start anywhere. I have smoke alarms in places I don't have CO alarms for that reason. The best course is probably to make both smoke and O aarms part of the advisory checks. MP.

Our gulper is coming up to 20 years old soon,with full live aboard use.In that time I have cleaned it out once. I reckon it still has another couple of years left in it too. Hopefully yours will last well too!

Your research is likely to lead to utter confusion. As an example, your list includes 3 Calcutt boats, average 1976, average price £49k. This is just nonsense. I've just checked - there are 4 Calcutt boats current on the Duck. None were built prior to the 1980s although one doesnt list its age. I guess this skewed your result? Also your average price is massively skewed by this: https://www.apolloduck.com/boat.phtml?id=561711 It's a 120k Calcutt boat but you're not really paying for the boat, you're paying for the mooring near London. Still a ridiculous price though. Finally, lower down the list you have Andicraft Fabrications. Andicraft make the steel shells for Calcutt to fit out, so they're basically two stages of the same boat. Calcutt don't fabricate steel, Andicraft don't fit out interiors. Andicraft also provide shells to private buyers to fit out themselves. Bear in mind, that was just an example. Pretty much every part of your list could be torn apart in a similar way. Boat buying doesn't work like this. Go and look at some boats, compare them. Build your own hands on knowledge of what you want. Oh and also, there are 4 Calcutt boats on the Duck, not 3.

This is what the BSS “mission statement” says on its front page: The Boat Safety Scheme, or BSS, is a public safety initiative owned by the Canal & River Trust and the Environment Agency. Its purpose is to help minimise the risk of boat fires, explosions, or pollution harming visitors to the inland waterways, the waterways' workforce and any other users. So in what way does a CO alarm comply with that? I suggest it represents massive “mission creep”. If the BSS is suddenly going to be about saving ourselves from our own stupidity, where does it stop? Mandatory life jackets? Railings around trad sterns? Hard hats in tunnels? Regulating what we eat to avoid obesity? CO alarms are great and only foolish people wouldn’t have them, however they are way beyond the remit of the BSS. CO alarms are not mandatory in people’s houses, why should they be in boats. Stick to the original brief!

Afraid not, there's nothing there about experience of boats, locks etc. You do have to be able to drive a car, though...

As a personal opinion, I think that highlights a lot of driver's thinking and is what generates the hatred of cyclists. The car driver has paid a lot of money to buy,tax,insure and run his/her car so that they can spend a majority of their trip sitting in a queue of traffic closely looking at the back of the car in front whilst barely moving. How unfair is it that a cyclist doesn't have to do that and comes scooting past the queue of traffic? Motorcyclists do pretty much the same, how unfair is that? they should sit at the back of the queue and wait their turn,......or perhaps not. When mooring in places like Warwick, as a pedestrian walking into town I'm walking faster than the traffic, should I also have to wait at the back? The resentment is because someone is using a means of transport that is quicker than the one the driver has chosen (no-one is forced to drive). Regarding the left turn death trap, what seems to have been overlooked is that all local authorities put the cycle lane on the left had side of the road, this is effectively another lane for the use of cyclists. Look on the road now as having two lanes (at least). If you are driving on a road with two driving lanes and the driver in the outside lane turns left across you to go up a side street resulting in a collision, are you to blame for being in the inside lane? or is he to blame for inadequate observation? As an aside I'm not a great fan of the planning of cycle lanes in this country (the Netherlands being the gold standard). The same cycle lane can for a distance be on the road, then on the footpath then if there is a pinch point of some sort, disappears altogether then re-appears on the footpath or wherever. Then there is the shared cycleway/footpath along a road with multiple left hand turnings meaning that at every junction the cyclist is supposed to stop, whereas if he/she perfectly lawfully remained on the highway he/she can just maintain their progress without having to stop every 50 yards, hardly rocket science what they will choose to do, is it?

He is willing to travel, been doing jobs in quite a few locations.

I think that now (House) Building Regs have made any gas or electric powered Composting toilets illegal there will be a much greater 'push' onto easily influenced boaters who see themselves at the forefront of green technology (little do they know) Part G 4.19 states (as of Jan 2018) “Chemical toilets or composting toilets may be used where: a. suitable arrangements can be made for the disposal of the waste either on or off the site; and b. the waste can be removed from the premises without carrying it through any living space or food preparation areas (including a kitchen); and c. no part of the installation would be installed in any places where it might be rendered ineffective by the entry of flood water.” Part G 4.21 goes on to say: “Composting toilets should not be connected to an energy source other than for purposes of ventilation or sustaining the composting process.” In other words, dehydrating and incinerating toilets which use energy (gas or electricity) to dry the contents (beyond the natural composting process) will probably not pass building regulations. We believe this is a good move, as the energy required to dry, evaporate or incinerate toilet contents is hugely wasteful and over-complicate what should be a simple process. Remember that the EA are there to ensure that processes you engage in are safe for people to use, and don't damage or pollute the environment directly or indirectly. You might find the regulations frustrating, but they are there to ensure a safe environment for future generations! Be sensible and do a written assessment of how you plan to deal with the outputs from your compost toilet – detail the positions of things, possible contamination effects and limits etc, does the land flood, where will the compost bins be located? Have this documentation available in case officials want to ask you for more information. This will show you've been thorough and have throught through the entire process.

Unless you have your own land then after that thread I find it hard to see what any "proper" method of disposal will be unless you employ a certified waste contractor who is allowed to deal with that sort of waste and that is bound to COST.

This is a bone of contention. The road traffic act and the highway code are there for all. I am aware cyclists are more vulnerable but that does not absolve them of the obligation to drive within the rules of the road. It is astonishing to me that some cyclists ride as if they are immortal and seem to believe that their safely is everyone's responsibility but their own. Anyone undertaking a vehicle with a left indicator flashing is best killed before they have a chance to breed. Relying for your life upon the existence of mirrors and an assumption that the driver expects idiots to be attempting suicide on their left is not a good idea. Best idea is to put the ns tyres against the kerb and block anything coming up the inside. Not of course that a cycle would overtake without the required 1.5 metre clearance.

I am not familiar with the Varta but I suspect a set of Trojans will likely last 3 or even 4 times as long so are much more cost effective. It all comes down to the difficulty of fitting the Trojans into the available space and the ability to charge them at a decent voltage. Accepted wisdom is either to get Trojans (or similar), or get cheapos. It might turn out that the Varta are just cheapos at a premium price, the worse of both worlds? Can you give me a link to a data sheet???? In my opinion all this stuff about 50% discharge is all a bit of a giant Red Herring. I suspect that all batteries can be discharged to whatever level you choose (well down to 80%) and you are just trading depth of discharge against cycle life, though with better batteries the penalty for going lower might be less severe. .................Dave

That is a problem and it is plain bad driving. However, there is equally a problem of cyclists undertaking slow moving traffic, even where a vehicle is clearly indicating a left turn. This is plain bad cycling. George

'Tis extremely presumptuous of them to interfere with other people's boating uninvited, in my personal opinion. Working the locks is one of the reasons I like boating. Some random pitching up and trying to do it instead of me is not welcome whether or not they are sanctioned to do this by CRT. They are not 'helping', they are interfering. If they turned up on a cold, wet and windy winter's afternoon to help me up say The Delft I would be pleased, but they never do. They are only ever there on the lovely warm sunny days in summer. Grump grump.

Wilton has a lot of space and therefore does not need to be as sensitive to slow selling boats taking up space and preventing taking on more stock as most other brokers. They also take on boats that the custodians just want shot of them for a variety of reasons, from death of the owner, to simply not having the inclination, or the resources to prepare them for sale. As brokers, they therefore cater for a definite market, that would not suit the market strategy of many other brokers. I would never normally consider selling through them but had I passed away unexpectedly Wilton may well have been a valid choice to my executors. Depending on how long, and how badly, the boats had been neglected prior to sale, they may well present a good buying opportunity that would gain value from nothing more then a big throw out and a deep clean.

I agree it is daft to refuse to buy a boat from them. You just have to remember they will try to stitch you up like a kipper if they think you are a bit green. In fact I think they are ESSENTIAL viewing when looking for a boat. Nowhere else can you see so many boats all for sale all in the same place.

South Lincolnshire (but GRP boat at present to try and avoid the steel boat eating bugs)

Quite often these are fitted due to the height of the sink relative to the waterline, on tug style boats, etc. If you have a choice it is worth situating the outlet just below the rubbing strake as it offers some protection, bronze fittings are expensive but seem considerably tougher and less brittle.