Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 16/01/21 in all areas

  1. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  2. err, forgive me you for being thick but surely an expert in all things should understand that poo emits methane regardless of whether it is wrapped up in a plastic bag and dumped in landfill or disposed of in any other manner including being transported by gallons of water to a treatment plant at great cost.
    4 points
  3. A major problem with/for new boaters is that they do not understand the "warrantee" situation on new build narrowboats, especially one off that it sounds like the OP wants. They seem to think buying new will provide many years of trouble free boating when the truth is/can be very different. I get the impression that unresolved warrantee issues, especially of a major nature probabaly outnumber those resolved. if they can't be resolved in one or two quick visits they are unlikely to be. If the purchaser decides to take the court route the builder is likely to liquidate the company. Far better to let a first owner do all the snagging and then buy the boat second hand. The OP also needs to understand that unless you learn to and are happy to DIY boat owning and maintaining is an expensive business and the price limit suggests to me the OP may not have the money for ongoing professional help
    4 points
  4. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  5. Unless you are an experienced narrowboater so your wants are based on real experience you may be better advised to buy a second-hand boat boat with a layout that you think you want and try it for a while. There is a very good chance that what you think you want now may well change after a while living aboard. When you know what you really need than buy new. However a decent second-hand boat is likely to be far more cost effective than new.
    4 points
  6. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  7. Excellent post. The other way of looking at it is that we have burnt 2,000,000,000 years worth of stored carbon in the last 200 years, and most of it in the last 50. That's a lot of stored sunshine we won't be getting back anytime soon.
    3 points
  8. Can I have a go? This is how I understand it. Conservation of mass: carbon isn't created on earth, just moved around. Plants are made of carbon from the atmosphere. Animals are made out of the carbon from plants. While the carbon is in biomass, it's not causing a greenhouse effect, but whenever plants and animals rot or burn, their carbon is released straight back into the atmosphere. All plants and animals die so biomass is all temporary and it's carbon neutral. Nowadays oxygen is about 20% of the atmosphere. Originally there was no free oxygen in the atmosphere - all of the oxygen was combined with carbon. This can't support animal life. Oxygen is reactive and doesn't really exist by itself except as produced by plants. Two billion years ago a large amount of the atmospheric carbon was naturally sequestered when ancient biomass became fossil fuels. That great oxygenation event is the source of the majority of the free oxygen that we breathe today. Now we are un-sequestering that carbon and converting the atmosphere back towards the ancient one. Pretty much everything that we do is carbon neutral except mining fossil fuels. If we stopped mining fossil fuels, the world would become carbon neutral overnight. There's nuance of course. Methane (CH4) is worse than CO2, cement production also releases carbon from non-fossil sources, local air quality, etc. But the basics is conservation of mass. If you accept this then it's easy to see why biofuels are good - they are carbon neutral while sequestering carbon the entire time they are being produced and stored. Biofuels are a leveraging of photosynthesis - a natural solar panel. I'd say the biggest problem with biofuels is the amount of land that they take up. But I think they can and should form a part of the transition. If we can stop using oil 1 year sooner because of biofuels it's worth it - they are infinitely better for the planet than fossil.
    3 points
  9. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  10. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  11. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  12. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  13. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  14. Your going to waste a lot of money if you don’t do jobs like this yourself. Not a hard job, sounds like you don’t want to get your hands dirty? This is basic and if your not prepared to do jobs like this then maybe having a boat is not for you. Or you should of bought a brand new one with a freshly painted engine bay and no dirt.
    3 points
  15. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  16. Except as privileged people they should be setting a visible example of best practice. It should be dead easy to stop the hugging - just make it known that the offending clubs would be banned from playing a make sure its done.
    3 points
  17. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  18. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  19. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  20. I agree but could this cause food shortages? Also it still produces NOX, I prefer electric where possible and hydrogen produced by excess electricity from wind turbines. Lastly biodiesel for things that are older technology, like our boats until the engine dies anyway and then convert to something cleaner. But a great post that makes us think
    2 points
  21. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  22. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  23. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  24. 2 points
  25. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  26. Been around for longer than that. Built around the Millennienniennium, along with the Dome and the Bridge. Originally called the Millennium Wheel. Jen
    2 points
  27. Association Football: Eleven players on each side running around a field for 90 minutes, pretending to be injured. Rugby Football: Fifteen* players on each side running around a field for 80 minutes, pretending not to be injured. youtube linky *other codes are available, eg pyjama rugby
    2 points
  28. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  29. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  30. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  31. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  32. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  33. Real 'slapstick' comedy. "D'you want it pasturize? 'Cause pasturize is best, " She says, "Ernie, I'll be happy if it comes up to my chest."
    2 points
  34. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  35. We may see a lot more of these : My offices in Wythenshawe (Manchester) were very close to the big dairy - when I was going into work at a round 7:00 am, was about the time that the fleet of milk-floats were returning from their rounds, every day there were at least a couple that hadn't quite made it back, and a few others creeping along at 0.001mph to try and make the last few 100 yards.
    2 points
  36. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  37. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  38. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  39. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  40. I had a composting toilet fitted in January 2019 and at the time, promised to let the forum know, after the first year, how I had got on with it. There is a fair bit to say so I will copy Sir Nibble and post it in sections. (No I won't - it won't let me!) Views on toilets are very mixed and several bits of this will not meet with complete agreement. All I can say is that I did not go the composting route entirely by choice, it was a decision partly driven by circumstances. This is an honest description of my experience in the last twelve months. I have absolutely no axe to grind here and have no connection with Nature’s Head nor with any toilet supplier. Background I have a 70’ Orion tug, built in 2003 and which I have owned since 2013. My wife and I are retired, we don’t live aboard but spend about 7 months of each year on the boat. Our time aboard is split into roughly 6 week spells. When I bought the boat it had a macerating pump-out toilet and as there was space, I added a 365 Cube porta-potti for emergencies. This arrangement was OK for five years though I never really trusted the pump-out, for one thing, the ‘full’ indicator never worked properly. Late last year I had a lot of work done on the boat to re-position the engine. As a result I had to get rid of the pump-out toilet, as the holding tank was removed to accommodate the repositioned drive-shaft. I could have replaced it with a cassette but decided to experiment with composting instead. We bought a new Nature’s Head composting toilet at Crick, Debdale installed it for me as part of the engine move and other work which they did on the boat. The company from which I bought the toilet is no longer in business and I am not sure if Nature’s Head have a UK distributor at present. You can certainly view the toilet on the net and may have to if you want to completely follow what I have to say. Installation and use Installation was exactly as per the manufacturers instructions except that the ‘screw down brackets’ which fix the unit to the floor were not used by Debdale and I have not fitted them since. The old porta-potti was not fixed to the floor and I have found no reason to fix the Nature’s Head, in fact it’s simpler to use if not fixed. A small 12v computer fan extracts air from the toilet and pumps it out through a skin fitting. The fan runs 24/7 when we are on the boat and not at all when we are not. I had planned to use one of the old pump-out exits for this but Debdale preferred to cut a new hole and skin fitting instead. The manufacture says some substrate should be used and we selected coconut coir. This comes dehydrated in blocks (20cm x 10cm x 5cm) which I buy in bulk from Amazon. I also purchased a number of 30 litre clear polythene boxes from Wilko. These had lids and I cut a large hole in two of the lids, hot-gluing nylon fly screen over the holes. The boxes were intended to hold first the reconstituted coir and ultimately, the ‘product’ while it finished composting. The boat has an enormous (1700 litre) front deck locker which is of limited use (you can’t easily reach the bottom of it from the deck). It may have been constructed partly for a bow thruster which was never fitted (but who knows, Richard at Orion had some eccentric design ideas). Anyway, my original plan was that I could use part of this locker to stack some of the Wilko boxes - those with fly screen lids - while the ‘compost’ matured. The Nature’s Head has a horizontal stirring bar about half way up the solid waste container. The manufacturer’s guidance is to start by filling to this level with coir. I prepared the coir by placing two of the blocks in a Wilco box and adding 7 litres of very hot water, putting a (solid) lid on and leaving it for 24 hours. The next day the coir had expanded to about 10 litres and become crumbly, it was slightly moist but not wet. It takes about 70% of the prepared coir to fill the toilet to the recommended level, I left the remaining coir in the Wilko box which was stored in the engine room. In use the Nature’s Head requires a little practise, it is very important to keep liquid and solid “deposits” completely separate. So you need to be careful where you are seated on the toilet but it doesn’t take long to get the hang of it. Urine goes into a removable bottle which can be easily changed, we had 3 spare bottles and needed to change one every day. Obviously they are straightforward to empty in an Elsan or even in a public toilet, as there is no mess involved. The nitty gritty We find that with only two users we need to empty the solids box every three weeks. Not because the container is full (in fact the level does not change much) but the material becomes denser and the stirrer gets difficult to move. Here we depart from the manufacturer’s instructions. We decided to do this because the stuff does not smell unpleasant and does not look like a box of turds. The appearance is rather like garden leaf mould and the smell is similar. So we proceed as follows:- Move the toilet out into the centre of the bathroom Remove the liquid container Have an empty Wilco box ready Trowel out the material using two garden trowels and put it in the Wilco box (*1) Put new choir in the solids container plus a sprinkling over the solids in the Wilco box Put the liquids container back, close and replace the toilet Cover the Wilco box with a fly screen lid and put it in the engine room (*2) The whole operation takes 10 minutes. *1 Emptying after 3 weeks results in about 15 litres of waste so you can just fit 6 weeks worth into a single Wilco box. *2 The original plan was to put the box in the front locker but as there was no smell, we experimented with storing it in the engine room to see if the heat would speed composting. As we go home roughly every six weeks and only produce a single Wilco box of waste in that time, we just take it home with us and add it to our existing garden composting arrangements. This was a major departure from our original plan but I think we could have managed with the locker. The difficulty for anyone without ‘hands on’ experience is believing that the quantity of product is so small and that my claims about smell are true. I know, I was surprised myself. Also, of course the system might be unworkable for live-aboard’s with limited locker space - in that respect we have an advantage. But neither of us would go back to the old toilet arrangements and would recommend composting to anyone with the necessary space and an unfussy attitude to getting familiar with their waste.
    1 point
  41. No my genny is 460cc and produces 6kw the boat requires 3.3 kw to cruise so work it out, plus I have 4.6kw of solar so why bother with a 2.2 litre diesel engine?
    1 point
  42. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  43. where can I hire a daily help to make the beds and do the washing up in my galley? she has to have her own transport between bridges so I can "continuously cruise".
    1 point
  44. I'm not sure why you find it disgusting. Millions of people each day throw human waste (mixed poo and wee) into bins in the form of soiled nappies -millions of nappies per day. That is not illegal. How many boaters dont throw their soiled toilet paper down the loo but instead bag it to throw in the bin? I expect you have not seen the solid desicated waste that comes out of one of these toilets in making the comments you make. It is not the horrible slimey smelly mess that people think. Once it is double bagged and put in a bin (not on the floor by a full bin), then no one will touch it until it ends up in landfill or an incinerator.
    1 point
  45. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  46. 1 point
  47. IF your skin tank is OK for pootling along the canal, but a bit undersized when it comes to passages like the Ribble Link, then it is possible to improvise. One member here emptied a few bucketfuls of water into the stern bilge, then set up a spare bilge pump and length of hose so that one of the crew directed the jet of bilge water to spray over the internal face of the skin tank for the duration of the tidal trip. That provided sufficient extra cooling to keep the engine termperature down, and all the warm water going back into the bilges was then cooled by sitting on the bottom plate. Not ideal, but enough to solve the problem at the time.
    1 point
  48. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  49. Sorry to have never followed up on this - once I solved the problem, it of course dropped off my TODO list. It turned out that there were two related problems. Our flue was quite blocked up, but cleaning it out didn't prevent the alarm going off. Replacing the door seal didn't immediately help, but in the process of doing so, I realised that the door latch wasn't shutting tight. The door was always cracked slightly open. As soon as I tightened up the door latch, we stopped triggering alarms when burning smokeless. As for why we were getting alarms with smokeless but not with wood: I assume it's just that coal gas has more CO than wood, though maybe it's because wood burns so hot the CO was going up the flue? Anyway, thanks a lot for the help, and if anyone else comes across this thread when trying to solve a similar problem, have a good look at your stove door...
    1 point
  50. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.