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An interesting series of videos on Youtube

Just a word of warning. Refleks stoves are not as foolproof as I thought. My experience yesterday may have been a freak occurrence, but it’s worth mentioning. After lighting the Refleks for the first time in months, all seemed fine. Nice blue flame. Everything as normal. I went out of the boat for five minutes and when I came back the fire was roaring furiously and it was clearly over-fueled. This has occasionally happened before when I’d stupidly lit the fire with a pool of diesel in the bottom of the burner, but never suddenly when the fire seemed to be running perfectly normally. I shut off the fuel, but it took far longer than usual to extinguish. In the meantime I noticed that hot diesel was dripping from the scraper hole! After things had cooled down I investigated and quickly found the reason. The trip lever had become dislodged because the spindle which supports it had drifted to one side and the whole structure was trapped. This meant that the float safety mechanism was no longer functioning and diesel, in effect, was being fed directly into the burner. I can’t explain how this happened, but it may have occurred when I set the trip mechanism before lighting the fire. On reflection, I do remember that the lever seemed stiffer than usual before it clicked into position and again, with hindsight, the trip mechanism had become unduly sensitive recently.

Forget about the RCD. AdeE loves to recite the rules and regulations and he's always technically correct, but in practice you don't need to consider the RCD at all on a 9 year old narrowboat. IMHO. You need to: 1. Satisfy yourself that the boat is safe for you, for you to use at the time you get it (regardless of whether it was when it was built). 2. Satisfy yourself that it is at least as safe as required by the BSS for others if you use it.

No need to apologise, this forum stuff can be awkward A good point is that it seems to be an all steel boat with steel handrails, so not wooden rails as I thought they might be. As far as I can see from the photo the paintwork is in poor condition and I think I can see some rust patches/bubbles so you need to budget for a repaint. That will not be cheap and if rust has got under the window frames they will have to come out as well as having the flue roof flange off so the rust can be properly treated. DIY preparation and painting is possible outside but time-consuming and difficult. Its easier if you can hire a covered dock. I suspect to have it done for you would be about eight thousand for a budget job and the n upwards. The roof you asked about plus the paintwork suggests to me the boat has not been well looked after and as others have said the roof in the area of the chimney may well be perforated. If so that will require some of the roof lining and insulation stripping out for welding so further expense. I hope other members can give you an idea about the likely cost but I would budget at least another £1000. It looks like a new toilet has been purchased, to me this suggests either its been converted from a pump out for sale or the old one was in a bit of a state so again possibly poor maintenance. That engine has, I think, hydraulic valve lifters and if so it will not take at all kindly to a lack of engine oil changes. The open plan and "London white" paint shows all the indications of having been a doer upper that has been tarted up for selling to a naive buyer, mainly for use as a house in the London area. I can't see any mention of a fridge which seem odd. Only your OWN surveyor can advise on the hull, it may or may not be sound but he is unlikely to make a definitive comment on the state of the engine and gearbox, Those are not part of the BSS and may also have been neglected. At 30 years old unless you get into 4 yearly surveys it will be very difficult or impossible to insure fully comprehensive but third party is available. Although boats prices have gone silly over the last year my view is that this one is probably about the right price for one in good condition but to me, it seems overpriced with that roof and the poor paintwork. Again. I hope others with more recent price experience will give their opinion.

Demolition in Aylesbury (1970?) At its height, during World War II, the Harvey-Taylor company operated 20 narrow boats.

First thing you need to do is sort the solar cabling out. Very thin twin core from panel feed(large voltage drop) and then 2 red cables down to batteries(or to inverter). The negative needs to be black as if you disconnect everything to work on the batteries or other electrics, reconnecting the wrong way round could cost you a packet.

Thats the ones old sport. Still have my licences but life has moved on lol. The Princess was a tight fit under Trent bridge especialy if there was a bit of fresh on and sometimes and when in flood we couldnt get under, not even nearly lol.

It probably has grandfather rights to the connection, so no fee to CRT, and not much they can do about it.