pete.i

Thetford do not want you to contact them. I found that outwhen I tried a couple of years ago to get some bits for a thetford bog I had. What comes up if I put those details in is this. I think you have to contact one of their sellers. Even the two first posters in this thread have given different numbers.

it depends on which part of Google you read but the figures bandied about are between 15,000 and the NBTA's estimate of 50,000 people living on boats. In March last year there were 35,000 people with boat licences and around 38,000 boats. Obviously these figures are acknowledged to change as people take to the water to offset high housing costs etc. Again these are just figures that I have puilled off the web and I, most certainly, have not verified any of them

I don't have a boat anymore so what happens with the canals does not affect me particularly. Having said that I am still involved with canals as an educational volunteer so I would not like to see the canals being destroyed by a lack of maintenance or for any other reason. what MtB says is absolutely true and I saw that coming a long time ago. I believe that CRT would love to get rid of boats on their canals and, in my opinion, the only thing stopping them doing just that at the moment is the fact that there are 35000 or so people living on the canals. Oky that figure may be wrong and I certainly haven't fact checked it BUT however many people there are actually living on the canals in boats it is far too many to just kick them all off and, again in my opinion, that is the only saving grace the canals have at this point in time.

An even simpler answer, I take it you are in education, anyway whatever subjects you suggest. In my opinion nothing is more important than saving lives of children and adults. It isn't nonsense and we do talk about cold shock and it's consequences.

At the moment we only do KS1 and 2 along with the younger uniformed groups. As for schools not having the time the time should be made for such an important subject in my opinion. It doesn't have to be done by CRT, Coast Guard, RNLI or Fire and Rescue service although they all do it very well. Bottom line is that it will save lives and even if that is only one then it is well worth it. It is free or at least the CRT presentations are, I don't know about the others. As I said I sit on the Welsh Water Safety group and the lack of take up in schools is a recurring theme. That group consists of RNLI, Coast Guard, Fire Service and other interested parties. We haven't started doing any presentations in secondary schools although I am told that CRT will be starting them at some time and having dealt with both age groups for a good part of my life I have to admit that primary are a far easier group to get the message over to and that really is the age where water safety knowledge should be started in my opinion. The biggest problem I have found is that it can be a scary subject. I suppose there is an element of fright needed to make the message sink in but you do have to be very very careful with young children especially in this day and age.

I am an education volunteer for the Canal and River Trust. I have recently moved to Wales to a part where we have no canals. This is the fourth drowning of a young adult this year. I try to specialise in water safety although we do other things as well. I sit on the Welsh Water Safety Main Group which consists of representatives of the emergency services and other interested groups including the Canal and River Trust. A large concern of these groups is the apparent lack of interest of schools in taking up the offers of FREE water safety presentations. CRT, and I would think the other services put out. CRT send flyers to as many schools as they can informing them of our educational offers and publicising CRT educational web sites. I know that the Royal National Lifeboat Institute and the Fire and Rescue services do as well. I have done two presentations in my area since we moved here last year. I am doing one presentation tomorrow for a school in Swansea who have asked for a water safety presentation before the children go on summer holidays. I do realise that schools do have a curriculum that they have to follow but I believe that water safety is so important that it should be taught in schools. Not neccessarily by CRT or the emergency services but we do provide that facility and that doesn't seem to be very well taken up by schools or uniform groups such as Beavers, Cubs etc.

The price of fuel should be going down now. Rishi thingy knocked 5p off the tax, okay it wasn't much but it was never reflected at the pumps. The price of crude is going down but petrol and diesel stays high at the pumps. I call scammers!

Thing is why is there that much rust. As said it's probably nothing to worry about although I am no expert. But if it's condensation that is causing it then that will have to be minimised and if it's a leak, either external or from the domestic water supply that will have to be detected and sorted. One of my boats had rust below the flooring but nothing like that and that boat had been built in the early eighties. The rust on my boat was caused by condensation that had got under the broken flag stones ballast.

Personally I would walk and look for something else. I did that twice when I was shown an overpalted couple of boats.

Narrowboats never were pretty. A tin box welded on to a steel hull. Usually painted in garish colours with painted pictures of flowers and fairy tale castles and various kitchen utensils hanging on the sides or sitting on the roof. As for the engines!!!

Just read this and whilst I am not really interested in boatborn bogs any more it was an interesting read as to why "composting" bogs do not work, at least for 1.5 years which means that you have to carry the contents of your "composting" bog around with you for 1.5 years in a separate container until it actually composts. I also get the impression that 1.5 years is a best situation time. I'm so glad that I crap down a hole and it disappears down a pipe for someone else to deal with. https://www.livesmallridefree.com/blog/why-your-composting-toilet-doesnt-actually-compost-poop

About time.

Correct. The vast majority of it is just a mess, including that shown in the picture above and that banksy rubbish. I think that councils have just given up the expensive task of cleaning it up and said just get on with it. We will endeavour to change the minds of the haters by calling it art.

👍 Just pretty much par for the course with some of the contributers to this forum.

I certainly hope they are growing a set of teeth. Considering that if it wasn't for the IWA we, probably, would not have the canals, bad as they are, in this day and age, the IWA certainly lost a lot of their influence and relativity. I was a member for a year or so but when I realised the the IWA wasn't going anywhere I dropped my membership. When I have tried to put this to people who are still members it tends to elicit a tirade of abuse, or at least it did on at least one occasion for me. The IWA have nothing tangible in the ten years or so that I was a boat owner for the canals as far as I could see. And if they have then they have kept very very quiet about it.

AND Hammerite is only ordinary paint these days after the EU got hold of it and made the manufacturers take out ingredient that made it good. Once you had to buy special thinners for hammerite but not any more. It thins down with ordinary turps now and is absolutely no better than any other oil based paint. It used to have to be thinned using trichloroethylene but the EU nannies got hold of it and that element has been taken out so now it's rubbish but still expensive. Okay I know trike is dangerous but so is crossing the road.

Why is this even being discussed? The gas guy is 100% right. Why is it so hard to remove the curtains and fit a roller blind. Suggesting that the OP should just remove the curtains and then put them back after the BSS is stupid and highly dangerous.

I don't know about other buyers but when I was looking for my third boat I turned down three because they had been overplated. I suppose it depends on how desparate a buyer is to have a boat.

Thing is there isn't a lot of point in whinging about it on here. Rishi wotisface knocked 5p off a litre and told garages to drop their prices immediately, they didn't. The oil producing conglomerate said they would increase the number of barrels produced. That sent oil prices into a tail spin but garages still did not reduce their prices. Funny thing though almost to the day that the idiot putin walked into Ukraine petrol prices went up. I call scammers of the highest order and don't ask me to prove any of that just because you lot are to idle to look at Google. Check for yourselves.

This is a windup and if it isn't then all I can say is that some people, and there are a significant number, just should not be on the waterways.

Quoted my post because this idiot forum software wont let me edit after after a while. Anyway I meant SA31. See I haven't been here long.

We have just moved back down to Wales to be near our family, SA32. Maybe a bit too near as we have 7 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren and life can get hectic. I am an educational volunteer for the Canal and River Trust and spend quite a bit of time at Brecon Basin. I have had three boats in my time but they were all when we were living in sunny Yorkshire. I never lived on any of my boats, they were purely for pleasure. We were lucky to live very near a canal at the time, the Selby Canal, so I made use of it frequently. Unfortunately Brecon is not really within every day travelling distance from me otherwise I would seriously think about having a boat on that canal. I am in my seventies now and never really had to do any locks. The three or four that I did do very occasionally were quite hard work I thought. One was at the River Aire end of the Selby, one at Beale and one at Knottingly. That took me on to the Air and Calder where the locks were all electric or I could have gone straight on to the Leeds and Liverpool canal which I never did although my volunteering did take me on to the Leeds and Liverpool but not in a boat. I thought that this web site might be of interest to you. I am just down the road from you so if need any advice PM me. Oh and if you did want to go further afield you cannot unless you put your boat on truck or buy one with a trailer. The Brecon and Monmouth canal is not connected to the main system. https://www.breconbeacons.org/things-to-do/attractions/natural/monmouthshire-brecon-canal

Now you know why Edge is NOT an upgrade, neither is Windows 11 for that matter and I wont even touch on Apple junk.

Another vote for Tony Brooks's website assuming you or him/her have internet access.