NB.BELLE

Whilst approaching Fradley Junction and doing this , try not to bash into this: Cheers, Chris.

Thanks for the complementary remarks Allan. We are genuinely pleased that you found our site interesting. It certainly is a time consuming job keeping up with developments and updating our site as well as holding the job down and rummaging around the Internet to see what else is going on, etc. You have probably already gathered that, now and again we do struggle, so we insert something broadly related to narrowboat life (well, as we perceive it to be that is). This is because we feel that you can only say so much about a project such as ours before things get a bit repetitive. Another aspect is that we would like to add some more pictures to the gallery, but we have refrained from doing so until our project is nearing completion. This is because we feel that photographs of part finished items on the boat do not do justice to the work involved. They will be uploaded soon, be sure. Latest is that BELLE will probably be finished and ready for us to take control around mid-November 2006. This will not come fast enough for us. Cheers for now, Chris. PS. you should have already received an answer from me to your PM.

So, OK then, picking up on one of the suggestions made earlier, how about this as a deterrent to potential intruders?

Have you thought about installing one of these?

I have not had a reply from Shell or BP yet, but I have from Texaco. It may interest you to know that Texaco's comments re. red diesel add up to pretty much the same as those given to Roger Gunkel by Shell. On the Eber front - I am still waiting for a reply to the questions I emailed to them on 27 June 2006. Next email will be going to their lords and masters in Germany. Cheers, Chris.

Try contacting BWML at Sawley. I understand that the the new 'Platinum Boaters' area is more or less finished. Boat cleaning/polishing is one of the services offered as part of this illustrious package deal for the 'well-heeled' boater. You never know, BWML might want to sub-con some work. Cheers, Chris.

Hi y'all. Interesting to note that the NBC reason offered to Steve for switching from the Eber' (I am fed up with opening symbol and then inserting an a with an Umlaut on it) was down to the limitation on the number of ignition failures before automatic lock-up. I have to agree, I am none too impressed with this approach on the part of Eber either. I would like to think that my car engine managment system would not lock up if, say, I flooded the engine and could not get it started, etc. Such a feature certainly limits your options for overcoming the problem. However, I have already seen a potential 'work-around' for this, albeit I would much prefer that Eber did away with it. The underlying reason being poor reliability though, I am not too sure about. I am aware that the Aqualine comes from Poland and that (well at the moment I believe this is the case) most of the other NBC narrowboats come from LBC. Not sure who does the wide beam for them. Who knows what will happen eventually, but that is 'off topic', so I will not go there on this thread. Steve; you must of course follow your own judgement based on the information currently available. I wish you all the best with your Hurricane. I am minded to send another email to Eber with a link to this thread along with a request that they offer some feedback to this wider forum. I would be interested to see their response and any evidence they could offer to make matters clearer regarding the ability of their Hydronic 5/10 to function satisfactorily with a reasonable service interval/cost, whilst running on the 'red diesel' sold on the cut. Cheers, Chris.

Hi Steve, I agree, if there is a problem with the Eberspächer Hydronic 5/10, be it the fuel used and/or the installation designs employed by the boat builder, then it would be in Eberspächer's interests to get to the bottom of it one way or another. If this means collaborating with other manufacturers of this kind of kit in order to square up the fuel suppliers if they are at fault, then they should adopt a pro-active approach and get on with it. If it means developing their unit some more, then they should get on with that too. The Eberspächer bloke I talked to would not say if they were waiting for the dust to settle on the red diesel derogation issue, before committing to some more development. I feel I should point out that our original thoughts behind the 'two tanks' idea was in response to the threat to the tax derogation on red diesel. So we were heading this way anyway - an added benefit is the option to use different fuels to help with this boiler sooting or gumming problem with Eberspächer (and possibly other units). I agree with you, there is no such thing as 100% reliability, but I propose that, these days, you can get quite close to it. We have decided that we will not change from the Eberspächer Hydronic 5 just yet, because with us requiring a diesel fired system, we have not yet seen any objective evidence to prove this is not an endemic problem. It would be very interesting to structure a poll or on-line questionnaire on CWDF in such a way that this would drive out data that could then be used to indicate the reliability of all diesel fired boilers in use on inland waterway boats. This information could then be used alongside the first cost and service frequency/cost data from the manufacturers to calculate the approximate LCC (Life Cycle Cost) for each unit. Then we would see who has the best package around at the moment. It would be interesting to learn if NBC descision was purely based on in-service reliability, or whether there were other influential factors (e.g. availability in Poland, or warranty coverage, avalability of field personnel, etc.). Not looking forward to beating up Eberspächer during the warrantly period, but if needs must, then I will be! Cheers, Chris.

I, like MAFFI and some others, have tried to get some meaningful feedback from Eberspächer regarding this red diesel issue by putting some questions to them directly. I did not ask them anything about the means for establishing the hours run though - my main concern was ensuring compatibility with the fuel available on the cut. I must stress that, having been around this loop back in February 2006, I still feel that there is some merit in using a Hydronic 5 rather than opting for the 10 and I also feel that incorporating TRV's at the radiators would be a good idea. I spent a few hours on the theory and calculating the size of boiler required - not a route that everybody would like to take, but it did help me consolidate my thoughts. We have taken the precaution of incorporating two diesel tanks into our new build whilst we could do so with ease. You can read about our experiences here if you so wish (in the February entry). BELLE - BLOG These issues have been around for while now, so if it really is a matter for Eberspächer to sort out, then they better get a grip on it, otherwise they will get some more serious grief from their customers and potential customers will go elsewhere. Cheers, Chris.

Pav. We paid £300 deposit, which sat with our builder for about a year. First payment was made upon laying of the base plate and further payments at sensible/logical stages thereafter. We are about half way through the build now. PM me if you want to know more. Cheers, Chris.

You might also wish to check the fridge. I have often encountered some nasty niffs from fridges that appear spotless from the inside. However, if you pull the fridge out and check around the back there is usually a small plastic drip tray on top of the compressor unit. The general idea is that any condensation that forms inside the fridge will drain into this drip tray via a small hole near the bottom of the fridge cabinet somewhere and thereafter evaporate. In doing so, it can carry all sorts of bacteria that will breed (yuk) and form a horrible looking smelly mess in this tray (and possibly the drain hole) that needs clearing from time to time. Just a thought. Cheers, Chris.

Hi Charles, You will find some more details about this device here: Freecom I have been using mine, albeit at home with the mag-mount aerial on a biscuit tin lid (something I learned from my old CB days ages ago!), with very few problems for the last three months. I expect that the ground plane provided by the steel boat cabin would take some beating, so reception on a boat using the stubby mag-mount aerial that comes in the kit should be better. I can get most of the freeview channels with my current set-up. The aerial interface is a standard coax connector like your telly at home, so you can readily connect it to other aerials designed for digital reception. Installation to the computer is straightforward. Kit includes CD-ROM with all drivers, etc., but these can be downloaded from the Freecom website anyway, along with an operating manual. The kit also comes with a male/female USB extension lead and a remote control. So, laptop or desktop computer becomes a telly just by adding this 'matchbox sized' bit of kit and connecting to an aerial. I have not added any special graphic cards and the like. Runs fine on both my Dell X300 laptop with XP pro and and my Presario 5560 desktop with XP home. Price when I bought mine from PC World was about £59 - if you shop around, I feel sure you will get one significantly cheaper than this now. Cheers, Chris.

You may wish to consider combining the TV and computer using one of these: Plugs into a USB port and comes with a stubby aerial, but can be connected into other aerials if there is only a weak signal available. Cheers, Chris.

Tony / Ridgeways / Richard – thanks for your comments. British Waterways Marinas Limited (BWML) is a company wholly owned by British Waterways (BW). I can sympathise when others find it difficult to distinguish the two, because I am struggling to do so at times. Amongst other things, BWML is tasked with managing a number of marinas on behalf of BW. When I enquired using the FOIA in November 2005, there were 14 such marinas scattered around the UK and BW owned the legal title for 10 of them. I learned about this policy of giving moorings preference to those that buy their boats from / through one or other of these BWML marina sales offices when I enquired about a mooring at Sawley Marina, situated on the Notts/Derby border, half expecting to have to wait my turn along with others. I was told that Sawley Marina (now being part of BWML) no longer operated a waiting list because they had introduced a policy whereby those buying boats from/via their boat sales office were given preference. As such, their list as it was then does not move, because they were selling boats with moorings at a rate consistent with moorings availability. So, I f***ed off, as one would in such circumstances. However, after chewing on it for a bit, I thought, surely that marina still effectively belongs to BW? I was a bit like being told, so OK, this is a public car park, but we are still not going to let you park your car here, because we now have an arrangement with the car hire company around the corner and they are prepared to pay us a bit more and guarantee use of more of the spaces. They have filled it ever since, so f*** off. No problem in my mind, IF the said resources were actually in private hands, but they are not. Accepting this sort of practice, possibly on the grounds that, having formed a limited company, you then argue that the management of this limited company is sufficiently distanced from the shareholders and that you have ‘transparency’ does not, in my view, work. I propose that, if there is not a sudden surge in moorings availability at a reasonable and affordable price, then there will also be some serious knock-on effects for BW/BWML’s ‘competitors’, particularly those boat builders not trading via BW/BWML. I am aware that the new BW/BWML trading structure has, as a whole, received some attention and serious criticism from the BMF - and so it should. I am concerned about moorings management at the moment, but there must be many other aspects to this and implications for the whole industry as well as waterways users in general. Cheers, Chris.

I have been pursuing a complaint with British Waterways and British Waterways Marinas Limited over the last few months regarding their moorings allocation policy. I have corresponded with them via Stage I and Stage II of their complaints procedure, but I have failed to secure a satisfactory outcome from my point of view. I shall explain. British Waterways Marinas Limited is operating in such a way that they give moorings preference to customers purchasing boats from them. I am not sure if this moorings allocation policy is widely known; I have certainly not seen anything in the boating media about it. The legal title for most of the moorings managed on behalf of British Waterways by British Waterways Marinas Limited is held by British Waterways. So, they are still effectively a ‘national asset’ and as such they belong to you and me as British citizens and taxpayers. Therefore, I propose that these moorings should be allocated to boaters using a fairly and squarely managed time-honoured waiting list approach (just like they have been for years) and not traded as part of a boat sales package. Am I one of a minority that holds this view - do you agree or disagree? I would be interested to learn one way or the other. The collective response will have a bearing on whether I pursue my complaint with the Waterways Ombudsman and maybe beyond, or just grin and bear it. Cheers, Chris.

Gary, IMO your concerns regarding the influx of narrowboats from outside the UK and the effects that this could have on your business are well founded. Wide beam will be next (if not already under way?). Leisure barge thereafter and who knows what else, while ever our waterways can cope with the extra traffic, etc. and the suppliers can still get them here at a competitive price and quality. Might I suggest that, as the competition increases owing to the sales of imported narrow and wide beam 'off the peg' designs, you would do well to concentrate on the niche markets, i.e,. bespoke to suit individual customer requirements? However, many other UK builders will probably do the same and this market will get squeezed in time, so you need to find ways of providing this niche market with either something better, which would probably narrow your market even more, or concentrate on finding ways for supplying high quality bespoke but at a lower price. Is it feasible that you could exploit lower labour costs and possibly lower material costs by having your bespoke work carried out overseas? This might mean that you must spend a lot of time overseas supervising and controlling the work, but it could be a way forward. Failing that, you must move into another viable product line; ideally one that would use your existing skills and resources. The fact remains, like it or not, ignore this threat to your business and it will suffer. I am in the railway business and there ain't many British train manufacturers left! What's left by way of European train maufacturers is about to get a hammering from the Japanese - sounds familiar, doesn't it? Regards, Chris.

Hi Les, The first payment in our case is near as makes no diference half the shell price with the second payment upon completion of the shell. Current planning suggests that the shellbuilder will have started to build the shell in good faith a couple of weeks in advance of the first payment. However, I have no objection in principle to a proportion of any of the payments being used (legally) by the builder to help them with their cashflow, but this was only because we have agreed payment through many small stages. No way was I going to risk too much capital by having just two or three stage payments, unless those payments were explicitly upon completion of material aquisition and the work involved. Hope this helps. I can only echo the comments of others on this thread - speak with previous customers, take on board remarks on t'Internet, etc. and make sure you have a well defined specification in place (even if you have to write it yourself!) so you know what you are getting for the price you are paying. I share your concerns; we would not trust some builders we have encountered with a bag of brass washers, let alone coin of the realm. But please do not be put off by this because there are some very good builders out there as well! Just be careful - it sounds like you are though. Cheers, Chris.

Hi Les, We are using the standard BMF contract, but with a revised schedule of payments; basically, many more payments, but with each payment lower and assigned to specific tasks or build stages, so that you know what the money has been spent on. That way, if (heaven forbid) the builder does go down, then you at least stand a chance of legally getting your hands on your goods, before the receiver does. On the whole, even though I am the purchaser and so OK, the contract could be adapted more in favour of the purchaser here and there, I think the contract is a reasonable one. You will probably struggle to find a better one (from a purchasers perspective) that most builders would be willing to sign up to. Can you be more specific - what is it exactly in the BMF contract that gives you cause for concern? Cheers, Chris.

Hi Roger & Claire, An interesting and well put over analysis. Unfortunately, the whole issue as you have described it typifies either a lack of understanding and applications engineering expertise on the part of product manufacturer and/or the boat builder or an unwillingness to collaborate in such a way that the end user gets what they were given to believe they would get. As for our expectations. I propose that, having forked out £2.5k or thereabouts, it is wholly reasonable for us boaters to expect that our boat central heating system will fire-up every time on command at any time of the day and night and provide us with the requisite amount of heat energy for our air space and hot water system. We keep up our side of the deal by ensuring we have put the right fuel in and we have carried out the scheduled maintenance tasks and we operate the system in accordance with the instructions provided. We accept that, now and again, things do fail and they do wear out and they need replacing. Having said that, we should not have to shift heaven and earth to get things fixed and the vast majority of ‘fixes’ should be very simple and preferably carried out on a ‘plug and play’ basis and without having to dismantle the whole engine bay to get at the bit that needs fixing and so on. Furthermore, we should not have to fork out the financial equivalent of a new installation to get repairs done. Absolute silence during operation would be a ‘nice to have’, but sleep depravation is a definite no-no. We take reasonable steps to compare performances between the various manufacturers’ products in terms of running costs and reliability. We heed the experiences and take into account the recommendations of others and we read all the product sales literature. We place our trust in the boat builder, who should know enough about the products they are dealing with on our behalf to ensure that the installation will come up to our expectations. Are we being unreasonable; no, of course we are not. So, why is it that many product manufacturers and suppliers and boat builders find it so difficult to meet our requirements, yet still get away with it, or cause us an inordinate amount of grief? I agree with you, red diesel is nothing new in the marine environment. A number of diesel-fired heating system products have indeed been promoted for use in this environment for a long time, so their performance in this respect should have been well and truly sorted out by now. The criteria that must be respected by those responsible for the installation of the product should also be well defined. If my experience is anything to go by, then many of the UK boat builders probably know less than you do (and now us) about the products they are installing on our behalf! As it is, you have learned another good lesson about product performance. You have elected to also make use of a separate solid fuel burner to get the operating costs down significantly. A positive outcome, although I guess that you could have done without the grief you have encountered along the way! We, like one of your other readers, are (well, for the moment anyway) keen on the ‘press the button and we have heat approach’ and we acknowledge that we will probably have higher operating costs because of this. As it happens, we are having an Eberspächer Hydronic 5 installed in our 65 footer. Judging by your experiences and taking into account that our boat builder has (as far as we are aware) successfully installed quite a few of these particular units, we will stick with our choice. We are also having a Lockgate Refleks fitted in the saloon, this being another diesel burner, but without the back boiler. This is also rated at about 5kW. I would be interested to learn who or what it was that brought about the fitting of the Hydronic 10 in the first place? It will also be interesting to learn in the fullness of time how the Webasto’s perform. I suppose that a success in this respect really depends on whether the problems you encountered are endemic for all heaters of this type, regardless of the manufacturer. It would be a shame if Eberspächer has lost out moreover because of a lack of understanding on the part of a boat builder. Cheers, Chris.

If last years show at the NEC is anything to go by, then you would be advised to give it a miss. That is unless you are into caravans! Save your money for Crick. Cheers, Chris.