Nose Miner

Another common source of failure is the isolator switch - overheating of this can lead to it not making a proper connection which will go open circuit when a load is applied. Try wiggling the big red key whilst trying to turn the engine over. Also check the big thick earth lead which should go from your battery negative to the engine - can be prone to vibration damage. The fact that the battery is showing 12.6v is no guarantee that the battery is OK - you need to have a meter on it when operating the glowplugs or trying to turn the engine over. If the battery voltage suddenly drops out when you do this, the battery is sh*gged. Just noticed our posts crossed - hopefully you have it sorted now then.

Just paid £0.72 today at a garage forecourt in Leek.

Watching TV is like a drug - it takes a while before you can kick the habit, but when you do, life is so much sweeter! Reformed TV watcher.

Mine is made from the bucket out of an old Elsan Bristol, around which I have built a tasteful oak cabinet, with oak toilet seat on top. There is a small chimney from the cabinet, which draws a fair bit of air through the cabinet, keeping moisture levels down. The worms I use are tiger worms from an angling outlet. I have three buckets, which I use in rotation, and each takes about a month to fill. So, as the oldest one is emptied in a suitable bit of hedgerow it becomes the next one to be filled. If you are going to use worms, you do have to look after their interests - "no worms are harmed in the disposal of this poo!" They need fairly stable temperatures, dark and moist, but not wet, conditions - so I'm afraid you would have to wee somewhere else. I have no problem with this, but ladies tell me they can't do one without the other. I say, work on your pelvic floor exercises! Worms are fussy about what else you put in too. I find that they are fine with softwood shavings, but oak shavings does them no good at all. They do like a layer of damp newspaper every so often as they like to sleep there. The slightly yucky factor with worms is that it makes no sense to keep buying new worms, so you have to recover your worms from the compost before you chuck it.

Rather than spending £1000 on a fancy compost loo that eats electricity as well as poo, why not buy something cheap and basic like an Elsan Bristol, which is cheap and cheerful and consists of a sealable bucket in a casing. Use in the normal manner, but instead of water and chemicals you add a handful of sawdust with every dump! When full, you empty contents into a compost bin. Alternatively you can use compost worms, which eat half their body weight in poo every day. A kilo of worms will pretty much eat everything that two people can feed them. Worms will process the poo in half the time of traditional composting toilets. I'm tempted to put a sign up in the window saying "Worms Eat My Poo" - that should start some interesting bankside conversations!

I had thought of it, but understood that he doesn't frequent the forum anymore. Or do you have information to the contrary? Otherwise I have no contact details for him.

I am perhaps the only person in the world who has had a Smartgauge fail on them. Yes, I may have done something to break it, but if so, I don't know what. It has been installed for about two years without a hiccup - yesterday it was working normally - today, nada! When I say nothing, the only thing it does is constantly display an "8" in the rightmost display. It doesn't respond to any key presses. It doesn't help if I disconnect the supply and reconnect. It doesn't help if I perform a factory reset. Has anyone else had anything like this? Is it explicable? Can it be economically repaired? Your help would be most welcome.

Hi Mandy, you might want to consider this option. If you decide to become self-employed, doing whatever you like, whether it be selling canalside niknaks or providing a service like boat washing and polishing, you will be entitled to claim working tax credit. As long as you are engaging in, or available for, your chosen activity for more than 30 hours a week, and as long as you don't have huge savings or earnings you will get the full amount which is around £50 a week. This is enough to live on in the event that your earnings are not forthcoming, but perhaps more importantly it frees you up to do what you want, whether that be earning money or travelling looking for work. If you are claiming benefit you have to sign on, show proof that you are looking for work, get treated rather badly by jobcentre staff and you get into lots of problems if you do find small amounts of work. WTC only requires that you complete an annual statement of your circumstances (unless they change of course). Ian

And surely used cat litter could be buried in the nearest bit of hedgerow or ditch!

Thank you Sir, for your erudite explanations of the facts of the case. I, for one, fully support your right to challenge BW. If more people did so, their behaviour with regard to boat owners would be more consistent, reasonable and fair, to the profit of us all. I must say, it is also good to see a well argued rebuttal of a certain pompous idiot on here! An enjoyable read.

Yes, you will have to speak to the customer services team. Good luck!

Like all of the mobile companies they have good points and bad. The coverage is generally good and speed is getting better. I have broadband with them and I thought I had a good deal at £15 a month for 15gb. Then I found that each month they allow me to go over my useage by 20mb before telling me I am out of data. This they say is offered to customers as a "service". Surprise surprise, the cost of the extra 20mb more than doubles my monthly charge to £39. I find that I have to "opt out" of this "service", unfortunately not before they have scammed me of several hundred pounds which they refuse to return. As for customer service, they are shite. I can't even access their customer services because the automated system doesn't recognise my PIN number. Guess who you have to talk to to get a new PIN number? Try emailing them I hear you say - I have - no response. When I complained to their executive office several times, I eventually received a rather sniffy email from someone who claimed "our system has no record of you sending an email to us"!!! There is one department at 3 that you can access easily, will always answer the phone straight away and you get to talk to someone in Britain who understands English - yes, you guessed - the sales department. Sadly they cannot help you with queries regarding existing customer accounts, nor can they transfer you to someone who can. If I could get out of my contract I would.

It should surely have been Eradication of Crusties Action Group! I did wonder why the police were involved in it - has continuous mooring become a criminal offence whilst I wasn't looking?

That's a third for hydrogen sulphide! I can think of another source - have either you or your neighbour been burning any waste plastics in the solid fuel stove. Certain types of plastic give off large amounts of sulphur when burnt, which quickly reacts with water vapour to form hydrogen sulphide.

I can't believe they need to close the navigation for a whole day for training purposes. It's totally ridiculous. If these new stop planks are designed to fit the original slots, then surely any moron could figure it out! Doh!

Apparently the Romping Donkey at Hassal Green on the T&M has also just closed.

Well, I have answered my own query and found a copy of said manual. If anyone else needs a copy, let me know.

Does anyone have a digital copy of the workshop manual for this unit? Thanks in anticipation. Ian

I have two that I no longer need, you can have them for free, but you would need to collect from Stoke on Trent. Ian

I once had the rudder caught between the mitre gates in a lock going up. Somehow the rudder didn't become truly stuck until the lock was half full - it must have been sliding up until the pressure of the gates was enough to jam it. I realised that the stern was being pushed under and was able to stop filling the lock. However, when I tried draining it to release the rudder, nothing happened as the rudder stayed well and truly stuck, lifting the stern out of the water. I couldn't go up and I couldn't go down. Even application of full forward power couldn't shift it. Whilst I sat on a bench by the lock with my head in my hands wondering what the heck to do next, a loud noise from the lock announced that the leaky bottom gate had drained the lock to the point where the boat had fallen out of the gate - a distance of about three feet! Amazingly no damage was done, apart from to my nerves. On another occasion I was distracted by my, then little, children and failed to notice that the protruding bottom plate at the bow had caught on the concrete sill going up. Water had started to wash over the front deck. The wife stuck her head out to see why water was starting to come down the step and shut the front doors in alarm. I perfected my emergency release of paddles method at that point, and saved the day!

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I don't think Waxoyl is suitable for bilges. I painted my bilge with Waxoyl 12 years ago when the shell was new. The Waxoyl has dried out over that time and shrunk and pulled away from the surface, leaving a lot of surface rust underneath. I had to take up the whole floor and black it with bitumen - I wish I had done this to start with. It did give me the opportunity to insulate under the floor though!

I had the same problem when I treated several panels with a Vactan type rust prep before painting - after about six months I had the same blistering. I didn't have any problems with the panels not treated. I think the problem relates to the fact that the rust treatment is water based and in certain circumstances can trap water below its surface layer - I suspect if it dries too quickly! There's no substitute for mechanical preparation of the steel surface and removal of all rust, followed by a good quality primer.

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