lewisericeric

Yes I'd be interested in power consumption - my brother suggested getting a bread machine but I quickly dismissed it with not being on shoreline... However, if nothing else, it would be good for the kneading to save me doing it!

Can't imagine it is a lot. I cook every evening and use the oven (mostly on gas mark 5) for at least 45 minutes an evening and I use one 13kg bottle every 3 or 4 months

It's all the preservatives! I've said it for years. People need to stop eating this cr@p....obesity isn't caused by butter or the fat off a steak....it's the processed rubbish people keep pushing in. It's our goal as well to try and start making stuff from scratch as much as possible and avoid all this ready made stuff - even more so with this horse meat scare

I'm sure I read on here that a couple had took their boat to France and there was a book they'd written about their journeys. Is it like a day to day diary of their travels or is it mostly about taking the boat over there? Can anyone remind me of the link and is it available for instant download? Not necessarily the kindle but I do have an iPad that I could read off if its a PDF for example. Cheers

Glad the soda bread came out well Julian , its not one you can get wrong though to be honest, really simple and that's why I love it! Haha I got THIS the other day (the pic is about half way down the page) and I'm gonna give it a go tomorrow. I was intrigued because of the addition of the ascorbic acid which some of you were saying really helps the bread rise. It'll be interesting if this loaf turns out like a 'shop bought' if you know what I mean - nice and fluffy and light etc All it contains is the flour, yeast and acid so its it like I'm full on cheating when it comes to making my own bread!

We have a full size bath tub on the boat and we made sure that we picked a calorifier which would mean that we could have enough hot water for a full bath I think the only thing I miss about land is unlimited electric but this might not be a problem for a lot if you are on shoreline in a marina. However, it has opened my eyes as to how much electricity you actually DON'T need to use! Sometimes I feel like I want to stretch out or I feel like I'm bumping into everything, but days like that soon pass and only happen rarely!

It is a sad state but chucking it is the easiest option sometimes! Take for example, when we moved on board. I had a load of books I wanted to give to charity. They'd only been read once and as far as I'm concerned, once a book has been read I'm not going to read it again....so all pretty much brand new. However, in the city centre, you can't just "give" stuff to charity. I had to set up an account, bring proof of ID , fill in a returns number Incase anything came back as "faulty"....I couldn't believe it!!! It was similar in 2 or 3 charity shops so in the end, I left the books in the communal hall of my block of apartments with a sign for people to help themselves... I had a knock on the door the next day from the maintenance guy.... "Shift it or we will have to bill you for getting the books removed!" So.... Yep, all brand new books I simply bagged and chucked em in the communal bins. Sorted, no hassle, stress free - but sad and a total waste!

Yep binned it. If its in a box and or even if its been in the Wardrobe/cupboard/whatever for 12 months and you've never used it, you'll never use it in the next 12 months, so BIN IT!! People have so much cr@p that you really don't need it's unreal!

Hi breeze, we did this just before Christmas. Take a look at the pics here My link is this what you mean when you say you want the L-shape to be half round? If you can source the worktop yourself and its a solid wood one, then any joiner should be able to cut it to whatever shape you want.... They might be even able to do it at your boat .

Looks very much like an outback! We have 690w of solar and have an 80amp outback MPPt controller which gives that little bit of room if we did want to add another panel, not that we have any such plans at the moment. Definately agree with getting an MPPT controller though that has a higher capacity than your current setup Incase you do want to expand! And can't we tell that spring is on its way....12 amps as I speak right now which is the most I've had for a long time!

Hi TG We're seriously considering having our bathroom done in the cladding now - found a website with all sorts of designs, so definately considering that rather than tiles as it'll be cheaper in terms of labour as well if we get our usual guy in to fit it. We ordered some samples which have, apparently been sent today so I'm excited to receive them!

That bread looks good Martin!

We're moored on a canal and I'd love to be on the river! However, I guess that's cos I don't know the other side of the coin. I don't know much then, but if you are restricted to weekend boating, you are probably going to miss chances to go cruising more often than on a canal when rivers are in flood - this doesn't happen on canals and of course rivers can be in flood at different times of the year. It's a tough one but I'd say that's your main consideration. Something else though is that I imagine a canal to freeze quicker than a river so if winter cruising is important to you, then that's something else to consider too. I suspect though that canals freezing are less likely than rivers being in flood!

Hi GG We sold it! Despite some saying it would be noisy and that's why we'd end up not using it - the way we installed it meant that the vibrations were very minimal so that didn't bother us. But in comparison to the Solars, it just wasn't producing enough even in really, really heavy winds. There was only one time that I saw it even charge the batts up by 1% on the Smartgauge and other than that it wasn't really achieving much more. It was nice to Give it a go and bring out my inner geek, but I'm now of the opinion of most other users on here - stick with solar!

Wow, looks amazing Julian! Makes us one!?

Thanks for the input guys. The pic from NB WAIORU is the sort of the thing I'm looking at although as mentioned, I'd like a bit more ventilation in the slats.... Goer - this is currently what we have, although yours looks really nice, nice wood, nicely it together etc but I do find it a bit of a pain to make / unmake it every day. It's not a massive chore or anything but something with like a slide out bottom for support for the bottom half of the mattress would make it a bit better. Cheers again

Cheers mate! And thanks for the other pics ray. I have the same concerns as Paul though regarding the pull out slats meaning that ventilation is a bit restricted during the day.

Hi everyone When we first bought the boat, I thought it would be good at the time to have a cross fit bed as it would mean that we could have a 5ft wide bed. We had a mattress made from Edwardian Bedding which folds in half so is only 3 ft "long" during the day. At the moment, this mattress sits on a plywood base that's also only 3ft long (and a little under 5ft wide) and then at night we just use two plywood boards which allow the mattress to me folded down and supported. I'm wondering if any forum members also have a crossfit bed that's been professionally done or is a bit better(!) than ours and wouldn't mind posting pics of it to show how theirs works as Im looking to improve ours. Anyone?? Cheers

I've read bad reports about Dometic toilets so many times in this forum and other places, but we had a Dometic Vacuflush (cassette) installed after I spent months researching about toilets. A pump out was out of the question as it was to be fitted ourselves so needed to be easy to do for simpletons like us Anyway, after seeing many cassette toilets I was horrified that most were just a sliding draw underneath the bowl where everything went into....which you then had to look at every time you opened the blade to 'flush' everything away. Hmmm Thus to say we settled on a Dometic Vacuuflush which has also been panned by critics and users. It's a cassette but all vacuumised so absolutely no odour, no contact with the stuff (until you need to empty it) and we've had ours installed over a year and a half ago now and never had a problem with it since the day it was installed. Apparently they've stopped making them now but I think they're brilliant as a cassette option, although a bit pricey I think, as altogether for the toilet bowl, vacuum cassette platform and cassette was around a grand!

So, so jealous! The next phase in my life I want to be on an ocean in a 'real' boat!! ( fellow canal boaters, please don't beat me after that comment!)

Agree about the flat vs tilting of the panels. Our panels are tilted and I talk about the benefits here:My link I'm not saying that its the best invention or the best looking way of mounting panels (to some) but it bloody well works and can make a huge difference to the number of amps produced. Really dull here today with rain and heavy winds. At lunch time our 690w array was bringing in 8amps - enough to have the TV going, fridge, lights( ! Yep they were needed at lunch today it was so gloomy out here!) and no effect on the batteries as I knew that the ampage we were getting was covering what electrical items we had on

We have the 80amp outback. Fantastic piece of equipment and I wouldn't go with any other MPPt controller after playing around with a few different ones. Will be doing a thread about my solar array soon on the blog as its quite an interesting subject and there's a bit of info and pictures etc that I never brought to this forum last year when we installed it. Now I've more time i'll probably post about it on the blog in the next few weeks

I ave 690w of solar and when I looked today at 345 I was getting 2 amps... It was also overcast here. 45amp MPPt controller though?? The MPPT controller could be capping it as they'd need more like 80amp controller from my calculations although not sure if its different on a 24v system (I'm guessing half of what's needed on a 12v system??)

I sometimes make a soda bread which is really easy as you just add your flour and bicarbonate and give it a quick stir.... Pop itin the oven straight away. No kneading or anything like that but again, it is heavier than normal bread... Does make good toast though!

I'm so jealous. We want our bathroom redone....something like this :My link Is that marble or the PVc type stuff you've done yours in tiller girl? You do it yourself? if so, job well done!! Has the bath gone completely ? We have a full size bath at the moment with a shower over it... Which is nice as it gives u the option of a bath or shower as our tank and calorifier are both big enough to allow us several baths a week if we like, but not sure if it would be worth just having a shower and using the rest of the space for storage etc. ETA : just spotted the other posts, it is the cladding - really impressive. We had our cladding from b and q but only had limited designs in. Where can you get all these different designs from lately?