Tony1

Wouldn't an enforcement company just pick the easy-to-access spots near towns etc? We know that CRT can send spotters down almost every mile of their waterways every week, so an enforcement company should be able to do the same. right?

I get that the enforcement companies cant easily seize a boat that is also a home, but they can still impose mooring fines on the boater, surely?

I have a suspicion that, as a cost saving measure, and to provide a more speedy and more rigorous enforcement, CRT will contract out the enforcement of mooring rules to one of those dreadful firms who manage car parks, with the power to impose penalty charges as they do on cars. Given how common overstaying is, any such firms would probably be able to make a profit from mooring fines, at least initially. They would install cheap CCTV cameras covering the town centre moorings and other busy spots, and in no time they'll be slapping penalty charges on people who overstay by an hour on a 48 hour mooring. You'll probably have a discount for prompt payment, but they'll probably use normal mail in order to give you less time to respond, and so in many cases the boater will have to pay the full £100 (or whatever it is set at) I passed some moorings between Newbold and Rugby with black signage (and white lettering), warning of £100 per day overstay charges on those moorings. Is that some sort of 'trial run' situation? I would expect to see these firms managing most of the system within a few years - well certainly the popular spots, at a minimum. These companies are more than willing to pursue a £2 toll fee through the court system until it escalates to a £500 bill (at least), with court bailiffs knocking on the door of the boater's nominated home address, attempting to seize property. There are quite a few boaters who use the address of a friend or relative, and they won't want to have bailiffs knocking there, or have letters sent there with lots of large red warnings. The days of boaters mooring for a month on a 2 day mooring will be well and truly over. By the time they start getting the penalty letters forwarded from their 'official' address to a collection point near their boat, they might already owe a thousand pounds or more in mooring fines. It will be absolute carnage. I think its been said here that EA are already planning to use these firms on the Thames? So there seems to be no legal impediment. And if there is, the commission will recommend that the impediment be removed. Interesting times lie ahead, I feel.

Well I had little trust in vehicle dealers already, but I have even less now. My basic assumption is that they wouldn't want to have a space on their showroom or forecourt being taken up by a MH that is unlikely to sell? But I guess if they sniff a potential 10k profit, they'll let the MH sit there for 4 months and then make their pitch to the seller. Given that it sold within a week of him taking ownership, I think its more than likely there were a few buyer queries over the four months, and that he rebuffed them, saying it had already been sold. How else can you explain zero offers in 4 months, followed by an immediate sale within 7 days, after the price goes up by £10k? The fact that he advised you to ask for a higher price initially is (I think) quite revealing of his intentions. It may be that is his routine business model. He rebuffs any buyers for a few months, so that the seller gets more keen for a sale and more open to a reduction, and then he makes his offer. Whether it is actual fraud might depend on whether you could find someone who had made an offer on it during the 4 months, and been told it was already sold, or not available for some other reason. Perhaps he invented some sort of imaginary surcharge on top of the screen price, to deter buyers. Perhaps he told them there was a major engine issue or damp issue that would need sorting out? Perhaps he didnt even put a price sticker on it? Whatever the truth of it, it looks highly suspicious to me.

Thanks - I do wonder if this issue isn't seen in eberpachers and the like because they operate over a wide range of voltages, whereas the cheaper units typically used in self-build campervans might require a narrower range of voltage in order to operate properly? So for those folks with those cheaper heaters, maybe it is a genuine issue?

That does seem far more likely...

As I suspected, its me being far too gullible. I'm off to join the Moonies and repent my sins. Apologies to everyone for wasting your time with this nonsense. I'll get my coat, as they say.

Thanks Nick- my sketchy takeaway from these discussions is that lithiums put out their charge at a voltage that is higher than the ideal operating range of typical diesel heaters, but it seems like its all nonsense.

Thanks- that was a short discussion! 🤣

I dont know if this is a real issue for boat CH systems,, and even if it is, I dont know how serious it is, but I thought it might be worth posting just in case, as these units are so expensive to replace. The gist of it seems to be that lithium batteries give out their charge at 13v or more, and the diesel heaters are designed to work at 12v, so over time the heater deteriorates. Coincidentally I had a problem with my Eberspacher last June, and I'm now wondering if it might have been a voltage issue (I started running the Eber from the lithiums about 2 years ago). I've seen a couple of discussions like this on motorhome and vanlife forums. Note- I'm not looking for a diagnosis on the Eber unit here, but I'm interested in whether anyone else has seen this issue on a boat when running their CH on lithiums? And do our experts think it might be better to revert to running the CH from a lead acid/starter battery? Or how about the voltage 'buck' gadget shown in the video below? And if that is the best/simplest solution, would a 10 amp model be enough, or would you need a 12 amp model like this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08BRN3R5Y/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A3FPBEEGWY9PJL&psc=1 https://thegreynomads.activeboard.com/t64679380/diesel-heater-voltage-issue As I dont have any knowledge or expertise in this I wont be replying, but if there is an issue for lithium users to consider, our experts will hopefully discuss and define it between themselves.

Apologies if I'm repeating earlier comments as I didnt read the other thread, but I think its worth giving some thought to what kind of life you would prefer to live on the boat. That will drive many decisions about the right boat to buy. Would you like to run the fridge (or fridge freezer) 24/7 all year round, or are you willing to save electricity by storing food in a cold part of the boat during winter? Do you want to be able to use a microwave, air fryer, and maybe a washing machine? Or are you happy with gas cooking, and taking your laundry to a local launderette (which can get expensive? Would you like to live on a traditional style narrowboat, with their fine hull lines, boatman's cabins and traditional engines? Or is your priority just a comfortable living space, regardless of the hull design? Do you want a cruiser stern with sitting space or a trad stern that gives more interior cabin space? Would you like a more open plan layout for a feeling of space? There are dozens of questions like this that will help determine what boat will best suit your needs, and some of these things will cost a lot of money to get into the state you want later on, if they are not suitable at the start. E.g. one thing that I think too few buyers pay attention to is the battery charging system. My engine can't be easily adapted to fit powerful alternators which would allow powerful charging of the batteries, and so when I first bought it I was having to run the engine for several hours each day to replace the charge that I used. This takes lots of fuel and adds lots of engine wear and tear. Upgrading my charging system was an expensive project, but if you want to have plenty of electricity that is an issue to think about. You might also look at how many solar panels the boat has, and how good the solar chargers are, and how many more panels could be fitted on the roof if you wanted more up there. More solar is almost always a better thing for liveaboards. A big factor is also your cruising pattern. Will you be cruising every other day, or perhaps once per week? If the former, then your engine will be creating lots of charge during the cruises, and solar might not be so critical. But if you cruise once a week, solar power will be more important to give you some charge on the days when the engine is not running. Also, will you be based in a marina on electric hookup, or do you want the boat to be fully off grid capable 365 days per year if needed? If based permanently in a marina with just the occasional short cruise in summer, then solar panels are going to be less important. These are just a few examples of the sorts of things to consider as a liveaboard. Many boaters only use their boats for a couple of months each year, and they do long summer voyages, where they go cruising on most days. The advice they give you might be more focused on that type of cruising pattern, and that might not always be the best advice for a full time 365 liveaboard as you want to be. When taking advice from liveaboards, they can also vary wildly. There are some single blokes who live on boats almost as if they were camping in a steel tent, and they will give you very different advice to what you might hear from me. So you need to have an idea what kind of life you want to live on the boat. If you dont intend to use a car, you might want to consider where a bike might be stored, and how easy it is to get on and off the boat. Some fat tyred ebikes weigh up to 30kg, and thats an awkward load to be hoiking across onto the bank if its a very muddy, slippy place (and most of the places I've visited this winter have been muddy to some extent). There are even silly minor things like having enough space near the doorway for several pairs of shoes to be pushed out of the way, so that in winter you can kick off your mud-clogged boots or wellies as you step aboard, and then step into a pair of slippers so as not to walk the mud all the way down the boat. A coal (or diesel) stove plus a diesel CH system are things I personally regard as essential to be comfortable in all seasons, and if you like a light airy interior, you might want to look for a boat with larger windows, or at least not small windows. Why not visit Whilton marina (or somewhere you can view a few boats), and step inside a few with different lengths and layouts- that might help to steer your thoughts a bit. Also, dont go below 57ft unless its for a good reason. Storage space is a constant challenge for me on a 50ft boat, and it can get frustrating at times when you cant find things without emptying out half of the boat.

I knew it. I bloody knew it.

My last inspection was in Oct 2023, and as a conscientious citizen I did direct the examiner towards my lithium batteries. To be fair, this happened after he said "are those lithium batteries?" He passed the boat, saying that there were no specific rules for lithiums at the moment, although he was expecting some rules before too long. And I did mention to the broker guy that the BSS pass included the lithiums, but he still did not want to get involved in putting the boat on brokerage. The real question, as I've said, is how many other brokers hold the same view? As Nick said above, part of the problem is that BSS are taking so long to form their rules that by the time they decide what the rules are, half the boats on the system will have lithiums, and a large number of them may be immediately non-compliant. Insurers dont seem all that confident in setting requirements, and it seems like some brokers are now getting over-cautious about lithiums too. I beleive the technical term for what BSS are creating, by their delay and indecision on this issue, is a sh*t show. But God forbid that a UK regulator should have to make a speedy decision. Better to cause chaos, huge expense, and confusion in the related industries, rather than miss a dot from the top of an "i".

I think an argument could be made that new batteries doesnt warrant a PCA, but with lithiums its more than that surely? For many people it will involve a B2B charger and using a lead acid as a parallel 'source' battery. Does that warrant a PCA? Again, its opinion - and maybe Whilton are being over cautious? Maybe they've been asked by some buyer's surveyors to provide PCAs for lithiums in recent times? (Especially if the boats have been more expensive ones). Is it only Whilton asking about this, or is there a wider trend among brokers?

I did suspect some such shenanigans might be afoot, and I half expected some sort of last minute 'rescue' offer - but he was categorical. If there was no PCA for the lithiums, they couldn't put it on brokerage, and that was that. When I said that my setup allowed me to just drop in some lead acids to replace the lithiums, he looked relieved and suggested I should do exactly that. So it probably wasnt a negotiating tactic. Ssshhh, Mr M! Don't tell everyone. I wasnt planning to sell for another four or five years, but the recent commission has got me worried about boat prices in 2026 and beyond.

I think you're probably right. It might be that my boat has a chance of selling for say 50k, and at that price maybe the buyers surveyor will pay a bit more attention, and ask for all the paperwork? I honestly dont know, which is why I mentioned it in the first place. But he did seem to think the certificate was going to be important.

In terms of the RCD, I would like to know if this is just Whilton asking for it, or if it is just boats of say 50k or over that they worry about, or whether there is a wider trend among brokers. Certainly if I was spending more than 40k on a boat now, I would at least ask if there was any RCD paperwork, and then make a decision.

I find the whole attitude of BSS and others to lithiums to be incredibly frustrating. If you add lithium to a motorhome, for example, there is no specific insurance or regulatory involvement at all, despite so many of the systems being very similar in principle, and despite your vehicle hurtling around the motorways at 60mph or more. But what I will not dispute is that a lithium install is a significant change in the electrics. And as Alan has said, the rule about getting big electrical changes assessed has been around for some time, so its not an anti-lithium thing (as I believe normally see from regulators). Fortunately, when it comes to selling, the solution can be fairly cheap and easy, but its a shame that new owners wont gain the fantastic benefits of a powerful electrical supply.

I've no idea about their business practices, although I do share some of your concerns there after seeing the offer they made to the guy next door. But the real question is this- if they are now asking for this sort of paperwork, wont the other brokers also be asking for it? Hopefully my assumption is totally wrong - hopefully someone with a recent broker selling experience can comment on this?

No Rob, he was very clear. He said Whilton would not put my boat on brokerage OR buy it, if I didnt have an assessment done for my lithium install. He wasnt quite so categorical about the RCD paperwork, but my impression was that things would be difficult without it.

I'm kind of assuming that if Whilton are asking for any given paperwork as part of a sale, most of the other brokers will be too? You can still sell privately as I said above, but I suspect your market of buyers will be smaller. In fact I bought my boat privately, but I was quite worried in case there was some kind of clever financial stitch up going on that I wasnt aware of.

The chap moored next to me had a valuer visit from Whilton today to make an offer on his boat, and I got talking to the buyer afterwards about how lithium batteries might affect a used boat's price. It wasnt an entirely theoretical discussion, as I have considered whether to sell next year, and go travelling Europe in a motorhome for a few years. I said I was asking because I had lithium batteries, and the chap asked if I'd had an assessment of my electrics done after the lithium install. I think he called it a HPA, or HCA, but I cant quite recall. @Alan de Enfield will know the acronym - in fact Alan has quoted it several times as I recall. The valuer said that if I didnt have this assessment done, Whilton wouldn't be able to accept the boat for brokerage. He was also very insistent on my having a certificate of conformity for the boat itself (I think thats the RCD paperwork?). I recall that lots of folks have spoken on this forum about this sort of paperwork, and some have said they didnt think these the regulations were a major concern. And when you have no plans to sell, I can understand they seem a rather distant issue. But I have to say that after speaking to this guy, and hearing his views on the assessment for electrical changes in particular, my opinion has changed. A private sale need not involve any of this paperwork of course, but when a boat's value is say 50-100k or more, my exchange with the Whilton guy seems to indicate that sellers need to give at least some thought to addressing these issues. My own solution, if I do sell, will be to replace the lithiums with lead acids at a cost of perhaps £400. But even that may not be enough, and if I have to return the boat to its original electrical state I may have to remove the victron B2Bs, and buy a charger that will charge lead acids directly from the alternators.

Tbh, I dont mind there being safety rules in case stupid people like me dont realise the risks of burning coal/gas in a small space. The CO detector rule probably saved my life when my boat was filling up with fumes at 3am. My problem with BSS is that like typical English regulators, they seem to just keep pushing and pushing the scope of their remit, until we get a boat failing because the fuel cap slightly increases the probability of petrol being put in the diesel tank. Or the nonsense about LiFeP04 batteries, and needing a whole new document just to cover them.

I wouldn't dispute the validity of your general point, but I still go back to my example - why is anyone at a significant risk if my narrowboat is mistakenly filled with petrol instead of diesel? I think sometimes common sense IS actually correct, and sometimes rules that appear to be spurious ARE actually spurious. That said, I'm sure there are risks that only experts are able to identify or analyse, at least initially. But just because that is the case, I am not prepared to swallow every single judgement they make without evaluating it with the insight of the well informed people on this forum. And when the well-informed laymen on this site evaluate a given risk and they say that BSS are overestimating the dangers (ie their reportedly fearful attitude to LiFeP04 batteries), then I think they do risk losing their credibility. And then they risk people not taking the real risks seriously.

I am not convinced by the BSS reasoning in this example. For one thing, if you were in a frame of mind to commit suicide, you would simply ignore the CO alarm beeping. The other issue is that a beeping noise heard from inside a moored boat would be likely to attract passers by and nearby boaters to take a closer look, and thus put them at risk of breathing in CO. But even if we take the far more likely scenario that a boater was to leave a SF stove running for a couple of hours whilst they went shopping, and a blocked flue caused a CO build up in the boat: Is it really possible that a dangerous dose of CO could drift along the towpath and enter an open window on a nearby boat? This is after all the same CO that is coing out of the chimney just a foot above the roof of the boat, right? But when it seeps out of the vents, or an open window perhaps, it is suddenly a deadly danger to nearby boats? This is a complete layman's viewpoint, obviously- but to me that scenario does not present a greatly increased risk to nearby boat? To me it smacks of BSS trying to find excuses and build a case to implement a rule that they thought would be of benefit to the boater themselves. But why not just say so? Are there some rules or laws that prevent them from mandating CO detectors for the boaters own safety, so they had to concoct a thin case about risks to other boaters? Look, either way I'm bloody glad they did, because if they hadn't I would not be here today. But why would they not mandate such a safety rule for the direct protection of the boater themselves?