Bee

Yeah, all of that plus the fact that peoples expectations of boating now include everything that you would find in a house. (The following has an Old Git Alert) - When I was first on a boat we had Tilly lamps, a black and white tv and a heating system that worked without electric pumps. We had to lug a damn great 12 v battery up the towpath and charge it off the car engine as the boat dynamo put out about 2 amps, Were we happy? No- my wife left (but another one with lower standards moved in) Ah the good old days.

Is it an 'Integral' tank? i.e. if you make a hole in the bottom does the canal come in? They used to be pretty common but I don't think they are now. Its quite important that it doesn't rust through as you will be drinking the canal - a Bad Thing, so it could do with cleaning, drying and painting even if you put in a liner. If its not 'integral' I'd be tempted to chuck it out and put in a plastic tank. We have a window cleaners tank (Just google it, lots of sizes) but they are all squarish so won't fit in a triangular space unless you have a long front deck and its not full of stuff underneath. To be honest there are plenty of waterpoints on the UK system so huge capacity for most boats is not vital. That pic. of the 20 year old tank is 'orrible. Where did all that mud stuff come from? even an ancient old galvanised loft tank is not full of mud.

That is a mixture of diesel and water. It all needs to come out and be disposed of. What Bizzard says is right, you or they need to check, maybe endoscope?, and get rid of the sludge and rust in the tank, If its at all possible it would be good to pressure test the tank to make sure it has not rusted through somewhere. You are not alone, I scrapped a large amount of expensive road diesel a couple of years ago in my boat and it really was a right pain. It shouldn't damage the engine as it simply will not run on that stuff . Mention all of this to your surveyor and trust him to check the tank and the engine. It doesn't write the boat off, there are lots of boats with horrible things in their fuel tanks but their owners don't know (yet)

We have a sort of collie cross who we rehomed - home visit, check the garden etc. and she has a brilliant time at home but the 3 months a year when we are on the boat she is not quite so relaxed, getting on and off the boat is awkward, she hates pontoon moorings with slatted wood walkways and the heat is a problem (boat is in France) so some dogs, in some situations might not fit with boat life quite so well.

Yes, you can live on a student level income, when I had a student income life was just full of sex'n'drugs'nrock'n roll. - so just be careful!

Personally I wouldn't bother, I don't think there will be any damp behind there, you may get condensation on the front surface where the air is warm and damp but unless there are window leaks etc the back should be dry.

The hardwood sleepers were probably eucalyptus (Jarrah) v. hard and dense and they do polish or varnish up to a nice mahogany colour, sometimes available as recycled boards from old piers and buildings.

Had a car engine fire once. Used a dry powder extinguisher, what a hell of a mess, carburettor pretty much unusable afterwards. Used Co2 quite often in foundries mostly on leaked hydraulic oil in pits under machines and never had any problems, we have 2 CO2 extinguishers on the boat and they will always be the first choice if there is time to choose.

On our boat we only use gas for cooking, one gas pipe from the gas locker to the cooker. Cooker has flame failure shut off. Pretty safe. Or you could have hundreds of amps in batteries, hydrogen gas given off when charging, huge expense and lots of heavy cables that could possibly chafe through. We always turn the electric off when we leave the boat even if its just walking the dog for 10 minutes. I am much more fearful of electrical fires than gas leaks and I would reckon that there are more car, house and boat fires caused by electrical fires than gas (And don't even mention solid fuel stoves) Anyway, you could always turn the gas off at the bottle overnight.

And saints days, bank holidays, bastille day, most of July. Oh and lunch can start at 10.30 and finish at random times. We carry a couple of tins of Spam and some horrible sterilised milk, that way you can guarantee it'll still be in the cupboard 'cos nobody will ever eat it except as a last resort.

I used Jotun 87 on my boat this spring, All seems OK, Some of the paint with no hardener added to it found its way onto the handles of a couple of scrapers - its still sticky. It needs a really good stir to mix it properly.

Building narrowboat hulls is very competitive, profit margins are tight, they are not 'commercial' craft, just leisure things really, narrowboats are immensely strong and lives are not usually at stake, they are more than adequate for the job they are built for and the bit that we worry about - corrosion - is really up to us to address. Keep the inside surface dry and hopefully painted and the outside painted with proper paint and drag the thing out every 3 or 4 years and check it over and most problems will disappear.

Bah! That's nothing. I used to bung my boiler suit in a bucket next to my neighbours Lombardini diesel when he ran it. Made the buttons fall off but cleaned it a treat.