peterboat
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Posts posted by peterboat
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2 hours ago, PD1964 said:
There is another 70ft in the area, moored at Tulley’s Rotherham, “The West Wing” maybe @peterboat knows which way it got there?
Yes as they haven’t got a boat, like a lot on here and think they know the canals by watching YouTube on THE Internet 👍😂
Its Jonathan's he bought it from castleford area, its been back to Castleford for blacking same time as myself
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9 minutes ago, magnetman said:
Also if you get quite a long narrow boat it is worth considering having two fires on it. I'm a bit of a fan of coal and wood for heating. Actually more than a bit - it is essential.
Its worth discussing this with the others as it does come up as a significant topic when living on boats. Burning these fuels does cause some issues around dirt and dust.
You can do it with diesel heaters obviously. Mooring means electric but that is not a nice way to heat a boat and very expensive.
At the end of the day it is the lavatory and the winter which defines whether people can deal with living on a narrow boat.
You sound like you can live ok in a shed which I am sure most of us gentlemen are happy with but you need to go through all of this with the ladies.
Also room for things like washing machine and tumble drier is worth considering.
I don't like domestic appliances in general but my inner London residential boat does have a very small tumble drier. To me this is the one appliance you really do want to have if you are on mains electric. One can wash one's clothes weekly in the sink with a dolly and bio powder but drying is a nightmare. Do like my mini tumble drier.
You are bonkers Andrew! I have a automatic washing machine quick and does a great job, in winter clothes dry fast near the Rayburn, summer they drifts in the wheelhouse or outside
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6 hours ago, mrsmelly said:
You another one, you still aint retired, you still go an help out at the garage 😀
Oh and I have been in receipt of a pension since 1989
I do because I still have an interest in it, plus it means I can do all the work I want on my vehicles in there, no expensive garage bills for me
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5 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
I only did 25 years and retired at 45
Jealose I retired at 57, but been drawing my pension since 1996
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1 hour ago, PD1964 said:
With regards to toilets, Pumpout facilities are getting few and far between and are hit and miss if working, prices are going up to £20-£25, with 3x on board you can quickly fill the tank. Forget about composting, once again with 3x people will fill quickly and getting rid has become an issue. People are now removing them from their boats. Your best off with a Thetford cassette with 3x cassettes, far easier to dispose of. The Thetford C263 with ceramic bowl seams to be the popular choice for women.
Lots of threads on here about toilets, use the search engine, saves a lot of time and it’s normally the same answers/responses.
Composting toilets might be unpopular on here, but of Facebook groups they are the toilet of choice! It's for the reasons you are saying facilities are becoming increasingly difficult to find, so the composting toilets can outlast them.
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16 hours ago, M_JG said:
Having actually had a 60ft boat on the Northern system I would say 57ft-58ft is the max. I personally would go with.
60ft just makes boating unnecessarily challenging. Even the 5 and 3 rises require extra care/working around the gates, looking back we would definitely have had a slightly shorter boat had we known we would have ended up being based up North.
I agree Martin my first boat was 60 ft with a 2 foot lift up buffer on the stern! Locks up here could be fun and wet!
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1 minute ago, mightyslay3r said:
thanks Peter... but we are sticking with the narrow so can adventure when required, i think a wide wouldn't let us venture to where we wanted eventually.
having said that, i really appreciate all the comments
You are asking questions first which is the right way of doing things. Many years ago I bought my boat fortunately it was a few months before I could actually collect it as it was a share boat and still in use, this gave me time to find moorings and learn more about boating
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On 27/02/2023 at 10:08, MtB said:
Never mind that, how about THIS for taking 1970s chauvinism to a whole new level?
Curious error in the text too. I think the right word would have been "consign", rather than "confine".
Probably an error by the bloke's secretary...
To be honest they handled terribly so it was probably a wise idea
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17 minutes ago, Lily Rose said:
I do find these "sell house to buy a boat" threads, which crop up regularly, make for interesting reading. I don't normally comment in them but I stuck my oar in, in good faith, on this one. It seems you didn't like what I had to say, which is fair enough, but at least you haven't gone off in a huff, which is what often happens when people receive opinions they don't like on here. It seems you have already made your decision so I wish you well and hope it all works out for you and your family.
Clearly there is much you need to learn about buying a boat to live on and then making a success of it so hopefully you will stick around to take the views of people who are doing it now and those who have done it successfully in the past. Some will have found it didn't work out for them but they are unlikely to be on here to tell their story.
I doubt if I will have anything useful to add from now on as my boating experience is totally different to yours so I'll probably bow out although I will continue to follow this thread with interest.
Good luck with it all.
Boating forums on Facebook are the same, often they hve already ordered the boat to discover no moorings where they want to be, or to expensive. Often they have bought a widebeam but never been in a boat other than at Crick! I have had a couple on my boat for a cruise that were in that boat literally and were dismayed when I told them that they couldnt have a boat on that canal as it was a narrow canal. I helped a young Lady on here purchase a widebeam new, and she did things right, nice mooring near London and sailed her boat down south to a boatyard had it lifted onto a lorry , dropped in as soon as she could and cruised to he destination, some get it right some get it wrong its their choice all we can do is provide help, positive help.
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43 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
Yes - we've had the best of it, it peaked during the 90's but has gradually worsened over the last 20 years as there has been a gradual decline in 'good times' as the 'snowball gently rolling down the mountain' becomes an avalanche of cost increases and falling standards, closures and lack of water.
Ian tipos of tipos marine, he maintains some turbines on the Don, they are all on summer settings already! We need a lot more rain so that boating can happen this summer
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4 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:
Judging by Alan's quote from Nigel Moore above (and Nigel knew the law better than anyone else, I think, ever has), then there is no reason CRT can't bring in other licences. A standard licence for home moorers, and a CC licence for those without.
As far as charging for moorings goes, they can do that, too, as we know. Long term and short term, as well as changing the legal mooring periods on a whim. Llangollen has been a success, and so few complained that it's set a precedent for all city and town moorings - there just has to be enough demand to cover the collection cost.
I can indeed see some changes coming. Isn't half going to mess their plans up though if they run out of water every summer from now on.
Been good though, hasn't it?! I stumbled onto all this boating lark purely by accident. Been thirty years of pure gold (with the odd hiccup, admittedly!).
Over 20 for me, my first canal holiday was early 80s in a friend's boat, it was on the L & L loved it from the first moment of turning the key
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3 hours ago, Goliath said:
I can’t be arsed with it anymore. Too many made up figures and invented scenarios.
Most missing the point there is no CC license.
👏
Some people have to much money Arthur and no realistic idea of what their ideas will really lead to
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Just now, cuthound said:
I find that my Webasto Thermotop C costs about twice as much to run per hour than the oil drip stove, but heats all of the boat rather than most of it (the heat from the stove never reaches the bedroom at the stern) and can be programmed to come on at set times.
My bubble is similar very efficient especially as it can do radiators as well.
6 minutes ago, IanD said:A diesel CH system costs the same to run as a drip stove, but doesn't give you a stove inside the boat -- which some would consider an advantage but others would not 😉
The standard ones used in boats (Webasto and Eberspacher) have a bit of a reputation for being unreliable and expensive to maintain, they're really adapted truck cab heaters not intended for 24/7 heating duty, and not keen on being cycled on and off all the time -- thought the newer ones are supposedly better for this and can throttle down instead. They can be noisy.
Pressure-jet boilers like the Hurricane (and others which may be better) are more akin to domestic oil-fired boilers and are designed for continuous duty, but they're considerably more expensive and usually a bit big for narrowboats (7kW or above) -- but then they just cycle on and off as required, like in a house. Few boaters have these because of the cost.
I am just buying a esse oil fired range cooker with boiler, pressure jet version
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14 minutes ago, magnetman said:
There could be some money from government for the CRT
State support for low cost housing by using universal credit to pay for things like moorings and licences seems interesting. This can work hand in hand with large increases for things like 'continuous cruiser licences'.
If the system needs money and the only people who need working infrastructure are boat owners then it is a bit of a no brainer to use them as a funding source.
It is basically too cheap and has been for many many yars.
Most of the boats on our moorings are plastic, if the costs went up to much they would be gone and the moorings with them
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2 minutes ago, magnetman said:
I put a Rayburn MF in a narrow boat some yars ago and had it for 4 winters. Used to burn Homefire hexagons on it and it was fine. 2 radiators and a hot water tank all toasty.
The problem is as you know the briquettes of today aren't the same as yesteryear
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12 hours ago, magnetman said:
At one time CPL were doing bags of briquettes made entirely from olive stones. Quite an interesting fuel.
Not sure if they still do it or if the available product has gone into the e coal instead.
They do Jayne burns them, we bought some really cheap from Tesco's so took the lot as no more were in the offing, still have enough to see the winter out.
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On 25/02/2023 at 23:36, booke23 said:
Properly seasoned or kiln dried logs are nice to use but only have a third of the calorific value of smokeless coal so they don't cut in in the depths of winter with regard to heat output or value for money.
As for which smokeless coal is best.....I've been conducting an experiment this winter using as many different types of smokeless coal I can find. I've tried eleven types so far and I'd say you need to experiment. Some types are very good when you run the stove hard (vents open) but the same coal may not be so good when you close the vents (during a mild spell or overnight), or vice versa....some are great at staying in over night but their heat output might not be so good when run hard.
As everyone's stove installation situation is different, you might find you run the stove hard a lot, or if your installation is in a small space you might be running it closed a lot of the time, hence the right coal for one person might not be the right person for the other person!
Having said all that, of all the coal I have tried, nearly all types were perfectly useable in my multifuel stove run hard or closed up. The exceptions were:Pure Anthracite.....it can only be run very hot with lots of air, won't stay in at all, just goes out. But is wonderfully clean to burn and handle.
Supertherm......I found it dirty and awful, poor heat output and very bad value.
Everything else worked fine with some working better than others. On the high street, Brazier from Home bargains is the best value, but Ecoal (from B&Q or Wickes) is much better and among the best smokeless coal I've tested in all respects.
I burn anthracite on my Rayburn royal, it needs very little air because the cooker is designed to burn that fuel, I can fill the firebox close it down and it can still be in 36 hours later. Not all stoves are created equal. House coal will block it solid in a few days requiring a full strip and clean. Smokeless briquettes produce little heat in it at all, not enough to heat radiators anyway. Well seasoned hardwood will heat radiators and can stay in overnight, however it has to be burned hard to stay clean and produce that heat.
I use anthracite for overnight staying in then wood in the day unless the boat is going to be empty then its more anthracite to keep it in
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46 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
But please explain to the newbie how he can get 5Kw of solar on his chosen 55 foot NARROWBOAT !
He can't I was showing him how much it required to do it, as well as pointing out how expensive commercial electric can be
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4 minutes ago, mightyslay3r said:
mmm, true... but i shouldnt have to hook up to electric through the summer months (7 months) which should be a massive saving compared to mains electric in a house i would have thought...
Not really marinas are commercial electric which often cost more than domestic, they also have a green levy to contend with if usage is to high
3 minutes ago, cheesegas said:To expand on this - 1kw of solar and 200ah of lithium batteries will provide all the power you need from mid Feb until November. It'll also be enough to use an electric kettle and toaster for probably 5 of those 8 months; I've just dusted off mine.
(when I say all the power you need, that's living in off grid mode - no TV, Xbox, desktop PC, electric heaters etc. My usage in winter is around 1kwh a day.)
However, the solar yields in winter are low, even if your marina has no trees or building blocking sunlight. You'll need to plug into the marina power for the remaining 4 months as Alan said, like it or not. From 1kw of panels, you'll average 0.3-0.4kwh per day; compare this to summer, when it's nearer 10 times that.
5kws does all my needs from late January until early December
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11 minutes ago, MartynG said:
Well C&RT are already responsible for the Tidal Trent which is filled with water each tide, twice a day
C&RT pump water to to up the Fossdyke at Torksey. C&RT also pump from the Trent into the Chesterfield Canal.
So C&RT already have access to one of the main Rivers in England.
But pumping river water over long distances is not viable
But pumping over long distances isn't feasible .
They pump from the Don into the Sheffield canal, its unreliable and expensive
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50 minutes ago, mightyslay3r said:
thats good if you are working full time i guess...
but when housing benefit & council tax benefit are thrown in to the mix... i dont think it will work bud...
but i'll have a look...
thank you very much
My better half works for DWP which is why she says check out the site ok
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3 hours ago, mightyslay3r said:
there is another point i need to cover... due to my daughter being on DWP benefits.. ESA & PIP... how do we go on about that for a postal address? other than a marina....
can she use my sons house address for her post? or is that going to affect benefits etc... i really need to look in to all of this....
Have a look on Gov.uk you can have a correspondence address ie your sons address.
Think of homeless people that get benefits ok
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14 hours ago, mightyslay3r said:
true David.. i wasnt thinking of the length because its too long... was thinking more of getting it through every lock in the country.. because that is our aim...
i think 60 foot would be long enough... we can always refit a little once we have it & work out where everything can go...
oorraaaahh for the minimalist life style ah ah
but i do understand where you are coming from... 10 extra feet would be awesome, but not practical for what we want to accomplish 😉
I started out over 20 years ago, bought an ex share boat at 60 foot. Found a marina linear moorings no electric at the end where I was, so solar panels bought, bigger and better battery bank bought and installed bliss for 9 months of the year. I did a run around the England in 2008 and enjoyed it, however I realised that I was happy on the northern canals so bought a widebeam it's much more comfortable, and a far nicer place to live than a narrowboat especially up north. Ex hire and share boats will give you the required bedroom space so think about those? Would I ever go back to a narrowboat? I doubt it as it's my home, things are changing on the cut not for the better I can assure, think long and hard before you take this life on and definitely try a cold time holiday before buying
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1 minute ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:
Whilst information is available on the general process of determination, I don't think this extends to individual cases.
I do remember a complaint being made to the Charity Commission in 2013(?) that CRT was a "creature of government" and should not have been registered as a charity. Whilst the name of the complainant was redacted, I think it the late Nigel Moore.
More than likely I would think, it's such a shame he died early he had a depth of knowledge that is missing today
Hi All
in New to Boating?
Posted
The bad news is lots of liners have electric motors apparently it's the most reliable and efficient way of doing it
https://www.eeworldonline.com/the-ocean-liner-ss-united-states-part-4-cruise-ship-successor-faq/
Novel this, they really just pull onto a rapid charger and charge up, the problem with the genny is earths and the van might not charge