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beatnik

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  1. I'm on the canal in London and we're being plagued by annoying insects. They sound rather like crickets, but we can never spot them. They just chirrup chirrup chirrup ALL NIGHT LONG. So noisy! A cacophony of irritating insect sounds. We heard one or two a few weeks ago, but they're obviously breeding and there are more and more. It's hard to sleep. Some seem to live on the pontoon, but we can hear themm on the other, pontoonless, side as well. DRIVING ME CRAZY... Any idea what they could be?
  2. Did you find something else that was good and also tiny?
  3. Let us know how you get on. We're considering one for a small room on the boat and would like to see what it looks like in situ.
  4. £12.93 per bag in London. Quite the London-tax on ecoal. And they have a depot in Enfield so it isn't like they have very far to go to deliver it!
  5. Hi, another question. We have a bow thruster tube fitted, but not yet the bow thrusters (and they are getting more and more unlikely). How do we go about blackening it? We couldn't possibly reach the whole way to scrape it back. We could use a long roller brush, but the scraping is an issue. Would it be best to jsut power wash through it and use bitumen inisde the tube (even though we'll have epoxy on the rest of the hull)? Sooo regret having the tube fitted (and doubting our boating skills, thinking we'd need thrusters eventually).
  6. Thanks everyone. I think now we're going to jet wash it and then angle grind it back to the bare steel. With 2-pack lasting at least 5 years, it will be much cheaper than us hauling it out of the water every two years (London cranage prices!) Now, I'm just concerned about how to go about doing it on a hardstanding without cover. This wet weather isn't going to make it easy to fully cure. What do people do about the rain? Put tarpaulins around the boat?
  7. We're planning to do our own blacking (first time). We bought the sailaway two years ago (Liverpool Boats), and so I'm not sure what they originally blacked it with. But, we wanted to use 2pack epoxy anyway (Hempadur 45143) so that it will last longer. Whatever they've used is pretty thin now as we can see lots of rust patches, but do you think it would still need grit blasting or should pressure washing plus scrapers and electric wire brushes do the job to get it off? We can't grit blast it so I'm just worried about buying 2-pack epoxy and then realising that we can't manually get back to the bare steel and needing to instead use bitumen. Anyone done similar with a Liverpool Boats hull?
  8. Thanks everyone for your replies. Sounds like the best place as it's the cheapest and good reviews. It's a bit concerning to blacken uncovered as it could rain though!
  9. Yes, we're going to supply our own tools and blacking. Uncovered is certainly a worry though. Anyone else blackened there? I'm curious about them because others who post on here that live nearby mention using other places, but not Hallingbury.
  10. Yes, all prices are for a week. I'm just worried that there's a problem with Hallingbury as it is so much cheaper. Anybody have any experience?
  11. We are about to DIY blacken our boat for the first time. The prices for cranage and dry dock vary quite a bit Springfield Crane £550 Lee Valley Crane £441 Shepperton Crane £545 Braunston Dry Dock £584 Hallingbury Mill Dry Dock £200 Obviously I'd want to go with Hallingbury, but is there any reason that it is so much cheaper? And what are the pros and cons of Dry Dock vs Crane? Thanks
  12. Aha! For anyone else that is interested, it is 55% off of the Trading License rate if you will earn less than £64k per year. For me (58" boat), that makes it £866 so only £190 more than a normal Canals and Rivers license. Much more viable. Thanks Bottle!
  13. I always thought it would be nice to one day sell from our boat as we live on a very busy towpath. A friend in Cornwall sells paintings and cards on the beach every year and does very well out of it. I'd love to do something similar from the boat (seeing as people are always peering in the windows anyway!) But I've just looked on BW's site and the difference in price for a Trading Licence is £900 a year more than a normal licence taking it up to £1,574 per year (58 foot liveaboard). That surely puts it out of reach for most artists, potters, fender-makers, jam-makers... who just want to sell casually and not as a full-time business. You'd have to sell a lot of jam to make back that £900. Shame. You can sell honey and veg from your farmhouse without paying extra coucil tax. The towpath woud be quite nice if there were more artists and crafters selling their wares from home. Edit: But BW promote quirky small businesses on boats! Waterscape: Boat Businesses
  14. We can't get under the stove without dismantling the hearth or the stove. Do you think it would be okay to screw L-shaped brackets to each foot?
  15. How do you fix down a Morso Squirrel stove so that it complys with the BSS? The feet, as far as I can see, can't easily be bolted down because they are hollow 'half moon' sort of shapes with no bottom. How did you fix yours so that: Where a manual check is not practicable, such as with solid fuel and oil-fired stoves, check the condition of securing systems. Non-portable appliances must be incapable of unintended movement in any direction. Securing systems must be installed on all non-portable appliances and securing systems and their fixing points must be of suitable strength It is so heavy that I can't see it moving unless we are upside down... but have to go through the motions of fixing it so as to comply.
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