noddyboater
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Posts posted by noddyboater
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1 hour ago, MtB said:
I don't think so. A badly and inappropriately tiled roof, plastic gutters/rainwater pipes and UPVC double glazing were widely featured in 1800s architecture, surely?
Along with the fashionable "London White" interior initially made trendy in canal boats, along with laminated flooring everywhere.
It always saddens me to see the inside of places like this. I thought that ripping the fixtures and fittings from period houses was a thing of the 90's, but it's still going on now.
When will people realise that original architecture adds value to a place, and when it's gone it's gone for good.
It's often ok til you get to the kitchen, then it goes tits up with the IKEA reject bin look, apparently timeless. I'm not saying you should live in a museum, but why not employ proper craftsmen and make an effort?
Look at the Landmark Trust holiday properties to see how well it can be done.
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52 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
Should C&RT be really spending £200k on just another mile of canal that'll still 'go nowhere' ?
There are many more things requiring expenditure that would benefit a larger number of boaters.
Like dredging the rest of the navigable length for instance?
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49 minutes ago, Grassman said:
I thought both were being funded by HS2 as part of their environmental compensation (or whatever it's called). The Fradley to Handsacre part was due to begin on October 16th last year, and last for 6 months. HS2 hired a motor and butty from that hire company in Weston on Trent, and both boats have sat idle opposite Kings Bromley Wharf ever since then. So that's another £5k+ of our money that HS2 have squandered!
That would be a great business to run wouldn't it? Leave a pair of boats on the towpath for months and get paid for it.
Or alternatively, they could have been hired for a day to carry out survey work and left there pending the job starting.
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T&M having a bit done above Fradley too.
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5 minutes ago, cuthound said:
Whilst I prefer the "look" of an all porthole boat, venetian blinds are very effective at maintaining privacy on a boat with large windows.
Until some scrote puts a hammer through one..
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But the point I was making is the cooking and heating can be free with a bit of effort, which you've said in the past you do.
If the price of oil goes through the roof you're tied to one fuel.
I guess you'd just plug some electric heaters in if that happens.
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16 minutes ago, peterboat said:
When I convert my Rayburn Royal to a pressure jet system later this year, i will probably reinstall the Bubble stove, I have drained the tank of its water!!!! Its been drying out for nearly a year so it should be okay? If I am buying 28 second kero for one stove I might as well make it for 2 as its cheaper than solid fuel currently. If IanDs is correct life is going to get difficult for wood and solid fuel in the future
Why put all your eggs in one basket though?
The price of kero is bound to rise in the future, but with the Rayburn on s/fuel you have the option to go down river and stock up on free fuel to keep you warm and well fed.
Smokeless fuel and bought logs might get harder to obtain cheaply but with a bit of effort there's enough to see us lot out.
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2 hours ago, paddy r said:
Me too, for the Keppel
I have one in "as new" condition that I think will be available soon. I was going to replace my aging Epping with it but will probably restore it instead.
Just to confuse things further my Epping is actually a Classic, I believe they carried that name in the 80's before going back to the Epping. Which is why Midland Swindlers produced the Class1c of course.. Parts aren't available for the Class1c, including the cast top plate. Unlike the Epping (or Classic) the body of the stove is fabricated from mild steel.
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4 hours ago, davidg said:
Is that not a Class1c(sic), the Midland Chandlers Classic/Epping lookalike?
The firebox on them is waaaaay too big unless you put extra firebricks in.
Definitely is a Class1c, well known for the cast top plates cracking. Probably due to the over large firebox!
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David Parrot makes traditional exhausts and chimneys, top quality but has a waiting list I believe. You can contact him through his son Matt, who runs the Northwich dry dock company on the Weaver.
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1 hour ago, peterboat said:
We were at Barnby Dun, Jayne was operating the lift bridge when a lorry jumped the lights an siren! He missed the barrier on the approach but removed it on the exit! The barrier hit one of the waiting cars, all caught on dashcam. Fortunately the bridge still worked, the details were sent to CRT as the lorry driver didn't stop
We had the bridge get stuck there one Christmas eve, it was nearly down but not quite although the barriers had lifted.
We did what we could to alert motorists not to risk it but the clever tw@t who chose to ignore us ripped his sump off!
Laugh? I had to open another bottle of whisky.
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2 hours ago, IanD said:
I would have thought that if CRT had staff and equipmant available and able to do the work they would have, since it would be cheaper -- but most inhouse staff have gone nowadays, and work like this is outsourced.
It's the standard way many companies work nowadays, get "expensive" full-time employees (pensions etc.) and equipment (maintenance, replacement etc.) off the books and just pay someone else to come in and do the work as needed.
Sometimes it saves money, sometimes it doesn't -- but what it does do is make the books look better, which is what the government wants to see, so it's what CART do... 😞
Yes I realise that's how things "work" these days, but it doesn't mean it's value for money.
Get a company in to do a spot of dredging, they actually haven't got the gear so they get someone else involved who has, but they supply labour as well.
Meanwhile the CRT staff turn up and watch, staff who are capable of doing at least 70% of the job, with their own equipment. A bit of training and a day or two of maintenance on the dredger and it could have been done in house which would have saved a fortune.
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What about the huge amount of money that's wasted when maintenance actually takes place?
I was on a dredging job last year, down south. First day a massive crane arrives with a team of men, then all the kit arrives on trucks from up north - tug, hoppers, pontoon and 360 to sit on it, at a cost of many thousands (This is for 5 days work).
The job is based at a CRT yard, and guess what's sat in the water where the kit gets craned in?
A CRT tug, pair of hoppers and dredger.
Too many people are lining their pockets from the dwindling pot under the current system.
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1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:
I have met Conor several times while he has been moving boats and from what I have seen I would not hesitate to use him, just like the others boat movers I have met on this forum who all seem to take care and have to sort problems on route. I have met a couple who I wouldn't even consider.
I've only met Conner once when I watched as his dog jumped off and had a crap next to the water point.
Maybe he got around to cleaning it up later, (Conner, not the dog) but it certainly wasn't his priority at the time.
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3 hours ago, PD1964 said:
25 years ago, completely different these days.
17 years ago, once again a long time ago. Completely different now. Very little presence if any from the Marina operator, CaRT opened an office for their volunteers, now the boaters can see where their licence money is being wasted, on the towpath and on old women doing craft days.
The Sheaf Quay pub closing was really the nail in the coffin for the area. No free parking anymore for families to come and have a wander around the place.
Plans to pedestrianise the basin to the market area came to nothing so it's stayed out on a limb, circled by busy roads. Sheffield council is concentrating its bizarre plans in the "Kelham Island" area instead now, lucky us.
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37 minutes ago, PD1964 said:
How many years ago was that?
From when the basin reopened as the "Quays" until around 2005 I think.
You could walk in and ask about moorings, book passage down the locks, buy cards for the showers etc.
That was also the time of 24hr security with an office on site. Not that they did much of course but at least it was a deterrent for the local scum.
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26 minutes ago, Alway Swilby said:
I thought the facilities at Sheffield were originally provided by BW/CRT for the use of all boaters including visitors hence the CRT key on the doors.
They were indeed. CRT staff manned (womanned?) the office next door and lived in the accommodation above. Imagine such a thing now!!
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1 hour ago, mark99 said:
Be my guest Bucc. Thank you.
One forgotton Wharf that leads up a hill (Slain Hollow) to Alton Towers.
Is that near the woods with the "chained oak"?
I was trying to follow the line of the canal when we stayed at the station recently but in some places it's hard to see which side of the old track bed it's actually on.
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2 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:
A friend of mine has a washing machine installed backwards in the "useless" corner of an L shaped galley which is accessed from the other side of the bulkhead via the shower room.
Similar principle, and a very good use of space.
Sounds like a less gross variation of the toilet arrangement on a boat I recently moved. That had a lovely new electric flushing loo in the bathroom, as you'd expect. But to remove the cassette involved emptying a kitchen cupboard of pots and pans before pulling out the false back.. delightful.
Why nobody sells a cassette toilet that loads from the front is beyond me.
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6 minutes ago, magnetman said:
Looks like that one has got bridges as they have tied the fenders to them.
I hate handrails without bridges. One of the worst almost falling in episodes of my life was to do with this problem. I just don't get it.
My only head first dunking from my own boat was also due to a handrail gap incident!
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2 hours ago, Andy_B said:
Which one of them is this? (S&W)
I wouldn't say this was a Spencer, the bow and hull height to cabin don't look right. More like a Malcolm Pearson.
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1 hour ago, IanD said:
I don't have any grandchildren -- at least yet, or not that I'm aware of. Doesn't stop me thinking that dropping this whole problem into the laps of our descendents by ignoring it is a bad and selfish idea though... 😞
Though even though banning "lifestyle" woodburners to reduce nasty PM2.5 pollution makes sense for the likes of George Monbiot, it doesn't make necessarily make sense to demonise boaters, since there are probably only about 20000 woodburning stoves on boats compared to about 2 million in Islington (just an example!) houses... 😉
Same reasoning for diesel propulsion (35000 canal boats vs. 35M cars in the UK, so also about 1% of the problem), and a similar issue in that it's difficult (and expensive) for boats to go all-electric just like it is for them to stop burning wood...
But this would all need some thinking by the government to make (justifiable?) exceptions for boaters, and thinking is not something they seem to be particularly good at... 😞
Also there's the court of public opinion to worry about -- I doubt that said Islington resident who has had their cosy woddburning stove forcibly removed will be very happy to look out of their window and see canal boats still burning wood. And it's people like this (ooh, generalisations again...) who have the ear of government (or *are* the government), unlike poorly-represented and disorganised boaters... 😞
It's a minefield isn't it?
We slow cooked our dinner yesterday in the 150 yr old range, fueled by a few lumps of coal and some ash logs. The alternative was the electric oven (our 2nd in 6 yrs, hardly good for the environment), but our local power stations are run on imported gas and coal.
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I loaded the grate with Columbian doubles and dozed off last night, after laughing heartily at your ramblings about looking after the planet for my non existent grandchildren.
Imagine my horror when I awoke to this..
Is it the face of the devil himself? Or one of Ian's escaped emojis?!
Gold standard solid fuel - five stars
in General Boating
Posted
There's also the possibility of differing quality of the same fuel from sealed bags.
Yards that sell Homefire for example can have it delivered in bulk then bag and seal it on site, in printed bags.
So the nice dry, dust free bags you bought from Bob's Solid Fuel could be completely different to the same stuff from Charlie's Coal Boat.