booke23

I installed a C263 CS in my boat a couple of weeks ago. It too had 4 electrical connections. You only need to wire up the red (positive) and black (negative) wire. The Grey and Purple wire I think are used for a remote pump relay, which I assume are required on some caravans and motorhomes which have switch activated pumps. It's possible some narrowboats would have this setup, but I've never seen it.

Probably is the last time it looked that good, but that makes the advert even worse. A number of years ago I sold a car on Autotrader. It was in fairly good condition albeit it was a 10 year old car with the usual wear and tear you'd expect. I washed it and drove it to a nice spot in the countryside just before sunset and took my good camera with me. I took a series of photos which turned out stunning, almost like you'd see in a magazine.....it looked really good and the phone went crazy when the ad went live. But when people came to view they seemed a bit disappointed and the first few people to view didn't buy which I thought strange as I've sold a few cars in my time. Then I realised......there was a disconnect between the photos and reality, the car just didn't look as good in the flesh. It did sell eventually but I learnt my lesson. So this boat really needs to look like it does in these photos otherwise viewers will just be disappointed and will walk.....that's if they get any viewings at that price.

It always amazes me the lack of effort people go to when advertising things.....Especially expensive narrowboats, then moan when they don't get any interest. Considering they can't be bothered spending 5 minutes taking new photos I bet they didn't write the lengthy description on Apollo Duck - that's probably lifted from the RB brochure they had from the purchase.

In an ideal world this is what you would do. Certainly in my case a total reconfiguration of my bathroom and shower would have made for a perfect cassette toilet installation. But done properly that's a big job, and I really couldn't be bothered with it!

They are very well looked after these days. Working life would be virtually the whole life of the horse, as they don't have to do anything other than walk on occasional outings on passenger trip boats. They probably get the whole winter off too. I imagine all operators of horse drawn trip boats do it for the love of it.....so the horses have a great life. Some of them were treated very badly back in the days of working boats, on the go from dawn to dusk and looked after on a shoestring budget.......Especially as the canals became less profitable, and the boatmen had real trouble making a living.

Agreed. I believe Leesan or Dometic did or does make a toilet with a remote cassette that can be installed anywhere, but I have no experience of these.

Did you phrase this questioning in a rude or condescending manner? Or to put it another way, with the benefit of hindsight could you have phrased any of your conversations with the broker better? I'm not suggesting you did this, I'm just trying to work out why the broker would say you behaved disgustingly. To be honest if they refuse to sell a boat to you and refund your deposit, I'm not sure what realistic recourse you have.

Agreed. I bought a boat a few months ago and I got a survey. It most certainly is the norm......I know this as all the highly recommended surveyors were booked solid for 10 weeks back in June and I imagine they still are now. I dealt with lots of brokers when I was searching. Unfortunately there is a massive difference between the best and worst and I fear you are dealing with one at the lower end of the scale.

A very good example in the use of a little plinth to get the level where you want it. In an ideal world you wouldn't really want to have the cassette accessed through a wardrobe. I'd be concerned over time, that the clothes in there would all start to smell of blue (or worse) A corridor access door like this would be ideal......I'm guessing @_Catherine_ just doesn't have any other options.

I'm not at the boat at the moment so can't give you the exact dimensions of the cassette. I found this Pic on the internet. It's a bit more than 205mm high when you take into account the orange discharge pipe....perhaps 245mm high. The hole I cut in the wall to access it was approx 35cm wide and 30cm high. Looking at your pictures that plinth is a bit of a nuisance. All the pipework and wiring can easily be dealt with though. If it was me I'd be thinking of either cutting the plinth out and getting a bigger wardrobe door (£££) or more likely I'd carefully cut the bit of the plinth out needed for access and use flush fit hinges to turn it into a small door that you could open when you wanted to get the cassette out. Also measure the width of the hole at the widest point where the top of the current toilet is....you want it to be 41.7cm or less as this is the width of the 'cistern' on a Thetford C263. Not a huge problem if the hole is bigger than that, but will just mean extra woodwork to plug the gap!

True. According to my trusty TV transmitter phone app, most of these repeater transmitters are very low power (some only a couple of watts) and my app nearly always recommends I should tune into a much more powerful transmitter a bit further away, so in practice I hardly ever have to twist the aerial.

Funny I have just installed a Thetford C263 in my boat to replace the compost toilet fitted by the previous owner (don't consider a composting toilet!) @The Happy Nomad is correct.....the cassette is perhaps 4cm above the floor on the C263. Here's a pic: It could be mounted on a 6cm raised floor to give you the required 10cm to clear your plinth. The only snag is even on the floor the C263 ceramic is a bit on the high side compared to most toilets.....another 6cm might have your legs dangling! If you did go down this route I'd recommend you look at different models and get the lowest seat height you can find.....for instance the C262 has a seat height of 46.7cm compared to the 47.9cm on the C263 ceramic. Just don't buy a Dometic......people have had bad experiences with them. So would you be accessing the cassette from inside the wardrobe? You'll be lucky!!

When I got my boat it had one of these: A Maxview omni something or other. It is pretty rubbish, especially considering how much they cost. I replaced it with a compact log on a small magnetic mount pole and used in conjunction with a tv aerial alignment app it's much much better. Of course it does depend where you moor. I always moor in the middle of nowhere. However if I moored near towns where there is often repeater transmitters nearby, perhaps I'd have better luck with an omni aerial.

ABC boats at Aldermaston wharf on the Kennet and Avon is literally 200 yards from Aldermaston railway station. They also have full boatyard services including crane out.