DaveP
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Posts posted by DaveP
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5 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:
It seems I am wrong
Composting toilets are increasing in popularity, particularly in areas with few facilities or very busy areas that suffer from frequently malfunctioning pump-out machines or Elsan units. Composting can be a great solution, but there are some important considerations for people choosing this approach.
The main thing to consider with compost toilets on boats is having sufficient space to compost solids correctly. Solids can take anything from three months to twelve months to break down into harmless compost. And as anyone who has ever lived on a boat for any length of time will tell you, space is always at a premium.
As the waste from a composting toilet may not have enough time to decompose sufficiently on board the boat before it needs emptying, this waste will still need to be disposed of in an appropriate way – for example a suitable composting site away from the canal. It should not be put in our bins – and absolutely must not be disposed of on or near the towpaths. Liquid waste can be emptied down an Elsan point. With the increasing popularity of composting toilets, we are hoping to provide facilities for solid waste from composting loos in future. Please don’t ever dump liquid and solid waste on the towpath or into the water.
What to do and what not to do
One important part of the page also needs including here:
Last date edited: 15 February 2021
Previously, it said that compost could be placed in the bins in appropriately labelled bags. So, Damian's email was the first anyone had heard about this change in policy, now this page has been updated - and surreptitiously! If it's a blog, then the previous Nov '17 entry should be marked as superseded and a new blog entry made. In any case it should be made clear what has been changed between the original page in 2017 and the new advice.
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I suspect this is a brain-fart by the author of the update. The Boaters Handbook on the CRT site hasn't been revised....
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It's an oar blade....
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Just now, churchward said:
The US Senate has voted 56-44 in favour of the trial and it being constitutional. 6 Republicans voted for the trial with Democrats. 11 more will need to be convinced of guilt to convict at the end so still not looking likely.
I watched a good deal of the presentation and debate from both sides. Impeachment House Managers (the prosecution if you will) presentation was very good and well argued but as one has come to expect the Trump lawyers etc. did quite a poor and unconvincing job.
Donald Trump impeachment trial is constitutional, Senators say in vote (usatoday.com)
No, no,no. That's Hot Air - a completely different (and usually on a different planet) method of (em)powering stuff.
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I've had solar for 7 years. The answer is normally 'more'.
Do your power audit - Bimble, as mentioned above, have a downloadable spreadsheet to assist. I use about 1kWh/day in summer, reduced to 400Wh in winter by turning my fridge off.
I have 4 x 320w panels (two in use during summer, and all four in winter). I aim to park with a view of the sun. The panels are laid flat on the roof in boxes, but can be tilted up to 45deg if necessary (and it is) to catch the rays.
In essence, winter input is about 1/10 that of summer, so cut out unecessary usage (ie the fridge) and have a large enough battery bank to see you through the days of insufficient sun. In winter this could mean up to two weeks, which is unobtainable - so go for the largest bank that you can recharge, using your alternator, in a full day of engine running (say eight hours); if you're using lead-acid and a 70-100A alternator then this means you're limited to about 800Ah of batteries (of which only about 400Ah is usable), if you're prepared for the expense and nerdiness of LiFePO4, then again 800-1000Ah of batteries would max out the alternator, but 700-800Ah is usable. But if you actually do this, make sure that your engine is quiet or be prepared to either live out in the countryside or invest in large quantities of alcohol to placate your neighbours with....
Boats are not houses - electricity is an expensive luxury. The first rule is to minimise your usage. The second rule is that generating it is ten times more expensive than the grid, the third rule is that storing it is like water in leaky buckets and the forth rule is that wind is even more fickle than sunshine.
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So the crt website says "Boat licence terms & conditions regarding moving every 14 days will be suspended until the restrictions come to an end. If you have any questions, please contact your licence support officer."
But says nothing about being allowed to occupy time-restricted moorings for longer than the stated period. So there's a load of boats on 2/7/14-day moorings (remembering that many (but not all) short-stay móorings revert to 14-days for winter) who should have shifted to elsewhere by now since it's only the 14-days in one place (neighbourhood) that's been suspended, not the local mooring place (boat-sized, or contiguous set of spaces)....
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CRT being economical with the truth as ever.
6 hours ago, Ray T said:Six new pre-bookable visitor moorings on former commercial boat moorings in Paddington Basin.
These were never commercial boat moorings - they might have wanted them to be, but never got a tenant. They've always (until they started charging/booking) been just another set of visitor moorings.
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Just now, jetzi said:
Don't mean to doubt you, but are you sure that the reason the heating element doesn't come on is because you use hot water from the geyser? Or are you trusting that the "cold wash" button means the heater is disabled no matter the temperature? The heating element of the Hotpoint doesn't come on either if the water is at least at room temperature, but for @cairanvanrooyen's purposes he wants to be sure that it doesn't accidentally trigger I think.
Yep, have run it without the geyser lit, no heater fires up (it's rated at 1250w and overpowers my 1000w inverter immediately - the older model of the machine had a 1kw heater which the inverter would cope with as long as the alternator was supplying power to the batteries to prevent voltage droop on the 12v side).
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14 minutes ago, cairanvanrooyen said:
Hi @DaveP - what size inverter do you have? Do you know if your machine has any anomalous spikes of peak power (similar to post #67 above)?
I have a 1kw pure-sine inverter. So, no in-machine water heating, just push the cold wash button and supply from a Morco geyser. There will be spikes as the drum motor starts, but the only time the inverter complained was when a motor start coincided with the fridge compressor starting.
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On 14/01/2021 at 10:21, cairanvanrooyen said:
On the off chance, i contacted Midland Chandlers, who said the following:
"Thank you for contacting us with your question on the candy washing machine, we would say the power consumption on a cold wash would be around 500w, I hope this helps but if you have any other questions please come back to me."...
Still waiting for Candy to respond.
I have this machine (3yr old). Using the 1hr wash on cold it uses about 10Ah with a maximum draw of 250w.
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Having done a little digging - a third boat, and famous!
http://www.canalscape.net/Canals on Screen/Canals on Screen.htm
Harmony - a cruiser stern starred in 'Travelling Man' a Grenada TV series.....
Also confirms that David Jones operated out of Taylor's Boatyard in Chester.
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9 minutes ago, DHutch said:
Seems like some faff, but a successful outcome?
Dunno! By the time I'd filled it out I was back in France, and the postage paid envelope obviously wouldn't work from there, so I popped it in with my tax return and asked HMCR to forward it. I'll be able to tell you in 90 years time when they release the records....
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I too have a David Jones boat (apparently, no plaque or actual evidence, just on the sales bumpf when I bought her) - but listed as Davy Jones, which gave me a palpitation on first sight.... She's from 1979, and is now 58' having been stretched in a couple of places and definitely not on her original engine....
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I applied for a job last time round as an enumerator; apparently I was lined up for one in order to reach the 'hard' group of cc'rs - until they discovered I was one and therefore was deemed not to have a secure location to store the census forms. I did eventually get hold of a census form and completed it, but that was complicated by the fact that by the time I'd got hold of someone in the office, I was in France and they wouldn't send me a form there! The form was sent to a local boatyard who were willing to hold it for me.
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Credit card, Phone with (big/unlimited) data plan, Chainsaw, backpack, spares and toolkit.
(Slightly hard to answer this, as the most vital bits are inseparable from the boat - so I'd count solar panels, batteries, wine cellar, mooring kit and stove as boat rather than 'items')
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2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
Limehouse was owned (ultimately) by C&RT, once it was sold off to a management / Bank consortium it is quite understandable - and, I'd suggest that Covid is a reasonable justification.
Why should they 'give notice' ? The facilities are theirs to do with as they please, I refer you back to :
Within their rights to withdraw the service - I agree, but to do so without notice or publicity is a bit off. They didn't even bother telling CRT - who would have been able to let boaters in the area know, rather than make a wasted journey to the pontoon and back....
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6 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
In Post #3 I was going to suggest the removal of all sanitary facilities along with the removal of waterpoints, but decided that it was most likely that the 'boaters' would just tip-it-overboard having no consideration for other water users, and, giving even less reasons to need to move, As justification they would get the Baton-Twirlers legal experts to quote the court cases where Thames water have, on 'numerous occasions' discharged millions of litres or raw sewage into the Thames.
Why should a private owned marina want anyone and everyone using their facilities ?
Would you be happy if a bus-tour stopped outside your door and said we've come to use your toilet ?
Limehouse Marina facilities were open to all. Then BWML was sold off. There was no announcement, just a refusal to service. COVID given as an excuse.
14 minutes ago, Scholar Gypsy said:If the ghost percentage is really that high, I struggle to understand why people do this, rather than selling the boat. There are many nicer places in the country to keep a boat if you just want the odd day trip. Maybe they have gone to live with someone on the bank and are keeping the boat as insurance policy in case of relationship breakdown. But 75% of them?? Are there any facts on this issue, I wonder.
Having spoken to a fair few of the boaters when they did visit, this is the case - one partner owns the boat, the other lives on the hard. Lockdown kept them both on land. In several instances, because we were not near a pumpout and their tank was brimming.... As to those who never visited - I don't know.
Don't forget, the demographic of London boating is radically different to the rest of the country - there are a lot more young people....
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I've boated regularly through London for the last three years (three - six months at a time). The only area in which I haven't been able to moor against the towpath at the first time of looking is Camden to Islington tunnel - twice in five passages...
In terms of passing through the centre of town, the problem is Regents Park - there are no rings or moorings available from Lisson Grove to Camden, and with only 4 berths available above Camden locks, it makes for a minimum of 3 hours on the water before any mooring becomes possible. The high voltage lines under the towpath are now decommissioned, so the work to remove them gives an ideal opportunity to create another mile or so of moorings (~160). But see below!
There _are_ many boats on the canals there; the real issue is the lack of sanitary facilities - not helped by Limehouse Marina preventing non-residents from using theirs this year. There are no facilities between Little Venice at Paddington and St Pancras. Don't even ask about pumpouts...
In my two month lock-down sojourn in Mile End it was clear that only about 25% of boats were lived on, the rest were ghost boats (with about 1 in 3 being visited occasionally, and the rest not at all in that time).
So much for boaters - what about other stakeholders?
Anglers - seen plenty on the Paddington Arm, Regents (East of Hackney) and Lee. Again, Regents Park is a ghost town.
Walkers, Joggers, Cyclists - everywhere, all the time, except on the Lee north of the Olympic Park. But that's where the muggers take over....
Local residents - I don't know. Presumably they also form the previous category.
So what to do? Create more and better sanitary facilities, enforce movement and licensing (and make sure new owners get the rules). Make sure that problems are dealt with and not left to fester by not talking to local councils or neighbours. I was there when the idiot burned whatever it was below the St Mary's Hospital air intakes - all of us dobbed the twat in to CRT, but we still lost those four spots in the basin.
In the end though, I suspect CRT will create zones to be moved through (with lots of lovely new logo'd signs in plastic zip-tied to random railings) and then fail to enforce them on a timescale of 'have we got a decade-long grant from DEFRA yet?'
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Nothing's changed in relation to incorporating the Stroudwater and the Thames & Severn into the journey....
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Me! Me! Me!
I self-identify as a London Boater, and I'm on the loose in the Home Counties ATM. Where can I meet said snobby?
Love and peace, innit bruv.
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Just now, pearley said:
Incidentally once you have a MeterMacs account you keep it, even when you give up the mooring.
Indeed so; I still have £4 credit on mine and it worked in Hythe Bridge the other year. I am planning on making a booking on the Boris moorings for a week in January....
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Maybe electric narrowboats are almost here....
New kit costs:
15kw electric motor kit - 3k, 15kw batteries - 6.5k, 3kw panels (using about 12m of cabin top) - 2.5k. Total 12k.
Panels will produce 2kwh in the depths of winter, allowing a 30min cruise each day, and 1kwh for living. The batteries provide a week-long backup in the event of total panel failure to generate....
This means that you still need a solid-fuel stove and alternative cooking and water-heating (gas) arrangements - or a back boiler etc. [Living aboard, I reckon I use 3.5kWh of gas/day, and 48kWh of coal/stove /day when running 24-7].
A new diesel costs about 6k.
I'm presuming they're about the same cost to fit into the boat. But then the diesel has running costs(say 400/yr), whilst the electric gets a 25% licence discount from CRT(say 200/yr). So the break-even point comes after about 10-12 years.
It is the winter heating that's the elephant - needing a 2kw continuous feed....
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1 hour ago, pearley said:
Done that. Lots of agreement but no action.
Look at the VMs in Islington. Electric hookups agreed 2 or 3 years ago to appease local residents but not installed.
It's happening. Whole load of closures this and next month to install bollards from York Way to City Road lock. And then the moorings become bookable only, and only single mooring, and only for one week. If you're a cc'er you can't get an online account to use the bollards....
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3 hours ago, Blue Knight said:
G'Day All,
I've made a few short notes so that I can help configure a plan. I'll first need to see how my batteries are performing when I see the boat for its survey on the 14th Oct but other than that I reckon that Im now getting the gist of what you fine folk are advising.
Here goes:
1. @DaveP Consider 'redundency' for those dark drizzly days, 2. Panels are c.30% more efficient when angled, 3. Don't buy expensive batteries for your first set (get to know your usage rates first), 4. Check the effiency of the panels which I intend to buy, including the voltage and current specs and match the solar regulator accordingly, 5. Consider shorepower as a supplementary support method, wherever possible, and use the fridge sparingly during dark months.
Just a point on the last item. _Don't_ use the fridge. Each time you use it, a huge amount of power will be taken to get it down to operational temperature (disregard in the case of using a shoreline to do this).
Solar is back
in General Boating
Posted
Last last rwo months - 900w of panels and a baseload of 800Wh/day - in January it generated 17.4kWh (and the engine made another 12.2 in 23 hours (14 occasions)), in February it generated 28kWh (and the engine made another 1.5 in 7 hours (4 occasions)). The baseload is understated as I've been charging a neighbour's battery for him...