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Posts posted by tree monkey
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1 minute ago, Willonaboat said:
I'd have thought you swung from tree to tree.
You have to move with the times
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8 hours ago, MartynG said:
Everyone uses the roads.
I don't I hover exactly 5cm above them
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6 minutes ago, system 4-50 said:
I hate widebeams. Not because they are wide, but because I haven't got one.
I hate money for similar reasons
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20 minutes ago, Willonaboat said:
This is a true story. It happened a few weeks ago...
So there we were. I could see the approaching narrowboat still heading up the canal some distance behind us as the second lock gate closed. A few minutes later with the water level rising towards the top I could see the narrowboat had tied up just before the lock. The first lock gate was opened and then as the second was opening a voice to my left shouted,
"I hate these things".
I turned to see an old man standing on the edge of the lock starring straight at me.
"What?" I said, as I gently pushed the throttle forward.
"Widebeams" the old man replied.
I just smiled back before turning away as I glided past him. My significant other closed the lock gates and lowered the paddles before joining me onboard 100 metres past the lock where I'd temporarily tied up as planned. A few minutes later the old man on his narrowboat came past, making no eye contact and not saying another word before disappearing into the distance.
Afterwards I pondered what had caused him to feel the need to come over and make his feelings known. Was it me/us in particular? Did I previously do something I'm not aware of that offended him? Was he annoyed that we didn't wait for him to join us in the lock that wasn't wide enough for him alongside anyway due to us being a widebeam? Did he think we were just 'rich kids' on an obviously new boat out for a jolly? Was it jealousy? Was he just a grumpy old man who moaned about anything and everything at every opportunity? All these things and more went through my head in the hours and days ahead.
I'm not the type to go around antagonising people. Live and let live. Another boater is a potential new friend. I don't care if you're on a rusty tub or a gin palace, on holiday or a liveaboard. If it floats then we have something in common and no doubt many stories to tell.
I hope this incident is not a sign of things to come. Is it?
A grumpy sod who uses the word hate far too easily, he has probably been inconvenienced or irritated by a WB sometime in the past
I can guarantee you could find a wide beam owner who says similar because its easy to target an alternative group, so WB hate NB and NB hate WB, its casual thoughtless nonsense.
best ignored
Mind you cyclists should all be hung from the highest tree by their chains
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3 minutes ago, The Grey Goose said:
So boaters shouldnt have cars , I wonder who all those thousands of cars at Crick show every year belong to?
I suppose on that ethos you shouldnt have a boat if you require a car as well to get to work just incase there are no moorings outside your workplace.
You're being wound up, no-one really hates wide beams, ok maybe the odd one or two, but not hate in the real visceral sense, most people who encounter wide beams on inappropriate waterways are irritated by them, it's just an issue of space and of course any widebeam driven in a selfish or stupid way becomes an obvious and easy target.
No one cares about widebeams on appropriate waterways but where they mix on borderline wide canals they do create issues, much of which could be blamed on canal maintenance as much as anything else.
The aesthetic issue is just opinion and doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, if you like your boat that's all that matters and let's be honest most narrowboats are not exactly things of beauty in the first place
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9 hours ago, IanD said:
I did, thank you 🙂
If two saxophones is enough, why does my wife have four? And all different sizes? 😉
[don't ask how many melodeons I've got...]
So exactly how many melodeons do you have?
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2 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:
Being taken out after four or five years round here as we type and replaced with oil boilers again, each and every day.
No rush to take out mine
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19 minutes ago, Tonka said:
thank you for excusing me
I am also grateful for the largesse
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6 hours ago, DShK said:
What's the physics behind wood liking to burn with air from the top? I've never really understood it. From the bottom should work like a rocket stove - air drawn in from the bottom, heated and rising up the flue. This movement causes pressure which sucks in more air, which burns better which increases the pressure. You control this by physically limiting the air intake. What's the process that happens that means wood burns better not this way but from air above?
I've wondered about this and I couldn't find anything specific but ...
Wood will burn with bottom air but it's difficult to control and you will use a lot of fuel, so I think its more of a control issue than anything else.
Coal on the other hand is actually difficult to burn, it needs bottom air, try burning coal in a BBQ or similar and it just goes out.
In effect wood is easy to burn but to have any sort of control its best to keep a bed of ash, coal is a bugger to burn and needs the bottom air to support its combustion
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4 minutes ago, magnetman said:
I don't think he comes down south but NB Ellis is interesting.
https://www.narrowboatellis.com/
Hotel narrow boat where you are one of the boaters.
Thats NB Ellis.
That's the bloke, came across as a decent fella
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There was a chap on here for a while who did private charter sort of thing where he took guests for a week or however and took them boating, unfortunately can't remember his name, that might be the sort of thing the OP is looking for
4 minutes ago, MartynG said:I don't think this kind of skippered charter is available in the UK canals.
But there may be some hotel boats
I wish I could remember the chaps name
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51 minutes ago, MtB said:
I think where boats and houses are concerned, even the most diligent surveyor can look and look and look and still miss things. Hence the need for the get-out clauses.
If anything, the surveyor in the OP's case seems to have rather oversold the 'peace of mind' aspect off getting a survey and failed to give due prominence (or any prominence) to the get-out clauses in the contract he struck with them to carry out the survey. So they missed those clauses. So any action the OP takes will revolve around whether or not the get-out clauses the surveyor claims to have, were validly incorporated into their particular contract.
Absolutely, it should be made clear at the outset as to the limitations of the survey.
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11 hours ago, magnetman said:
When I first got onto boats 30 yars ago I discussed this topic with a well known boat surveyor. He was cool. I know there are some {word removed}s in the industry. He was not one of them.
He described being a boat surveyor as basically just an exercise in not getting sued. That is the main aim. The inspection of boats and production of relevant reports and giving of advice is secondary.
The main thing is to not get sued.
I think he was probably right.
It seems wrong for a number of different reasons but this is the world we live in.
In defence of surveyors in general and I'm not saying this one wasn't a muppet but the problem is people often want 100% guarantees and often that's just not possible, so the appearance of the various get out clauses.
I haven't written a full on 'proper' tree report for a fair few years but it would/will contain a fairly comprehensive get out clause in effect saying the trees OK (assuming it is) but shit happens and even worse shit happens when there's a storm, its the nature of the job unfortunately.
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4 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:
Also, any ideas where it is? Looks like a new build and the only part of the country where that might make sense in the 1880's is around Birmingham somewhere. Perhaps a branch to a new colliery? It is shallow, so not for deep drafted boats.
It's very wide though
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5 minutes ago, MtB said:
Yes. His eyes are too close together. Tells us everything we need to know!!
His plastic surgeon was pissed?
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10 minutes ago, Speedy23 said:
And what "threats" would they be, Arthur?
I'm probably older than you.
Quite frankly you're making a fool of yourself
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30 minutes ago, rusty69 said:
Garbage
Quite
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Well that escalated
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10 minutes ago, GUMPY said:
Just glorious
6 minutes ago, rusty69 said:Sam brown the closest I've heard to the genius of the original
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3 minutes ago, Tonka said:
It depends on the stove. Some are better at staying alight overnight
Fair point.
4 minutes ago, magnetman said:Thats interesting which fire did you have?
Squirrel, I burnt mainly ash but also anything else I could scrounge from the teams, the one trick is to keep the gnarlist lumps for overnight burning
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10 hours ago, LadyG said:
Don't use unseasoned ie green wood, pine, pressure treated, stained or painted wood.
Nothing wrong with pine or any othe type of softwoods.
8 hours ago, LadyG said:Outside it is minus 5 tonight inside its 27C, I have to top up the coals about every four hours, if I only use logs the fire will need fed every hour. I need to keep warm.
It's perfectly possible to keep the boat warm and snug with firewood and keep the fire in all night without any need to top up every hour
8 hours ago, magnetman said:If you can get enough wood (it does take a fair bit) and don't mind cold mornings (I like cold mornings) you can heat the Boat with wood
I've never understood this, i kept the boat heated 100% with firewood for 10yrs and it was a doddle to keep it ticking overnight and to wake up to a warm boat
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3 hours ago, nealeST said:
I'm also scientifically challenged and I'm not bothering to google anything. For two and half decades I have felled and chopped Silver Birch, Spruce, Ash and Pine. I currently have a huge amount of Elm seasoning for next year all this winter that was chopped before midsummer. I can share with you that all the above combust at different rates, have different densities and certainly look and smell different. Silver Birch is my absolute favourite, is nice dense wood with fine grain. Pine goes like a rocket, can be quite sappy even when seasoned and is rated anecdotally as being good for clearing out your chimney as it burns fast. Silver Birch is a slow burner but the Elm wood is hard as nails and burns the slowest I've seen. Overall silver birch burns optimally with loads of heat output. As mentioned I always chop, by which I mean split the wood before midsummer and it drys outside until August where upon it is moved and stacked neatly for air ventilation in a purpose built wood shed. It remains there all winter until the following Autumn when, as per tradition and for countless centuries of practise the wood is now seasoned and ready to go. Not being an expert I'm not going to disagree with generations of people who have done this for a lifetime, I just follow suit. The stuff I've seen in petrol stations and in bargain stores in plastic bags looks that people take home to burn whilst they have their gas fired central heating running in the background feels nothing like it should. The fact that it is heated to dry it out means that energy that could be stored in the wood has been forced out leaving you with something combustable but very short term ie it will burn fast...just like chipboard or even cardboard. I'm sure the text on the plastic wrapper is convincing in its claims about how much better it is to for-go the time honoured way of seasoning wood but as far as I can see the difference between the two is vast and I'm quite happy to make my own mind about that. I am suspicious in general of things that are processed and claim to be better.....
Much of the quality of the wood is from how dense it is, some of that is species dependant and some is speed of growth, what won't lower heat output is reduced water content from kiln drying.
A lump of wood with <20% water content is the same if open seasoned or kiln dried
8 minutes ago, magnetman said:Yup.
My favourite by far. My fire is full of hawthorn right now actually.
Lucky sod
C&RT License Survey
in General Boating
Posted
Have you lot not discovered bags/rucksacks that sort of thing?
Wash your mouth out with carbolic soap