Jess--

Be fair... that's not a pumpout toilet more of a pump in toilet really

swiped from bbc news this morning

they have got a Chinook dropping big bags of ballast and concrete into the gap, I don't think they wanted to send anything heavy along the bank in case more of it gave way. it's probably about 4 miles away from me as the crow flies.

My answer used to be "No, the bones get stuck in her teeth"

sounds to me like a sticky sensor on the automation doesn't move until the water level has gone far above / below and then moves in a massive jump prompting a big response from the gates and big overshoots of the target

I noticed a lot of people forget to wind on some extra power to make the turn, although we're only a short 45 footer we surprised a cruiser owner on the thames at abingdon with how quickly we span the boat round. we had just trickled past him on tickover, given a wriggle to get a bit of momentum turning and then wound the power on to spin quickly and face the flow before dropping power and sliding sideways perfectly in a mooring spot that was about 18 inches longer then the boat. he commented that he had no idea narrowboats could turn like that and that we had turned in less space than he would need. from my point of view it was one of those times when knowing your boat and a little bit of gut instinct worked out perfectly.

I was thinking similar code would need to monitor for a few minutes to start with to establish normal (safe) limits and rates of movements and then set alarm trigger points a certain percentage outside normal range (based on high / med / low sensitivity) biggest problem I see (technically) is working out orientation of the sensor compared with the boat, as there should be very little fore-aft tilt some port starboard roll (as people step on/off) but unlimited port / starboard turns

Similar outlook when we listed our boat, all the seating was freshly re-upholstered (literally fitted the day the boat went up for sale) and various other niggling jobs were done, but generally it got listed as a very honest warts n all listing (judge for yourself https://www.apolloduck.com/boat/stenson-43-cruiser-stern/606831 ) in that rather than hiding or not mentioning defects I pointed them out (failing paint on handrails / roof, cratch cover needs replacing etc). Even though it is now sold (deposit paid) I'm still going to drop a new starter battery on the boat as I noticed that it was not healthy when I started the engine up for the buyer. even though neither the buyer or his friend picked up on it I know it's on it's way out so I'll replace it (it was showing 11v instead of it's usual 12.5 - 13 and was slow to turn over so I suspect a cell has dropped out), from my point of view if they bring bedding and food the boat should be ready to use without worrying about anything when we hand it over.

Only a single experience here... our boat sold within 12 days of listing it on the duck at a price that was within our planned wriggle room. 2 brokers phoned within 12 hours of it being listed trying to get the boat listed through them rather than direct. 6 people expressed interest 1 pulled out before viewing as they put a deposit on another boat 3 never got around to arranging a viewing 1 viewed it yesterday, spent a couple of hours looking around it and nattering with us before putting down a deposit and signing on the dotted line. 1 person got a phone call and was very disappointed feels like a sellers market to me. On the plus side my bank balance is looking healthier on the negative side I don't have a boat any more

I thought I had managed this a couple of years back after stopping perfectly against the side and stepping off to talk with some friends for a few minutes 20 minutes later the boat was exactly where I had stopped, but I found that it was actually still running at tickover in reverse gear and the only thing keeping the boat in place was the fact that it was aground.

they don't live on their boats, they just spend a lot of time on them

A diesel engine going under while running (it would be unusual to stop a narrowboat engine while in a normal lock) can vary from needing nothing more than a change of oil as the best case to needing a complete rebuild as the worst case. it's unusual for an engine that was running when it went down to come up and not be in need of major work though, I suspect the higher compression on diesel engines combined with more mass on the flywheel increases the stresses massively when it suddenly finds a cylinder full of water instead of air and little bit of diesel.

I would be checking the regulator unit, I had one on an older rangerover that decided 8v was a fully charged battery from time to time. to start with it wasn't a problem as it only did it for a couple of minutes for every hour of running, but eventually the ratio reversed so it was hardly ever kicking in properly. I ended up pulling the regulator off a different alternator and making a frankenalternator which despite looking wrong worked without fault for the next 10 years that I ran the vehicle

Even more profitable if you went through a very wet braunston tunnel without sheeting up. My dad made that mistake with tadworth on his first trip for ashby (can never remember if it's canal carriers or canal transport) and found himself emerging from the tunnel with alarmingly little freeboard, although although by end of the trip when everything was tallied up he had sold just under 25 tons despite being loaded with a nominal 20 tons from the lorry

No gas expert here but had an odd one a few years ago with a gas stove on calor bottles when a burner was first opened it would flare up (to about 4 times its proper size) and then die down and work normally, a second burner would work perfectly, it would only do it if there had been no burners on / gas used for about 4 hours and it would do it on whichever burner was switched on first. turned out to be a faulty regulator that never fully shut off when it reached pressure on the low pressure side and kept slowly increasing the pressure on the gas system until it was close to the pressure in the bottle. the same fault could give the result you are seeing where the more pipework you have connected / switched on the more space it has to pressurise so you see more bubbles

the one that springs to mind was a lot colder, small welsh cottage sunk into a 45 degree hill on the west side of the valley. in mid summer the sun vanishes at 6pm, in winter you only saw it for about an hour a day. one of my regrets was not buying the place when it was offered to me for a ridiculously low price (I just hadn't got the money and the terms of the deal would have ruled out a mortgage)

I think the need for air would kill most methods as options since the air movement will carry heat with it. I too remember houses with no fridges (or electric or running water). Water was from a well (hand pumped) keeping things cool was done with a cupboard built into a north facing wall (2 foot thick stone wall) Heating / cooking was from a rayburn that burnt non-stop for 360 days a year

just an extra note, they work better if they are crammed full (thermal mass), and would fail dismally to keep a single bag of peas frozen. we have a smaller one previously used by donald russell (made by styropack) that we use for keeping takeaways hot while driving home and decided to try a bigger one for frozen foods. our first one we tried was made by custompak (all over ebay) and was very light / flimsy and not as dense as the styropack one, it did not perform well at all. we then phoned styropack and managed to get one of their larger boxes (somehow as a free sample) sent to us

have a look at some of the heavy duty polystyrene boxes that meat companies like donald russell use for delivery (fresh or frozen meat sent through normal courier companies). we use one (made by styropak) with 40mm walls and find that if filled with frozen food and stored in the cratch (during the height of summer) it will keep food frozen solid for just over a week as long as you are only opening it once a day.

muscle memory can really work against you in that situation