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TV Show looking for boaters to share money saving tips


Gabby_Boating

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In principle, the only additional cost should have been the thermostatic valves themselves  which allow independent control of each room, but I also needed a new programmer and 3-position valve. No point heating rooms you don't use. The system is in fact one of the standard Honeywell heating plans described in one of their leaflets that you used to be able to pick up from any decent heating and plumbing supplies shop.   

 

The original system in our house seemed to have been designed and installed by North Thames Gas, evidently by graduates of the cowboy school of plumbing.  It had a simple two-way diverter valve that meant the boiler could either heat the hot water tank or the house, but not both simultaneously. WIth a 12kW boiler and  hot water tank only capable of absorbing heat at a rate of 3kW, when heating water, the boiler was only firing up 25% of the time, meaning that as soon as you drew off some hot water, the house started to cool down until the water was up to temperature: there was no facility to disable hot water heating.  In accordance with the Honeywell information,  I fitted a 3 position valve and new programmer that allowed simultaneous hot water and heating, fitted thermostatic rad valves and binned the wall thermostat.  

 

Modern Railways did a detailed article on Western Region's  Intercity 125 cylinder head problem and its solution in the 1980's. 

Edited by Ronaldo47
typos, minor revision.
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6 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

And because I wanted to make a serious point, not just to score one  I tried to adapt the original to nearer today figures as so often used in media pieces.

 

Try getting your boat fixed on UC in order to comply with cc expectations. Thankfully I dont have to but I know folk who do try, sadly too often failing.

I don’t know how anyone can fix up a boat on UC. I was close to going down that route awhile back but thankfully I was able to find work. 

 

And don’t forget Micawber couldn’t live within his means and went in and out of debtors prison. 

 

Didn’t he also believe in Providence? Something would turn up.
I think something did turn up for him, an inheritance or whatever ?

 It definitely weren’t in the form of a lottery win which millions of people are now holding out for as an escape from poverty. 


 

 

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4 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

My understanding is that the vast majority of wear in an engine, happens when it is started. To maximise the life of a diesel engine, it is best to keep it ticking over at constant speed and avoid unnecessary stopping and starting.

 

The Napier engines fitted to the Intercity 125 trains were basically marine engines, designed be run at constant revs for hours on end. The original Intercity 125 design concept was for express trains that would likewise run for long distances without stopping. When they were used on Western Region, they started to be used on services with relatively frequent stops, and the thermal stresses caused by frequent alternations between running flat out and tickover at stations, lead to cylinder head leakage, necessitating a revised cylinder head design that could cope with the frequent thermal expansions and contractions.

 

I applied the same principle when designing my central heating system, where the pump runs continuously in heating mode during the timed heating cycle. Every room has its own thermostatic radiator valve,,so there is no wall thermostat. Our present pump is more than 15 years old, and is used daily  throughout the year as our hot water cylinder is also pumped.  The pump is in the airing cupboard, so the small amount of electricity consumed,  helps to keep the cupboard warm.  The previous pump only failed after a similar service life because the "O" ring seal of the rotor inspection plug failed, allowing water to get into the motor windings and cause a short circuit. 

In the case of a canal boat, in most cases the engine is also the generator for electricity which is used via the batteries. If you have a battery monitor system and like to ensure that your batteries are fully charged regularly (which is generally thought the help avoid premature shortening of their life) then you may also run in to the need for uninterrupted charging. In the case of our installation, the hysteresis in the charge-discharge cycle is 'corrected' by a reset to 100% after four hours after certain conditions are met. Any interruption to the charging restarts the four hours! Of course, this is only important to battery-obsessives!

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I think the tip to save the most money is simply to ensure that you can DIY the majority of  routine work needed on   a boat, even better if you can DIY at least some of the less routine work. If you ignore or overextend the engine service the chances of engine failure gets greater each year.

 

I know I could never have afforded to run our boat if I could not do all but the welding & removing the swan neck myself.

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On 22/06/2022 at 10:02, MtB said:

 

 

I think it is Gabby's underlying presumption that boaters live on boats because they are hard up and will be have lots of "money-saving tips" to which normal people are not privy, that grates with her original post.

 

In particular the bit about 'foraging' for and sharing food!

 

 

 

I am moored next to a bit of a field that is set up for foraging according to a notice, I am not sure what I will find, are these foraging fields quite common?

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11 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I am moored next to a bit of a field that is set up for foraging according to a notice, I am not sure what I will find, are these foraging fields quite common?

 

 

Its not the foraging that bothers me, it is the OP's unwarranted assumption that foraging is done in order to save money.

 

Thereby implying they see boaters as likely to be too poor to even buy their own food. 

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33 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

 

Its not the foraging that bothers me, it is the OP's unwarranted assumption that foraging is done in order to save money.

 

Thereby implying they see boaters as likely to be too poor to even buy their own food. 

She lives on a boat, and has had the usual unexpected expenses.

I've no reason to think she will skew her program to prove a point. I assumed she just put a few suggestions in to help potential contributers. There have been quite a few responses on here.

Liveaboards are going to miss out on the government handout for those with an electricity account, so they are going to be £400 poorer.

 In case you haven't noticed, all households are affected by inflation, some more than others. So in theory these sort of programs will be of interest to program planners.

I think some boaters are  likely to forage for herbs, fruits and nuts,  though they are not going to save much money, but if it makes a program for entertainment, I can't see an objection.

I have met boaters who don't ever buy firewood. They do it to save money, same deal shopping at charity shops, which is not free, but provides basic clothing suited to the boating lifestyle, lol.

Edited by LadyG
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23 hours ago, Athy said:

until the recent announcement of increased electricity prices I used to switch my computer on first thing in the morning and leave it on until bedtime - doubtless millions of people do the same. Now, if I'm going out or even just going to do an hour's gardening I switch it off.

 

Depends how much you use your computer during the day and what its energy use is while idle. Certainly turning off saves electricity but probably reduces the life of the various components. Some computers also do their automated maintenance and cleanup while idle and turning off at every opportunity prevents this. My desktop iMac is 11 years old and gets turned off while we're away for more than 24 hours. This is quite profligate since it uses about 100W when idle. A neighbour has a newer machine that uses 24W, much more economical.

My laptop has a 30W charger and lasts several days on a single charge. Never is an absolute word so I cannot say it never gets turned off...

 

22 hours ago, Puffling said:

Someone will now come along and say that's a bad idea because of...

 

I have seen data that suggests that turning a car engine off for even 7 seconds saves fuel; I couldn't say whether that also applies to boats but it will certainly affect the charging cycle for domestic batteries. Sadly I'm not an expert so cannot whether this would be good or bad.

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23 minutes ago, George and Dragon said:

I have seen data that suggests that turning a car engine off for even 7 seconds saves fuel; I couldn't say whether that also applies to boats but it will certainly affect the charging cycle for domestic batteries. Sadly I'm not an expert so cannot whether this would be good or bad.

 

Until the advent of lithium batteries and also affordable large solar installations I feel that in over 50% of cases it would be bad for the domestic batteries. With lead acid batteries the individual boater should know from their  battery monitoring instrument(s), but experience suggest that far too many will not, so I think that if you have lead acides do not turn off but with lithiums turning off while waiting for a lock may be a good idea if you have no alternator temperature monitoring. In that case if you kept the engine running at low speed the high charge into LIs could  cause the alternator to overheat.

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