Proposed new accessible electric narrowboat.

[Matt Wardman]

15 minutes ago, magnetman said:

For particularly small people there could be half-width narrow Boats which presumably would be allowed to pay 50 percent for their licence fee because they could fit 4 of them into a 14ft wide lock.

 

 

 

 

Half length as well, so a quarter.

 

The Bugsy Malone narrowboat !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYeJn24ZDh8

 

On the finances, don't electric propulsion NBs already get 25% off the licence - which is several hundred a year ie a marginal gain 🙂?

Edited December 28, 2023 by Matt Wardman

[IanD]

1 minute ago, Matt Wardman said:

Half length as well, so a quarter !

 

On the finances, don't electric propulsion NBs already get 25% off the licence - which is several hundred a year ie a marginal gain 🙂?

 

Yeah, it's great. Shouldn't take more than 100 years or so to pay back the installation cost... 😉

[magnetman]

6 minutes ago, Matt Wardman said:

Half length as well, so a quarter !

 

On the finances, don't electric propulsion NBs already get 25% off the licence - which is several hundred a year ie a marginal gain 🙂?

 

The thing to do is

 

1. Get the 25% electric Boat discount.

 

2. Get the 10% historic Boat discount.

 

3. Get the 40% 'Rivers only licence' discount.

 

4. Get the 5% prompt payment discount.

 

Then just use the CRT scheduled rivers, which are a lot nicer than the canals anyway.

 

 

Edited December 28, 2023 by magnetman
key board

[Matt Wardman]

3 minutes ago, magnetman said:

 

The thing to do is

 

1. Get the 25% electric Boat discount.

 

2. Get the 10% historic Boat discount.

 

3. Get the 40% 'Rivers only licence' discount.

 

4. Get the 5% prompt payment discount.

 

Then just use the CRT scheduled rivers, which are a lot nicer than the canals anyway.

 

 

 

All you need now is the other 47 marginal gains.

[magnetman]

Having a disability looks like an interesting one.

 

I wonder if registered claustrophobia can work as a way to get the wide bean licence waived.

 

 

 

 

[MtB]

25 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Having a disability looks like an interesting one.

 

I wonder if registered claustrophobia can work as a way to get the wide bean licence waived.

 

 

George Ward played the 'disabled' card to the maximum extent.

 

He was blind in one eye, apparently.

 

 

Or is, rather.

 

 

 

[Higgs]

35 minutes ago, magnetman said:

 

The thing to do is

 

1. Get the 25% electric Boat discount.

 

2. Get the 10% historic Boat discount.

 

3. Get the 40% 'Rivers only licence' discount.

 

4. Get the 5% prompt payment discount.

 

Then just use the CRT scheduled rivers, which are a lot nicer than the canals anyway.

 

 

 

No. 5  What about the..., we moor on private property 100% discount. 

 

 

 

[magnetman]

If you had an electric Boat they might pay you 25% of the perecieved fraudulent licence fee.

 

[Higgs]

3 minutes ago, magnetman said:

If you had an electric Boat they might pay you 25% of the perecieved fraudulent licence fee.

 

 

Or, for not actually having any authority, they could sod off for the whole lot. 

 

 

[agg221]

1 hour ago, IanD said:

You could well argue that, *if* the reason for building a hybrid electric boat was to save fuel/money -- which as I've said many times it isn't, because it would take longer than most boater's lifetimes to recover the higher build cost (especially with generator), and many years before the CO2 payback from fuel saving made up for the inbuilt CO2 burden of batteries etc.

 

Gains of a few percent *are* marginal, to make any significant difference you need gains of tens of percent -- and much bigger still (80%?) to get rid of the generator/fuel-burning. There doesn't seem any way to do this using technologies I'm aware of today that can be applied to narrowboats, or even any that are on the horizon in the future. Because believe me, I've looked... 😉

I suggest you review the principles around marginal gain theory as currently expressed, which relates to changes that individually result in under 1% improvement. The term which correctly applies in the original context of improved thermal performance would be incremental gains. An incremental gain may be marginal (in the order of up to 1%) or may be larger. In this specific instance, the gains achieved by reducing thermal losses through heat recovery and through improved focus on thermal performance as I outlined would individually be significantly greater than 1%. Cumulatively, compared to a 'standard' hull and fit-out it is likely that approaching 50% improvement in U-value could be achieved (based on the combination of improved thermal performance materials, reduced window area and increased layer thickness), but I am not inclined to calculate it precisely. That would result in approximately 30% reduction in heat input requirements.

 

If the objective was to go 'fuel free' it would not be reached, but if the objective was to improve air quality then it would have an impact.

 

Fundamentally, incremental improvements are about the largest changes that can be achieved by an individual (in principle they can invent something fundamentally new, but that is unlikely and would not be advisable to rely on). Step changes are rare (e.g. transition from horse to internal combustion engine, solar panels becoming available for electricity generation etc). If you are going to design something practical, you cannot rely on future step changes so the best you can achieve is the cumulative effect of all available incremental gains.

 

In a heavily regulated industry such as construction, achieving the current requirements for U value is a compromise between space and cost, so available gains are now largely marginal. Boats are not currently so regulated so there are still larger gains to be had.

 

Is it worth it? Commercially, no, financially, no, but as a matter of personal preference, maybe. Your 'ludicrous' is a personal opinion rather than a matter of fact.

 

Alec

Edited December 28, 2023 by agg221

[peterboat]

1 hour ago, Matt Wardman said:

Half length as well, so a quarter.

 

The Bugsy Malone narrowboat !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYeJn24ZDh8

 

On the finances, don't electric propulsion NBs already get 25% off the licence - which is several hundred a year ie a marginal gain 🙂?

I have been getting that discount for 5 years now, hard work getting it though for a self conversion. 

[Sailbadthesinner]

11 minutes ago, peterboat said:

I have been getting that discount for 5 years now, hard work getting it though for a self conversion. 

 

I just declared my self converted boat as electric, no questions asked.

I think the only requirement is that the prop is driven by an electric motor not diesel.

 

 

[peterboat]

2 minutes ago, Sailbadthesinner said:

 

I just declared my self converted boat as electric, no questions asked.

I think the only requirement is that the prop is driven by an electric motor not diesel.

 

 

Maybe they have learned? I spoke to licensing first what I needed to do, they said new BSS, BSS said no as I was fitting a cleaner unit. So I converted it, the licence was due so I filled in the form and paid, they accepted the money then refused to license. For a couple of months emails back and forth before a nice lady called Joyce intervened, Neil came and looked in the engine hole nodded, had a cup of tea and biscuits, talked about our military pasts job done! 3 months it took to sort it out! Joyce and I raised a complaint so just maybe my hassle has helped?

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

3 hours ago, Up-Side-Down said:

But taking the bigger picture, just look at all the valuable discussion and knowledge that has been culled from around the subject. CWDF at its very best. 

Yeh, but a-lot relating to house builds or super size boats, most not really related to the real world of normal Canal Boats/People, maybe over intelligent people who have no real world CDF.

[Sailbadthesinner]

17 minutes ago, peterboat said:

Maybe they have learned? I spoke to licensing first what I needed to do, they said new BSS, BSS said no as I was fitting a cleaner unit. So I converted it, the licence was due so I filled in the form and paid, they accepted the money then refused to license. For a couple of months emails back and forth before a nice lady called Joyce intervened, Neil came and looked in the engine hole nodded, had a cup of tea and biscuits, talked about our military pasts job done! 3 months it took to sort it out! Joyce and I raised a complaint so just maybe my hassle has helped?

 

 

Yes, looks like you set a precedent.

 

At the time I had and still have a current BSS. I think my installation will be compliant at renewal. Fingers crossed.

 

[Tony Brooks]

4 minutes ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

Yeh, but a-lot relating to house builds or super size boats, most not really related to the real world of normal Canal Boats/People, maybe over intelligent people who have no real world CDF.

 

and dreams.  The whole thing was answered in the first page of posts - it is not going to work unless the OP has a generator installed. Especially on a 45ft narrowboat.

[peterboat]

1 minute ago, Sailbadthesinner said:

 

 

Yes, looks like you set a precedent.

 

At the time I had and still have a current BSS. I think my installation will be compliant at renewal. Fingers crossed.

 

I even sent them pictures of the conversion, the engine being  removed etc all to no avail 

[magnetman]

I guess the ultimately perfect scenario is that one never exits the Boat. 

 

I do this quite a lot. Sometimes to get firewood. I feel the firewood cancels out the 'open and closed door' scenario. 

 

It seems to me to be potentially huge psychological burden to have to deal with not burning anything while also knot tying yourself to others who are burning things but selling you a renewable dream. 

 

Keep burning things or the monster will get you ! 

 

 

[Willonaboat]

Coming back to insulation...

 

I wanted/want to be as off-grid and self-sufficient as possible, part of which entails using as little energy as possible (whilst generating as much as possible with solar and backup generator), so my widebeam is more insulated than most:

 

Roof 4" (100mm) of closed cell spray foam

Cabin sides and bulkheads 2" (50mm)

Hull sides 3" (75mm)

Floor 2" (50mm) sheet PIR

 

All portlights (no large windows) are thermal-break double glazed and will eventually have additional secondary double-glazing installed to effectively make them triple-glazed.

 

There is no gas installed and no stove, therefore ventillation requirements (advisory) are minimal but to avoid stale air a MVHR unit will be installed which are available to recover 90% of heat.

 

Using an American campervan forum heat loss spreadsheet adapted for my widebeam (using R values rather than U values and assuming sprayfoam is as thermally efficient as PIR) I calulated that with an outside air temperature of zero degrees C and an inside temp of 22 degrees, my boat would need 1,254 watts of heat. The boat isn't yet complete but during the recent cold snap I had one oil-filled radiator on the medium heat setting (approx 1,200 watts) and the boat was comfortably warm (no thermometer but felt comfortably warm). Right now the radiator is on the low setting (700 watts) with the thermostat set at roughly the half-way mark and the forecast says it's 8 degress outside with a 'feels like' temp of 6 but it is very warm inside. I am on shorepower for the winter.

 

As I mentioned previously, looked into heat pumps (Kensa shoebox) but they are just not viable on canals with shallow and still water. A river would be different. Overall heat pump technology just isn't up to the job at present but with tech advances who knows what the future will bring. If a COP of 4 becomes available with an air-source heat pump at zero degrees air temp or a ground (water) source heat pump that can cope with canal temperatures, depth and stagnant water then I'll be looking into this further. But realistically, as much as I'd rather not, come the spring/summer I'll be fitting a pressure jet diesel boiler in time for next winter.

Edited December 28, 2023 by Willonaboat

[magnetman]

Good luck with that ! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wood burners are pretty good as well.

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

4 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

and dreams.  The whole thing was answered in the first page of posts - it is not going to work unless the OP has a generator installed. Especially on a 45ft narrowboat.

 As I said total pipe dream from @Andrew Grainger to be a realistic proposition on a 45ft boat as in real world @IanD will also know this is Pie in the Sky. People need to live in the real world when it comes to what’s achievable financially and realistically.

  Can I ask @Andrew Grainger  have you progressed your ideas any further in the real world? This is not a dream forum😂 

Edited December 29, 2023 by BoatinglifeupNorth

[magnetman]

 

 

Although to be fair as I noted on a discussion about wood gas powered cars "don't tell 'em or we will have no woodlands left". 

 

So yeah. I'm like 'burn diesel'. 

 

One hopes They do not discover sunflower oil. 

 

 

 

[Willonaboat]

9 minutes ago, magnetman said:

 

8 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Good luck with that ! 

 

Wood burners are pretty good as well.

 

A pressure jet boiler not a webastard.

[magnetman]

 

Its always interesting to observe how humans might think it is wise to use surface based products like plants to produce energy rather than using the earths crust products. 

 

I have a suspicious feeling not related to the clairvoyance that this can lead to unimaginable negative outcomes. 

 

it will be the numbers.

 

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

8 minutes ago, Willonaboat said:

Coming back to insulation...

 

I wanted/want to be as off-grid and self-sufficient as possible, part of which entails using as little energy as possible (whilst generating as much as possible with solar and backup generator), so my widebeam is more insulated than most:

 

Roof 4" (100mm) of closed cell spray foam

Cabin sides and bulkheads 2" (50mm)

Hull sides 3" (75mm)

Floor 2" (50mm) sheet PIR

 

All portlights (no large windows) are thermal-break double glazed and will eventually have additional secondary double-glazing installed to effectively make them triple-glazed.

 

There is no gas installed and no stove, therefore ventillation requirements (advisory) are minimal but to avoid stale air a MVHR unit will be installed which are available to recover 90% of heat.

 

Using an American campervan forum heat loss spreadsheet adapted for my widebeam (using R values rather than U values and assuming sprayfoam is as thermally efficient as PIR) I calulated that with an outside air temperature of zero degrees C and an inside temp of 22 degrees, my boat would need 1,254 watts of heat. The boat isn't yet complete but during the recent cold snap I had one oil-filled radiator on the medium heat setting (approx 1,200 watts) and the boat was comfortably warm (no thermometer but felt comfortably warm). Right now the radiator is on the low setting (700 watts) with the thermostat set at roughly the half-way mark and the forecast says it's 8 degress outside with a 'feels like' temp of 6 but it is very warm inside. I am on shorepower for the winter.

 

As I mentioned previously, looked into heat pumps (Kensa shoebox) but they are just not viable on canals with shallow and still water. A river would be different. Overall heat pump technology just isn't up to the job at present but with tech advances who knows what the future will bring. If a COP of 4 becomes available with an air-source heat pump at zero degrees air temp or a ground (water) source heat pump that can cope with canal temperatures, depth and stagnant water then I'll be looking into this further. But realistically, as much as I'd rather not, come the spring/summer I'll be fitting a diesel boiler in time for next winter.

 I take it you live on your boat and think it’s all singing and dancing, how much has your big bost cost you?