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Living on a Narrowboat

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    #31
    Originally posted by Lost It View Post
    My mates dad and stepmum lived in one for two years. It was damp in winter, damp and smelly in summer, it needed the vents open all the time, she used to get bitten to death by midges, the Solar panels weren't able to keep the battery topped up, so they had to run a generator every couple of days, the winters were worse as there's only about 5 hours of daylight mid winter, and it's cold and clammy to boot. They had a log fire and a Calor gas heater and one night he fell asleep with the Calor heater on and didn't wake up... Steel hulled...

    Sad really. But I think they arer "Holiday homes". Not really suitable for a base station.
    Originally posted by Pip in a Poke View Post
    That's what happened to our local gamekeeper. He lived in an old Sprite Major which was parked up in the woods. Had gas heating & one night he went to sleep & there was a backdraft that blew out the flames. He didn't wake up.
    Lesson learnt - carbon monoxide alarm.

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      #32
      Originally posted by northernladyuk View Post
      Lesson learnt - carbon monoxide alarm.
      Buy a new gas device and have it regularly serviced. Many new safety features designed to prevent these situations. The CO alarm is another line of defence.
      Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

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        #33
        Originally posted by vetran View Post
        Buy a new gas device and have it regularly serviced. Many new safety features designed to prevent these situations. The CO alarm is another line of defence.
        Servicing is more important as a CO alarm is the last line of defence as lots of people especially children don't wake up to alarms like that.
        "You’re just a bad memory who doesn’t know when to go away" JR

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          #34
          Originally posted by SueEllen View Post
          Servicing is more important as a CO alarm is the last line of defence as lots of people especially children don't wake up to alarms like that.
          Indeed but newer devices will have flame supervisors & oxygen level detectors both of which regularly save lives.
          Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

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            #35
            For the record, I've never actually spent any time on a narrowboat. It's just a pipedream of mine.

            I am a keen gongoozler though and spend hours leaning over the railings at the end of the beer garden of the Barge Inn in Bradford onAvon watching novices making a pig's ear of entering and exiting the lock.

            I should really hire one for a week. The problem there is that the configuration of a hire boat isn't to my taste & I'd be going for something decked out in a more traditional style with woodburners etc. The boats one can hire seem to be more like caravans inside.

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              #36
              Originally posted by vetran View Post
              Buy a new gas device and have it regularly serviced. Many new safety features designed to prevent these situations. The CO alarm is another line of defence.
              Originally posted by SueEllen View Post
              Servicing is more important as a CO alarm is the last line of defence as lots of people especially children don't wake up to alarms like that.
              Originally posted by vetran View Post
              Indeed but newer devices will have flame supervisors & oxygen level detectors both of which regularly save lives.
              Thanks guys.

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                #37
                And for anyone who enjoys reading about Narrowboating, I can highly recommend Terry Darlington's excellent Narrow Dog to Carcassonne in which he takes a narrow boat (and a dog) from Yorkshire to the South of France.

                And the amazing thing is, people, he does the whole journey without the boat leaving the water.

                Yes, that's right! He takes it throught the treacherous tidal waters of the Severn estuary from Sharpness to the mouth of the Avon, up the K&A to join the Thames at Reading, out to Tilbury and then across the channel to France.

                I didn't even know that a narrowboat was capable of this

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                  #38
                  Originally posted by Pip in a Poke View Post
                  And for anyone who enjoys reading about Narrowboating, I can highly recommend Terry Darlington's excellent Narrow Dog to Carcassonne in which he takes a narrow boat (and a dog) from Yorkshire to the South of France.

                  And the amazing thing is, people, he does the whole journey without the boat leaving the water.

                  Yes, that's right! He takes it throught the treacherous tidal waters of the Severn estuary from Sharpness to the mouth of the Avon, up the K&A to join the Thames at Reading, out to Tilbury and then across the channel to France.

                  I didn't even know that a narrowboat was capable of this
                  I know some of the Dutch barges have boards on the side you can slide down as a keel in open water. Did he do it in a 6foot narrow boat?
                  http://www.cih.org/news-article/disp...housing_market

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                    #39
                    Originally posted by PurpleGorilla View Post
                    I know some of the Dutch barges have boards on the side you can slide down as a keel in open water. Did he do it in a 6foot narrow boat?
                    Yep - he just took precautions to stop the water getting in through the windows & down the companionway etc. That was it. I'd have been worried about the weather forecast being wrong, getting caught out in a heavy sea and the whole vessel breaking in two.

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                      #40
                      I would think lack of Freeboard would have been the main concern. And only having a single piston Petter capable of propelling him at 6 knots might have been a bit of a risk as well.

                      I have a vision in my mind of a Canal barge crossing the English Channel in my head now. Smoke curling lazily out of the Galley cooker chimney, washing hung out over the prow, some poor geezer hanging on the tiller at the back and the steady putt putt putt putt of the Petter derv engine...,

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