They say BOAT is an acronym for Bring Out Another £housand, and after the past couple of weeks we can see why! We have spent an unbelievable amount of money on bits, bobs and extras.
Just one of our problems is when we started travelling back in 2011 we sold or gave away my tool collection. Over the years I had, for instance, bought a vast array of power tools, all, but the cordless drill, given away, now of course many are needed again and with the cordless drill being so old the batteries are very weak, which although easily obtainable are expensive so we decided to replace it with a DeWalt Combo Cordless Drill which although a little dearer than the Bosch has batteries that are compatible with another purchase a DeWalt Cordless Multi-tool.
As well as the tools we have bought the chairs (mentioned in an earlier blog), Had the engine serviced, I plan to do this myself in future so watched the engineer like a hawk, took notes and photos. Had the heating serviced, again I plan to do this myself in future. Ordered a new mattress, unfortunately mattresses on boats are weird sizes and often (like ours) in two parts so it has had to be a bespoke job.
While travelling the canal sysytem we will be without access to shore power so we have to be able to live off grid and to this end we have : -
1. Converted all the lights in the boat from the old mix of strip lighting and halogen to LED, it was unfortunate that our main lights were 300mm long double tube fluorescent lights units which meant that each light fitting had to be taken down, the florescent tubes and PCB (printed curcuit board) removed and the internal wiring re-jigged before a single LED tube could be fitted. It did not help that the PCB’s on our particular units were soldered direct to the on/off switch which meant I had to buy a soldering iron and learn how to use the thing or by the fact that the replacement LED tubes were £24.00 each - we needed 10 😳😱😳😱😳😱
2. Ordered a solar system that will be fitted to the roof and a new set of four 110Ah AGM domestic batteries and an engine start battery. Just thinking about the cost of the new batteries brings me out in a cold sweat never mind the cost of the solar system which will sadly give very little power during the dark days of winter but come next summer . . . .
Whenever narrow boaters get together the talk eventually, it seems, turns to toilets. Ours is a Thetford cassette such as most caravans have, but plumbed into the water system. The cassette lasts around two days for two people and we have three cassettes which should give us six days without the panic of finding an emptying point. Emptying points are provided throughout the canal system but are sometimes (¿¿often??) not the nicest of places to visit and, we are told, often out of order. So what are the alternatives?
Pump out toilets - These generally look like the toilet you have at home, all waste is automatically transferred to a holding tank and every few weeks you go to a pump-out station to remove and dispose of the waste, unlike the cassette which is generally free to empty, pump-out’s cost around £20.00 to £25.00 a time which adds considerably to your overall annual costs and many owners of boats with pump-out toilets also have a Porta-Potti for when they have a full tank and are unable to get to a pump-out station.
Incinerator toilets - This is the king of toilets, at a kings purchase price and a kings running costs. For houses etc it can be powered by bottled propane gas or electricity but for boats etc just propane. To purchase and fit is in the region of £4000.00 and each use needs the fitting of a little collection bag costing around 10p per bag and after each couple of uses the burn process uses a considerable amount of propane, for which at the time of writing Calor charge a smidge under £5.00 a kilo, meaning you will be spending a lot more than a penny.
Composting toilets - This option is becoming very popular with ever more people opting for this type of toilet, they are not yet available as standard in UK caravans and motorhomes but in Australia and America some caravan and motorhome manufacturers offer compost toilets as the only option. We have done a great deal of research and many of the American items on offer are lofty (as in the seat is a long way from the floor), made of plastic and if anything breaks many parts are not replaceable, you have to buy a complete new unit which at around a £1000 a throw is an expensive non repair option and some look as if they would be more suited to a space ship than a floating home while some UK offerings often look, despite the price tags, as if Worsel Gummage designed and built them. The one exception we have found (there may of course be others) is the one made by Compoost Toilets. It looks like a loo, is designed that gentlemen can stand to pee (the only one we have so far discovered), is self stirring, has a warning light for when the urine bottle needs emptying and does not need a hole drilled in the boat side to fit the fan vent ducting. We have one on order and when it arrives and is installed will report back on how easy it is (or not) to live with compared to the cassette one we currently have.
With luck that will be the last of the big BOAT spends, but I won’t hold my breath.