Ep 10. Narrowboat Ballasting and Planning which Toilet.

Just found your channel, and enjoying your presenting style,, and a few episodes Im still chuckling at flappy bit 👍 Well done big man, that was a hell of a bit of toil you put in there and I don't envy your back at all 🫣

Enjoyed this week's video, Chris. I don't envy your toilet dilemma, but folks more qualified than me have already offered their thoughts and I've no doubt your choice will be one that is carefully weighed to reach the right decision for your needs. The ballasting looked like a day's work and I hope you're feeling batter now. All the best and thanks for continuing to share this journey with us.

Hi Chris. Ahh, the old which throne to sit on debate. A can of worms opened here for sure. Haha. I’m on the side of cassette and the reasons are. 1: Not many moving parts to fail. Having to dismantle a blocked macerater after someone puts something down there they shouldn’t (and they will) would require a few sessions of therapy! Wow. 2: Free to dispose of at the various elsan points on the system, some marina’s can charge £6 for using their elan, so empty them all! 3: If the canal freezes, you can still empty your loo! 4: initial outlay of costs are about the same as a compost if you go for the ceramic bowl and 3 cassettes. The Cinderella’s are not as great as everyone thinks, they do need some maintenance to keep them working reliably…..a ton of money as well. Pump out is nice and like sitting on a land loo….I’ve already made some points above but just to add, the main hoses will need replacing after 10 years or so, which is a nasty job and they’ll be a mare to get at and off the connections. Do you also want to carry around that amount of raw sewage (mixed with Elsan Blue a must) on your boat? Also it’s mainly going to be you on the boat and one cassette should easy last 10 days if your job is not home based…..a week if you’re on board 24/7. You’ll make the right decision for sure, at the end of the day, it’s also how you want to deal with your own waste and how up close and personal you wish to get to it. 🙂👍🏻

We are going with compost. Hope your dodgy back is ok - and on the subject if you having a stove, coal bags won't do your back any good. I had a spinal fusion so also have a dodgy back so we will be going with a diesel stove. Water and Electricity another dilemma on the horizon - great video mate!

Another excellent video Chris. I can fully understand your dilemma regarding toilets. We had a caravan until recently and of course it had a cassette toilet, which all do, and as we always used authorised sites emptying was never a problem but the +ve and -ve of each narrowboat system becomes more important, unfortunately I’m not qualified to give advice on this subject, but I’m quite sure you will solve this problem and look forward to your decision, especially your reasoning behind it. If you keep jiggling about whilst talking and all the effort you put in moving the ballast bricks your frying pan must now be an omelet pan. Keep up the good work and look forward to your next vlog.

Toilets? They have toilets? So what are the portholes for? When you mentioned the composting method, I thought, great: you can grow your breakfast mushrooms on top of it. I did wonder if some sort of hybrid system might be an option, and I see others have mentioned dual systems, which, despite the space penalty, have given you some food for thought. Another great video, with the pros and cons very succinctly laid out. All that MBA stuff finally proves useful in helping you work out which crapper to fit. I’m glad you dismissed flagstones as ballast: do you know how heavy and awkward they are to move? Had you laid flagstones, you’d now be laid up with chronic back problems, wondering if you’d ever be fit enough to pilot the boat. Chris, you’ll no doubt want to inspect the underfloor areas every so often; how easy will that be to do? And how well ventilated are the underfloor sections? Highlight of my week, these Tuesday videos. Thanks, Chris.

Hi, Chris… I’ve got personal views on sustainability of composting vs. Elsan which I won’t share publicly (emotive!) , but I’ve checked out your Linked-in profile… if anyone can make composting work in a world that struggles to evolve, you’re the man! (Also, would dearly love to see you hot-boxing in your engine bay… gotta be the ideal environment for bacteria to do their thang!) looking forward to seeing you afloat… we’re also designing a NB… but about 12 months behind where you are in your own build (and it’s 100% composting for us) … loving your approach to these vids!

Watching you, makes me wonder which part of the military you were in. Saying that, I have a wonderful memory. Years ago before tourists found Belize, my husband and I spent Christmas Day with a British special forces team doing jungle training. Well, we spent the day and most of the night with them. At some point the military police came, lol 😂. We ended up taking some of them back to the guard post. And those guards looked fierce but cute! One of my favorite Christmas holidays!!!!

Not sure if this be of any use to you in helping to decide but here goes. Have owned a boat for four years and six months ago we (two adults living aboard) decided to sell up and live aboard as continuous cruisers. Our boat is equipped with a pump out and the big worry was the non-functioning pump out or the toilet breaking down. We decided to buy a cassette loo as a back up. We very quickly determined that by using the cassette for peeing and only using the pump out for the big job, we have extended the time between pump outs from three weeks to almost two months. Our six months living aboard has convinced us that pump out for us with a back up cassette loo is the answer. When we upgrade to a new boat I want to investigate the option of a ‘U’ shaped black water tank with a low profile central section. This would allow for pump out access points on both sides of the boat and negate the need for an ‘under bed solution’. I am hopeful it will be possible for the bulk of the tank to sit on the bottom plate of the boat, thus achieving little or no loss of living/storage space on the boat. My thoughts are it could be located under the bathroom floor. This may be all ‘pie in the sky’ as I’ve not yet discussed this with a builder but I guess if you don’t ask you’ll never know. Good luck with the rest of the build.

Hi Chris really enjoying the channel 😃 looks like they are doing a great job on the boat. Battening looked lovely and neat and pat yourself on the back for the hard day’s graft you put in with the ballast.

Well done on the ballast bricks - should help with the old frying pan! We always wanted to have a 'compost' loo before we got our boat, so CRT's flipflopping on bagging waste did not change our minds. We switched from cassette to Compoost about 4 weeks ago, and have started the outside compost bin. So far, we love it, especially when we cruised passed 3 broken Elsan points before we could empty the last cassette.

Another great vlogg, thanks, as for the type of loo, we use a self built waterless loo, cost £85 for the bits at the time but would not change even if CRT says we cant use it in the future, friends and family use it, no problem. We use the council black waste bins for the majority of ours either friends or family, sometimes CRT / BIFFA , but even if none are available there is always a shovel and a hole somewhere on the cut as the last option 🤢 🤣

OMG, the first episode where I’ve actually thought, “Oh yeah, that’s the Mearsy I remember! Glasses on, hat covering those fair locks of yours!” Ya don’t look any better though mind ;) Love ya really fella

Its a toughy. Its great that you are giving this more thought than most. They say you should have a multiple backup scenario on a narrow boat and to not rely on 1 system. I think also that aesthetics should also play a part. Cassettes often look child like to me. With pumpout you can have a toilet similar to 1 in a house. Probably isnt an icky factor so much for you as you are ex services. I like to think that you should have 2 types, so pumpout and cassette for emergencies. Composting and cassette for emergencies. Incinerator are pretty rare and costly. Their price will come down if more people choose them. Incinerator has to be least icky but is the most expensive. Cassette is cheapest to buy and run (still need blue) but extra storage is needed for multiple cassettes. Maybe instead of the pumpout waste being under your bed, it could be fitted in the bow and the clean water is under the bed. Whatever the choice I think a 2 system with redundancy is the way to go

Hi Chris. Not sure whether there's more energy needed for those 1900 ballast bricks or planning which toilet set-up to install ! Certainly needs a great deal of thought, not just in the short term, but also as time goes on, in terms of costs and "convenience" - for want of a better word ! We caravan so have a cassette arrangement, which is ok, but with just one cassette, it can be an issue when we take grandsons away with us and toilet gets more use. We did holiday a couple of times on a hired narrowboat which was great, but the pump-out toilet didn't always work so well, which was a problem. Never had any experience of composting toilets, so can't really comment, but with the care and planning you're giving this aspect, you'll surely arrive at the best solution for your boating needs. Great vlog again. Thank you - George and Trish - CaravanningMacs

Lovin these vlogs... I'd go with compost (dry) toilet. Looking forward to you being o the cut 😁👍

Hi Chris, You did a good days work with the bricks there chap, Well done ! Re- the toilet, Waste be it human or otherwise Is always going to be an issue whilst living in a steel tube. I'll be interested to see your final decision and the reasoning behind it. However, if you're not C'Cing, twenty quid a month for a marina pump out is pennies for a simple and relatively normal toilet, the holding tank generally doesn't slosh about any more than the water tank. I used to live at a house outside of the normal sewerage system with an underground septic tank which had to be pumped out every four months. Cheers Chris, keep the vids coming.

Well, I would take the Cindarella option but I would also ensure i carried a third gas bottle. Sure, its more expensive up front and life term costs are higher but the convenience factor (no pun intended) is persuasive; coupled with the inherent independence of the system - enhanced by the provision of the extra gas bottle to cover any (unlikely)unforeseen, temporary disruption to supply/distribution of gas. Very much enjoying your vlogs and you sharing your thought processes. Helps me to refine my own thinking. Looking forward to the next one. Cheers!

I really love your channel I've watched season 3 to your latest video.. Now watching from the start from episode 1. My aim to to purchase a wide beam in about 6 to 8 years time.. As I want to be a full time cruising I can't do while I'm looking after my parents as their health is now bad and they depend on me now. By then the price increases from crt over next 5 years should of sorted out and will know how I'm going to go with build etc.. The reason I wanted to chat is after watching you do all the ballast it would be so funny if you had your leg pulled saying THE BRICKS HAVE TO GO IN THE OTHER WAY... Well I had a laugh. Are there many boats on the river and canals without a licence and can we find out how many?? And can the canal and river trust ask the government for a new law to be passes to help crt either remove these boats from the waters as I'm sure I herd that it was near enough impossible to do anything about the non licenced rabble... In your words ""discuss"" Keep up the great content.. May God bless you in your travels Maybe one day meet you on the waterways John

After that, you convinced me a pump out is best solution for your needs with a casette back up. I have only rented a boat for a week with a pump out some years ago with three adults aboard. Never heard it at all. Maybe spend a weekend on hire boat to try it.