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My floating home, More 4 Thursday's


ProDave

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I watched the first of this series last night.

 

They were trying to say that "floating homes" is a new concept, but houseboats have been around as long as i can remember.

 

the only difference this time was they were trying to make a nice looking well insulated home, compared to some houseboats that are just slum boats.

 

As usual over played drama, and lack of any details. What they were building looked like a standard SIP construction with 100, maybee 150mm thick panels, and they claimed it would not need heating as the 700W given off by two occupants would be plenty to heat it.

 

No details of how a houseboat on a permanent mooring deals with waste water for instance.
 

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11 hours ago, ProDave said:

As usual over played drama, and lack of any details. What they were building looked like a standard SIP construction with 100, maybee 150mm thick panels, and they claimed it would not need heating as the 700W given off by two occupants would be plenty to heat it.

Say what?!? 

Even when I piss my wife RIGHT off, she doesn't chuck out 350w o.O. If she did, I'd rip the boiler out and bring some cheerleaders home. Free heat B|

If I could find enough cheerleaders would that be considered 'renewable energy' ? ?

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6 minutes ago, Sensus said:

 

Indeed; though 'value' is just a matter of supply and demand, of course.

Yes, there is too much cash floating about in the UK economy.  Probably not what you meant through.

There is also the problem that people are not always rational actors when it comes to some purchases.

8 minutes ago, Sensus said:

I'd love to do more, so anyone who fancies the idea, please give me a shout!

I would like to get involved.  Made boats and caravans/campervans in the past, not really very different are they.

There was a marine project down a while back.  They had some huge blocks of polystyrene left over, ideal for pontoons.

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27 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I very much like the idea of a floating house (I am building a boat at the moment, Mk2 should be sleepable).

Thing is that is really just shows that building land is overvalued and water is not.

But with building land, you own it, and you usually get a garden, parking space etc.

 

With a floating home you don't own the water, you pay rental to whoever does, be that a marina, EA, CRT etc and you have to pay to use their facilities.

 

The "limit" on floating homes is of course finding a mooring with residential permission. this sort of program never tells you how much rental they pay for a mooring, and if they need to buy the lease of the mooring to start with.
 

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2 hours ago, Sensus said:

I did the technical timber frame design on the UK's first amphibious house (it floats, but only some of the time). A very interesting project it was, too:

 

Formosa 1.jpg

 

I've not seen the TV programme referred to (I'm not much of a TV person, I must admit), but I've also had discussions and done a bit of work with one of the other major players who is trying to push the concept forward in the UK, Floodline Developments.

 

 

 

THat is presumably one of those where it was better to be a supplier :P, if I recall the episode and the budget.

 

Though I suspect that London prices would mitigate the unamphibious machinery being flooded through climate change appearing a bit early etc.

 

Amphibious may be the ones for that 25% contingency.

 

But yes ... Fascinating project.

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited by Ferdinand
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MOre seriously I wonder what the potential is here?

 

I would estimate that there may be in the low 10s of thousands of residential moorings in the UK, if that many and including marinas.

 

I would guesstimate 2k moorings in London, which may suggest 15-20k nationally.

 

I wonder how many opportunities there are?

 

Ferdinand

 

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1 hour ago, Sensus said:

As with all self-build sites, how cheap it can be often depends on how far outside the box you're willing to think.

 

I looked at one that was 1/4 acre near me for £20k - was right on the river and formed part of the flood plain. 

 

The "design" we came up with was a roundhouse that could raise if needed - only needed around 15" lift for the 1/1000 year limit to be exceeded and could be done with four 50 tonne rams and a hydraulic pump which would cost less than £1,000 to do. 

 

Nimby neighbours put me off that one ..!

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Yep sorry ...!! 24" lift for the ordinary 1/100 year limit with an additional 15" for 1/1000

 

the base of the structure was 36" up from the flood plain, but at its highest was nearly 60" from the river at its lowest. 

 

And I wish I had known about telling EA to get stuffed and the sequential test .....!

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11 hours ago, Sensus said:

I did the technical timber frame design on the UK's first amphibious house (it floats, but only some of the time). A very interesting project it was, too:

 

Formosa 1.jpg

 

I've not seen the TV programme referred to (I'm not much of a TV person, I must admit), but I've also had discussions and done a bit of work with one of the other major players who is trying to push the concept forward in the UK, Floodline Developments.

 

 

Grand Designs Revisted on more4 now is showing the build again

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On 17/09/2016 at 08:29, Nickfromwales said:

Say what?!? 

Even when I piss my wife RIGHT off, she doesn't chuck out 350w o.O. If she did, I'd rip the boiler out and bring some cheerleaders home. Free heat B|

If I could find enough cheerleaders would that be considered 'renewable energy' ? ?

 

Genious! Although I think the idea could benefit from a little value engineering......

 

Just get rid of the wife and spend more time in bed with the cheerleaders. Purely to keep warm of course ;) 

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Watched this last night. Did I hear them correctly saying that the house was not actually fixed to the float in any way? I know that 26t of house is not going to just move by itself, but the consequences if it *did* move are pretty bad...

 

Can't say I would want to live in it- seems a bit odd to have big opening doors out onto... nothing.

 

Structurally, their floor buildup was essentially identical to mine, although I used heavier timbers for the box beam surrounding the JJI joists.

 

One quesiton that bugged me- what the heck do they do about sewerage?

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Yes that's right, it was not fixed.  They also made the "house" a little bit longer than the float by mistake so it overhangs a little at the ends.  It would not be hard to bolt a substantial timber block to the underside of the house floor right in the corners of the bilge so it could not possibly move.

 

I asked about sewage. There were two visible "pipes" from the house to the shore, but only small diameter. I can see that being for water and electricity supply.  all I can think for drainage would be a macerator type pump that would then cope with a small pipe and perhaps a slight uphill run to some mains drainage point.

 

I think I would want a floating pontoon "patio" ourtside those doors.  This is on a short disused landlocked bit of canal, so there won't be any padding boats. Though I do here rumblings about restoring navigation to the Chichester canal and restoring the sea locks.
 

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There will also have been size limitations on the berth, they mentioned a height limit (which is why they had the sunken roof deck so not to exceed the height) so I am sure there will have been length and beam limits on the berth as well.  It was certainly a lot larger and a lot nicer looking than the other houseboats adjacent.

 

Maintaining the wood cladding is a logistical exercise in itself.
 

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There's a lot about the Chichester canal here http://chichestercanal.org.uk/about-chichester-canal/chichester-canal-history/

 

There's only a couple of miles of navigable waterway now and the houseboat moorings are very close to the sea lock into Chichester harbour. They say the sea locks are still operated occasionally to allow houseboat movements. They face a very big challenge if they ever want to re open more of the canal as a couple of major roads have been built with just a culvert where the canal was, so would need major work to allow boats to pass.

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Opening old canals is a good thing...but expensive 

See

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Link

Culverts were expanded and loads of new bridges built when they did the Forth and Clyde and Union canal link...and of course the Falkirk Wheel

After a lot of questionable capital funding from the Lottery, this project got huge public acclaim

16 years later you can see why. Great pump primer for everything from cycle paths to waterside development.

Previously it was a dark contaminated drinking den...at least in Maryhill.???

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