Who are/were Solar Powered Boats? The website for Solar Powered Boats is now offline, so I presume Thames Solar Electric have given up on the rebrand. I've replaced all links to the site with links to the archive of their website on the excellent Wayback Machine. Unfortunately all the images…
Something the internet is missing is a review of a Thames Solar Electric boat by someone who has actually bought one, and owned it for over a year. There are at least ten of these boats on our waterways, but there's never been a detailed review (though there are a…
Rebuilding your boat from scratch with no previous experience, using reclaimed material, on a limited budget, and using technology not many suppliers can install is tough. On top of that we've had to come to terms with the fact that we spent £184,000 on a boat from Thames Solar Electric,…
Once the floor was up and the cladding was off the bow wall, I could see the insulated stainless steel water tank in the alcove at the bow end. The ceiling and walls of the alcove were covered in spray foam insulation, but the floor had been left as bare…
After the 400+ days trying to get Thames Solar Electric to do the right thing, at the end of 2022 we committed to stripping out the boat and refitting it ourselves. This presented a number of challenges; The funding was secured from family, not something we’re happy about but it…
The full horror Buckle in for the ride as I describe a list of screw-ups normally only see on an episode of Rogue Traders. If you’re considering buying a boat from Thames Solar Electric I’d suggest you read this first, and then make your decision. To illustrate the faults and…
A good example this morning of the fear and trepidation of life aboard a boat built by Thames Solar Electric. 09:10 We noticed the pump (which pumps water from the underfloor heating pipes, to the wood burner and into the tank) was labouring. What could it be? Is the pump…
Why we’d never buy Thames Solar Electric again When we first thought about moving onto a boat we were worried about a lot of things; the smaller space, living off-grid, having to top up the water and empty the toilet. Fortunately none of these things were a problem, the problem…
How off-grid are we? “Off-grid’ living refers to living independently without one or more public utilities. In our case this means living without gas, mains electricity and mains water, but we can’t live completely without two of those three. The boat is completely free of fossil fuels; we use no…
Living in a smaller space Of all the issues we faced, the lack of space was the one we were most worried about, but its turned out to be almost a non-issue. Our kitchen is just like a regular kitchen, with an oven, grill and induction hob, a washing machine,…