Blog

The Floor – Deconstruction

Most narrowboats have a base of treated 18mm marine plywood laid across the boat’s steel transverse bearers or “ribs” as I like to refer to them. However, we’re all about longevity, sustainability, cost-saving, time-saving, materials reuse and insulation in our rebuild… a tall order! Firstly, let’s look at why we had to rebuild the floor … Read more

The Refit Part 1

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; Funding The funding was secured from family, not something we’re happy about but it was the only way, … Read more

A window in the boat with protective tape around the edges to protect it from paint. The paint is all over the window and the tape has done nothing to protect it.

Thames Solar Electric nightmare

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 was the boat builder. The … Read more

View across solar panels on River Great Ouse

Living off-grid

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. No fossil fuels The boat is completely free of fossil fuels; we use no diesel to … Read more