Hilperton Marina

On the way back from a lovely weekend in Abingdon, we stopped off at Hilperton Marina (http://www.hilpertonmarina.com/) to look at some boats. The guys at the marina couldn't have been lovelier; we explained our price range and that we hadn't had chance to look at many boats yet, and they just gave us the keys to some of the boats so we could look around.

We were pleasantly appreciative of the space in the boats - it's hard to know when you've only looked at photographs whether it will be okay in reality, but it really was spacious enough for us. It also confirmed the type of layout we like best - each boat tends to have the bedroom/living room/kitchen in a particular layout. Some of the more expensive boats were beautifully fitted out, but in terms of price and layout we most liked the one that needed most work doing to it.

The marina can lift the boat out of the water for around 300 quid, and then you need to pay an external surveyor to survey it for around 400-500 quid. You can get the hull blacked whilst it's out for 300-400 quid. I think if we were moored at Saltford, Hilperton may be the nearest option to get boat services done.

The biggest issue that came from the visit was our worry about Lucy's seasickness - the boats did move in the water more than I expected, and you could feel the boat shift from side to side if you moved about on it. We managed to look around three boats before Lucy felt a bit nauseus and we decided to stop. Admittedly we'd had a late night on the Saturday, eating and drinking more than usual with friends, but it seems likely this was related to the movement of the boat. We haven't quite worked out what the answer to that is, although Lucy has considered hypnotherapy. We are also considering a short canal boat holiday to test out living on the boat for a decent amount of time - although again that could be awful if Lucy genuinely is seasick!

Saltford Marina

Before we went away on our holiday (which was lovely by the way), we visited Saltford Marina to have a little tour and chat to the people in the office:

http://www.saltfordmarina.co.uk/

We had already previously visited Saltford and looked around a little bit, but this was a chance to see the marina itself and ask a few questions. Saltford is a beautiful countryside location and the marina was incredibly peaceful even during the day. It has also usefully located between Bristol and Bath and right next to the Bristol-Bath cycle path (around 7 miles from Bristol and 5 miles from Bath).

The staff were very helpful...some of the useful information we found out is as follows:

It is not a requirement to pay council tax in the marina as it does not class as your main residential address (you therefore need to have a main residential address to give to companies, etc.)
Despite this, there are postboxes so you can have post addressed to the marina.
There is a coin-operated laundrette, and a book and DVD lending library between the residents.
The marina is secured with electronic locks given out to the residents.
There is allocated car parking, and a secure bike rack.
You can hire storage containers by the month if you own too much stuff to fit in your boat.
Pets are allowed (within reason).
There are water and electricity connections to the boats (electricity paid per unit) and wireless internet throughout the marina.
They sell fuel (solid fuel for stoves, liquid fuel for boat engine) directly at the marina.
Rental prices for moorings depend on the length of the boat, currently ranging from around £250 pcm to £450 pcm.
They have a 3-month notice system either way, usually moorings are coming up relatively regularly and you just have to keep in contact with them to see if they have anything become available for your size of boat -ideally you need to get a boat first!

That's about as much as I can remember at the moment - you can get up-to-date price lists via the marina by contacting them at the web-site given above.

Our next step is to test out Lucy's sea-legs as she says she is particularly prone to car-sickness and sea-sickness. The boats looked relatively steady and the marina had little in the way of waves, but Lucy isn't so sure. Also, getting on some boats will give us a better idea of the space available and whether we could manage it.

Saltford Marina recommended Hilperton Marina to us because they broker boats so we should be able to go and look around and actually get on some of them:

http://www.hilpertonmarina.com/

I'll post about how we get on!

Boat Financing

Of all the options we have looked into so far, life on a boat seems the most plausible in the short-term. It is legal, and it is relatively affordable. Here I will consider in more detail the costs involved. From my small amount of research, it seems you can get a half-decent second hand boat for around 20,000-40,000 pounds. The cost of a residential mooring depends on the area and particular marina as well as the length of the boat, but in the Bristol area appears to be between 220 and 450 pounds per month rental. Add into this the fact you may need to pay some amount of council tax, there is a licensing fee for the Canal and River Trust, you have to pay for the hull to be blacked every three years, for a Boat Safety Certificate, insure the boat, pay utility bills, and the costs can still mount up. I am going to research these costs in a bit more detail and hopefully put links to useful web-sites from this blog post as I find them.

Here are the current licensing fees from the Canal and River Trust:
https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/media/library/5545.pdf
For a 50-foot boat, this puts the annual license at £850 for Canals and Rivers, or for Rivers only it would be £510.

You also need a boat safety certificate, which lasts for four years and appears to cost around £100 (i.e., £25 per year):
http://angliaboatsafety.co.uk/boat-safety-certificate-price/.
However, I can't find a specific cost for the certificate from the Boat Safety Scheme web-site:
http://www.boatsafetyscheme.org/

Here is some info on hull blacking and replacing the anodes which seems to be recommended at least every three years:
http://narrowboatinfo.co.uk/narrowboat-maintenance-blacking/
Blacking helps protect the hull from rust/corrosion, and wear and tear when being driven about. The anodes are a clever mechanism - I don't fully understand it at the moment but it is something to do with electrical current - because the anode has a more 'active' voltage than the metal on the hull of the boat, the anode will corrode first and protect the hull from corrosion (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galvanic_anode). As such, the anodes need to be regularly replaced in order for them to do their job appropriately.

There is an example of costs of blacking and anode replacement at a particular marine repairs centre here:
http://aquanarrowboats.co.uk/marine-repairs-centre.
In this case, for a 50 foot boat, blacking would be around £550, and replacing four anodes would be around £200. These costs include dry docking and a pressure wash and dry before blacking; anodes should be replaced at the same time in order not to pay for dry docking twice. This means that blacking and anode replacement would cost £250 per year if done every three years.

Life on a boat?

Another potential option to look into is life on a boat. This can similarly be small and beautiful, and means there is no need to buy land with planning permission, although does require a residential mooring.

Having only briefly looked, here is someone else's narrow-boat being hired out as a B and B in Bristol which looks lovely (don't know how long this link will work): https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/640103

And an article about residential moorings: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-1595273/Will-your-next-home-be-a-boat.html

On www.apolloduck.co.uk I saw an advert posted yesterday for a houseboat that is £25,000 to buy, with £227 pm residential mooring fee (http://www.apolloduck.co.uk/regions.phtml?rid=922). The boat has a double bedroom and a wood-burning stove. This is a relatively small space but also much cheaper than a flat/house.

Some advice on living on a boat from shelter and a midlands marina:

http://trinitymarinas.co.uk/short-guide-for-first-time-buyers/

http://england.shelter.org.uk/get_advice/other_types_of_accommodation/houseboats


Bristol City Council's information on moorings:

http://www.bristol.gov.uk/page/transport-and-streets/mooring-and-berthing-harbour


Bristol overall seems pretty full up in terms of residential moorings and there is a long waiting list. It seems that you can jump the list potentially by buying a boat in-situ.

Here is a lovely marina between Bristol and Bath that is family-run and seems to get the occasional residential mooring come available from what I've read on a few forums:

http://www.saltfordmarina.co.uk/

Although it does seem to suggest you can't have live-aboard pets and also says the following:

"I understand that if I require a "live aboard" or "regular user" mooring, this mooring and or premises owned by Saltford Marina Ltd, cannot be considered as my main residential home."

Another option is Portavon Marina: http://www.bwml.co.uk/marinas/portavon_marina


Good web-site for looking at houseboats for sale:

http://www.abcboatsales.com/boat-sales/

Things to live in and on

It is definitely the case that if you are willing to think small, things to live in can be very affordable. Already, we have found a couple of web-sites where you can buy a home, custom-made if you wish, for affordable prices (e.g., £20,000), as long as you are willing to live in a small space. For example:

http://www.barreltopwagons.co.uk/specs/barrel-top-wagons-living-wagon.html

http://www.tinyhouseuk.co.uk/gallery.html

In principle, you can install a wood burner, solar panels, and a small wind turbine and be relatively self-sufficient. Obviously, water and sewage is also an issue to think about.

Further issues to consider are:

Mortgages - I have heard that banks have certain requirements for you to take out a mortgage, often requiring that your home is bricks and mortar rather than a cabin, and potentially that there is a working kitchen, bathroom, and central heating...this requires more research!

Land - this is the big issue as far as I can tell. In England, to live in any dwelling long-term you require planning permission, even if it is a mobile caravan. It is a lot cheaper/easier to buy land without planning permission than to buy land with planning permission. It is very difficult to get planning permission on land that doesn't already have it. Our dream of living sustainably in a cabin in the woods seems almost impossible in England. I have heard that there is a slightly better possibility in Wales (e.g., http://www.brithdirmawr.co.uk/, http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2013/11/off-the-grid-emma-orbach-wales/) or Scotland, but even then things are still difficult. Again, this requires much further research which I hope I will cover in future posts. On the positive side, I believe we live in one of the most alternative cities in the UK, Bristol, which is amenable to the idea of smaller living (e.g., http://wildgoosespace.org.uk/, http://www.smallisfestival.org/home/)

Small is Beautiful Living

The title "Small is Beautiful" has quite blatantly been stolen from the E. F. Schumacher book from the 1970's, which I must admit I have never read and almost certainly should. I have stolen it because it very much summarises the spirit of a living project that I have been thinking about recently, along with my partner, Lucy.

We live in a time when the cost of housing and land in England is extortionate. The average wage is around £26,000, whilst the average cost of a house is around £250,000. In theory, this means that even two people earning the average wage would struggle to get a mortgage on the average home; that is in the current post-economic-crash environment of limiting mortgage lending to around 4 times a household's earnings (this would be 4 * £52,000 = £204,000 in the household described above). Admittedly, the economics is not as simple as this formula, and both wages and house prices fluctuate depending on the area in which you live, but overall the fact is that housing is difficult to afford.

I cannot see this changing swiftly. Whilst governments promise to build more affordable housing, the cost of homes in my working lifetime has generally risen a lot faster than wages. Because of the large proportion of people in the UK with mortgages, I cannot see a government ever letting the cost of housing drop, because this would leave so many people in negative equity and potentially screwed. Therefore, those of us not yet on the housing ladder become even more screwed with each passing year; the cost of housing rises faster than wages, so with each year the housing becomes more out of reach.

Now, I don't actually care about owning a house. However, I am very aware of how many elderly people are required to sell their home to fund their care. I am very aware that the government cannot afford to support a whole generation of elderly people without homes. Once I am elderly, I will have minimal pension income (I believe the state pension will continue to be reduced as the government cannot fund the growing elderly population), and therefore will not be able to afford rent as well as living costs. This is the main reason I feel a need to put a roof over my head which is mine.

In this context, people generally work harder and harder to afford their mortgage and costs. Now both partners work instead of one, which is absolutely great if that is what people want, but it seems it is becoming more of a requirement rather than a choice. It is not the case that both partners working means that the household can afford more, but that the cost of everything has risen so that both partners need to work. This contributes to the economic growth within the country, which we are always told is great and seems to be the holy grail of all governments. However, it feels to me that a constant pursuit of economic growth leads to degradation of the environment and peoples' spirits.

Given all of the above, I am beginning to think that it makes more sense to live in a small way. If you can reduce the size of your home, and your use of resources such as water and electricity, then you can provide for yourself through wind/solar energy. In the process, you can de-clutter your life and live in a more simple way, and not require as much money, giving you more freedom to work less.

In theory, this sounds lovely, but it is obviously not that simple. The standard system is not set up for people to live in this way - it is assumed that everybody wants to work hard and earn as much as possible, live in a bricks-and-mortar style house with a large mortgage, etc., and this is the best way for a government to earn their maximum possible treasury through taxation. Living outside this system is difficult and has many hurdles.

I am starting this blog as a way to chart our progress in researching any possible alternative lifestyles. We may not succeed, but I hope that this will serve as a narrative of our progress, as well as a place to collect our research to look back on, or for other people to gain knowledge from. Initial searching on the internet shows that there is a community of people out there who wish to live this way, often referred to as living 'off grid' (e.g., www.off-grid.net), and that very few succeed. I can only hope that we find some compromises to the standard way of living in the UK. Wish us luck!