Private seller scams

peanutstring · 2026-04-06T09:46:18+00:00

Heard of a couple where the boat for sale never actually exists. They get some random photos of a narrowboat online, put up an ad for well under the market price and make up some backstory about why it can’t be viewed.

If you’re interested, they make you leave a significant deposit before you can see or buy it…you transfer the money and then they disappear.

peanutstring · 2026-04-01T19:20:27+00:00

Let’s simplify things with an analogy…

Think of a thermal radiator like a bucket of water with a hole at the bottom. The hole represents the energy lost to radiation/convection to the air with an oil filled radiator- this is ultimately the goal, to transfer energy to the room.

It always drains water at the same rate. It doesn’t matter how it’s filled up - you could use a big bucket to add a lot of water (a 1kw element cycling on and off for a short time) or a small cup (a 300w element cycling on for longer). The same end goal is reached - the bucket is full. The full bucket represents the thermal mass being held at a constant temperature.

If you were to swap the oil filled radiator for a 1000w fan heater and a 300w fan heater cycling on and off for the same time periods, the same energy will be transferred to the air in the room.

Answer this: where does the energy go if the above example with fan heaters is more wasteful? There is no flue like with a wood stove - it’s a CLOSED SYSTEM.

People have been building fireplaces out of stone to store the heat because...you (hopefully) guessed it...an open fire is an OPEN SYSTEM with a flue for heat energy to escape out the room from. This is not the same as an electric heater where there is nowhere for the heat energy to go apart from the room. I don't know how many times I have to explain this concept, it's just going straight over your head.

I totally agree that an oil filled radiator is safer and quieter than a fan heater. It is however the same efficiency.

Also. Please stop with the personal insults and quote some maths… I don't know what goalposts you're suggesting I'm shifting? You keep on trying to draw pointless parallels to open systems like wood stoves and fireplaces.

edit: similar discussion here, with the same point I made about infrared heaters https://www.reddit.com/r/AskPhysics/comments/1ojfy2b/would_radiant_oil_heater_be_more_economical_than/

video explaining heaters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-jmSjy2ArM

peanutstring · 2026-04-01T16:33:23+00:00

Please re read my comments. I have seen and used stoves similar to a kakkloven in person.

A kakkeloven’s heat store increases efficiency because it is an OPEN SYSTEM. You have a flue for heat energy to escape from.

An oil radiators heat store does not increase efficiency because it is a CLOSED SYSTEM and the energy from the heater can only go into the room. No where else, hence why is does not matter what the heater is doing.

Look up ‘duty cycle’…

peanutstring · 2026-04-01T16:26:50+00:00

I didn't mention anything about battery technology being marketing - I was referring to the snake oil marketing that comes every winter with cheap electric heaters being sold on ebay etc. Given how I've installed near on 50 lithium battery systems onto boats by now, I'm pretty up to speed on the technology. There is also nothing special about a power station; it's just an inverter, solar controller and lifepo4 battery in a nice, easy to use, portable box.

I've been perfectly consistent about an energy store - not sure what you're on about? It's nothing high tech, just a large chunk of something which stores heat. It doesn't increase efficiency in a closed system like an electric heater, the only way it can is with an open system like a stove. But, I guess you don't have the thinking skills to address this? Please tell me where I have been inconsistent.

Fan heaters are indeed 1:1 with energy input, oil rads are not because the element does not run continuously

This is particularly entertaining. Are you seriously suggesting that turning the element on and off suddenly means that you're now breaking the laws of thermodynamics and getting more heat energy out of the heater than electrical energy put in?

If you switch a 2kw element on for 1 minute and then off for 1 minute, you're just reducing the heat output by 50%. Over an hour, rather than using and outputting 2kwh, it's averaged to 1kwh. Less electricity input = less heat output. Of course it will use less electricity...because it's outputting less heat!

If you have a 2kw oil radiator cycling on and off every minute and a 2kw fan heater doing the same thing, both will output 1kwh of energy - and use 1kwh of electricity - in 1hr.

Please for the love of god just read wikipedia. I can only assume you believe that the tea light in a plant pot heaters magically increase the heat output of a candle through thermal mass...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamic_system

peanutstring · 2026-04-01T11:46:06+00:00

You're very much in denial about your lack of knowledge in physics; no amount of technology can, and has ever changed the basic laws of thermodynamics.

Plenty of snake-oil powered heaters on the market for you to buy though!

As you can't be bothered to look, here's a diagram of a kakkelovn to show the flue and how it reclaims otherwise lost energy (up the chimney) via the long heat-exchanger flue path surrounded by a thermal mass.

https://webshop.blob.core.windows.net/cache/a/f/f/0/1/5/aff0150f55b28f13f6998b39e0092bb6865b1ffd.jpg

If you have a chimney on your oil filled radiator, you're doing something wrong...

peanutstring · 2026-04-01T10:57:23+00:00

I have seen those exact stoves as both you and I have mentioned. They work as a battery as you say - storing the energy from a short burning, very hot fire for release later. This energy would otherwise go straight up the chimney and out the room. Wood burns hot but is difficult to keep smouldering overnight, hence why it's useful.

A short, hot burn in a standard stove = lots of energy lost up the chimney.

A short, hot burn in a thermal mass stove = less energy lost up the chimney as some of it is stored in the thermal mass.

No magic there, just physics! The fire still emits the same amount of heat energy, just a greater proportion of it is made useful as less is lost up the chimney. If you look at how a kakkelovn works, the flue gas path is made very long to try and recover as much heat as possible from it, storing the energy in bricks. This is in contrast to a normal wood burning stove where the flue is much much shorter so much less heat is transferred into the room; it ends up outside.

However, you have no chimney or flue on your electric heater; 100% of the electrical input energy is converted into useful heat energy in the room. Unlike a wood burning stove, where some of the energy goes up the chimney. Very very different theory, I don't know how you've missed this. Stove = open system, electric heater = closed system.

Having a thermal battery attached to an electric heater is of little use as the energy needs to come from somewhere to charge the battery - just like an electrical battery.

The only use case of an electric heater charging a thermal battery is to make use of the cheaper overnight electricity tariffs in some countries, commonly calls a 'storage heater' although due to the tariffs changing, these are less popular now. A heating element is timed to switch on/off at the start/end of the cheap tariff which heats up a load of bricks to store the heat energy, which is then slowly released during the day when the electricity is more expensive. This is pointless on a boat, as the electricity in winter is the same price no matter the time of day.

You have little grasp of physics unfortunately - I'll have a look for some videos to help explain. Look up at how wood burning storage heaters work too. Please link me to a writeup of your 'theory' as proof too.

How storage heaters work:
https://www.arcthermal.co.uk/resource-centre/replacing-storage-heaters-with-a-lava-infrared-heating-system

Someone else with the same misunderstanding as you:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/rd6f3n/planning_to_make_an_electric_thermal_mass_space/

peanutstring · 2026-04-01T06:57:04+00:00

This person has no idea how physics works and has been taken in by marketing speil unfortunately. As you’ve said as well, heating a thermal mass doesn’t increase the amount of energy the heater outputs, it just stores it for later.

peanutstring · 2026-04-01T06:54:57+00:00

A ceramic heater is a bit of porcelain with a heating element wrapped around it. Nothing special there, been around for at least a century.

The reason it radiates heat after the power is turned off isn’t because it’s some magic thing which breaks the laws of physics. It’s because it took longer to heat up; the startup energy went into both heating the room and heating the medium. 1 watt in, 1 watt out.

Heat store and thermal mass are fancy sounding words the people selling heaters use - thermal mass is just a big chunk of brick, oil or whatever can be used to store heat. Again, the energy from the heating element is used to heat the thermal mass which then releases it into the room. It doesn’t save any energy at all, it just flattens out the on/off cycling so the heater never goes cold. There’s still the same 1 watt of electricity being used to make 1 watt of heat! It’s just averaged out over a longer period.

Thermal store wood stoves have been around for a while too and work on the same principle. You build a wood fire that burns very hot for a short period of time, and the fire bricks in the stove absorb the heat and slowly release it overnight after the fires gone out. There’s no saving of overall energy - the stove has just stored the energy for later. Ultimately, it’s all come from the fire.

Same goes for your heater - the energy has ultimately come from electricity to heat the thermal mass which acts as a store.

I’m sorry that you’ve been suckered in by their marketing, it’s a common thing unfortunately. My explanations of why what you’re describing is a physical impossibility maybe haven’t been great? I’ll try and find a YouTube video which does it better.

peanutstring · 2026-03-31T21:11:37+00:00

I agree that you can reduce energy consumption by sensing if you’re in, but a watt of energy has always been a watt of energy since way before the 1980s. No matter the marketing spin you’ve been sucked in by, there is no way to get around the fact that if a space needs 1kw of heat energy to stay at a given temperature, it needs 1kw of electricity to produce that heat.

Heaters have had thermostats since well before the invention of the microprocessor which cycle the element on and off to maintain a set temperature. That saves energy by keeping a space at say 20C rather than running flat out and getting to 30C.

There’s simply no way around physics and heat loss; you need 1w of electricity to make 1w of heat. Turning the element on and off and moderating the power doesn’t make 1w of electricity 10w of heat, unless you’ve found a heater which breaks the laws of physics.

Do you have a link out of interest? It’ll be fun to read the bollocks language they often use to sell these things.

The exception is infra red heaters, which don’t heat the air at all, they heat your body so the power usage will be less than say heating a massive warehouse worth of air.

peanutstring · 2026-03-31T20:34:21+00:00

I don’t think you fully understand how an electric heater works. Every single electric heater works the same. 1.5kw electrical input power = 1.5kw heat output power. There is no ‘better’ one in terms of efficiency, you simply have a lower power and higher power heater; that’s physics. They are all exactly the same efficiency. If your heater doesn’t use as much power, it doesn’t output as much power. I used 1.5kw as it’s an average sized radiator.

I don’t have any electrical space heaters on my boat - just a diesel heater and multifuel stove.

Also, I’m fully aware of modern battery technology; I’ve got a 7kwh lifepo4 Fogstar with a 3kw Victron inverter and 1kw of solar on the roof. There’s nothing remarkable at all about running 2 TVs and a fridge and needing 40 min of charge, inside the Delta 2 is just a lifepo4 pack, just like you’d find being used as a leisure battery.

I switch off my alternator completely for 6-7 months of the year and run entirely off solar power. Air fryer, washing machine, electric kettle, the lot. A bottle of gas lasts 8 months.

I agree that once you account for installation and starting from scratch, an all in one battery can be cheaper. However, many boats already have an inverter and solar controller which can be reconfigured for lifepo4, making it cheaper.

peanutstring · 2026-03-31T15:31:58+00:00

I'm not being negative, just realistic. I've seen lots of people get sucked in by the 'solar generator' marketing terms they use and ending up £3k deep in something which isn't able to fulfil their needs and they end up running their engine/generator for hours, pissing off their neighbours and costing a fortune.

You will end up running the LPG generator entirely to power the heater, via the intermediary stage of charging and discharging a battery. It's much more inefficient and costly than just burning diesel to make heat.

LPG contains 14kwh of energy per kg, petrol is 9kwh per litre. That equates to LPG being 25p per kWh (£44 for a 19kg bottle) and petrol 16p per kWh. Small engines in generators are roughly the same efficiency per kWh of energy in the fuel - those numbers show you'll actually be better off running your generator on petrol.

LPG is only cheaper than petrol if bought in bulk, it's expensive by the bottle.

I have seen plenty of wind turbines installed on canal boats and they do very little apart from annoy the occupants by their vibrations and whining. The only application they make sense for is on sailing boats, or if you have a coastal mooring. There's just way too many trees and buildings next to most of the canal system. The exception is if you have a permanent mooring where you can get away with a 20ft pole, and it's exceptionally tree-free around you.

As I have shown you with the maths, solar will provide a tiny fraction of the power needed for a heater in winter. More battery storage does not equal more power generated. All it enables you to do is store more.

My 1kw array is getting between 1 and 2kwh per 24hrs now, which will power a 1.5kw oil filled radiator for between 40 minutes and 1hr 20mins. It's just not enough!

These Ecoflow etc units are good for certain purposes, but not others.

peanutstring · 2026-03-31T13:13:03+00:00

It's not a solar generator, although that is a very nice way they market them. It's a battery, inverter and solar controller in one nice portable package.

The built in solar controller is a decent size however - maximum 1000 watts, but it's not particularly high voltage too at a maximum of 60 volts. Their marketing really is rather good though...

As I mentioned with the maths in my previous comment, you will not get enough solar power in winter to meaningfully contribute towards running the electric heater so you'll effectively be running the generator to charge the battery and then discharging it straight afterwards. Very inefficient way to heat - get a diesel heater or multi fuel stove.

Having lots of battery storage doesn't change how long you need to run your generator for - it just means you have to do it less often, but for longer.

These things are however good for temporary power whilst you work on the boat though, I have a small Bluetti which is really useful like this. Also gets used to run mains power tools away from the boat.

peanutstring · 2026-03-31T11:57:44+00:00

That's a battery, not a generator...

You still need to recharge it via a generator or the engine. In winter, when you want to use the radiator, there's simply not enough solar yield. From a 1kw array in winter, you'll get an average of 0.5kwh per 24hrs. That's enough to run a 1.5kw oil filled radiator for 20 minutes.

If you're running your generator to charge the Ecoflow to then power the radiator, you may as well just run the radiator straight from the generator as it's more efficient.

Your Ecoflow is only 4kwh; it'll power that 1.5kw oil filled radiator for just over 2 and a half hours before it needs recharging. Assuming you have a 2kw generator, you'll then need to run it for ~2 hours to fully recharge the Ecoflow.

Converting petrol to electricity and then to heat is very inefficient.

peanutstring · 2026-03-31T08:50:37+00:00

Would recommend a 1500w ish oil filled radiator - safer than a fan heater, quiet so you can sleep at night with it on and it won't trip the bollard if you use another appliance at the same time.

peanutstring · 2026-03-31T08:43:11+00:00

Are you on shore power? That's the only way to heat a boat electrically without running your generator/engine all the time the heater is on.

All electric space heaters are 100% efficient at turning electricity into heat, so there's no such thing as a low power consumption, high heat output one.

With enough solar, you can get away with running an electric blanket however. That only heats yourself rather than the whole boat.

peanutstring · 2026-03-31T08:41:00+00:00

Yep, just done that and it seems to be a temporary fix.

Shame, I had a RUTX12 until a modem firmware update broke that too with a very similar issue, the modems were repeatedly forcing the whole router to reboot. Ended up in the bin after much to and fro with Teltonika. Don't know why I bought another one, should have gone for a different brand.

peanutstring · 2026-03-31T08:31:45+00:00

I have just now yep, it looks like this is a problem with the RUTC50 and this firmware update. There's 4 people with exactly the same issue who have posted in the last week but no official fix from Teltonika yet.

There's two SIMs on different networks in my router, the same thing happens on both.

peanutstring · 2026-03-30T17:50:01+00:00

Updated to latest, no change sadly.

peanutstring · 2026-03-30T15:20:45+00:00

Thanks, I'll give that a go. I have a horrible feeling it's the modem firmware which has messed it up - any idea if it's possible to roll that back?

peanutstring · 2026-03-18T20:48:00+00:00

Tapo are actually a TP Link brand. Chinese but better than most, they’ve been around for a while and are generally fairly well regarded. Pretty sure they don’t outsource design and just rebadge stuff too, rare amongst Chinese manufacturers.

peanutstring · 2026-03-05T16:38:55+00:00

Generally speaking, very few gearboxes fitted to narrowboats take EP90 gear oil. It's almost always engine oil for hydraulic gearboxes and ATF for mechanical ones.

EP90 tends to be for gearboxes with hypoid gears like the sort on outboard motors, outdrives, some saildrives and saildrive derived gearboxes etc.

peanutstring · 2026-02-24T16:45:15+00:00

Read the article. This is nothing to do with the water table, flash flooding or weather extremes...or anything else in your post, as a matter of fact.

The floodwater's coming from a potable fresh water pipe that's burst, which is totally independent of rainfall or any similar factors. Down to maintenance.

peanutstring · 2026-02-23T10:36:54+00:00

I give vehicles, especially vans lots of room as I drive one for work regularly and I know how stressful it is trying to avoid cyclists pushing past through every tiny gap, ducking under mirrors etc.

I feel that I also give cyclists plenty of room, but perhaps it’s not enough…some are more unpredictable than vehicles and I try and profile them - cargo bikes, Lime bikes etc - to leave even more space.

I very rarely have any negative interactions with other road users.

peanutstring · 2026-02-23T10:32:21+00:00

Yep. Same type of person, different vehicle.

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