Practicalities of Houseboat Living
The accompanying photos and videos will give you a good idea of what the ‘Persevere’ has to offer as a welcoming and secure home. But there is a number of questions that people always have about living afloat that we address here.
Mooring
‘Persevere’ is on an assured mooring. In principle, you could up stakes and tow her anywhere you can find a mooring that you prefer and that can take her 86-foot (26m.) length and 16-foot (4.75m.) width. But you’d frankly be hard-pressed to find a better location than the one she’s moored on in Newhaven reaches. In the corner of a family-owned and super-friendly commercial marina that supplies services at a standard price and who looks after the general security and condition of the mooring, ‘Persevere’ is in a favoured spot. Sheltered from rough weather behind Denton Island and tucked into a corner, the most you will experience is a gently swaying motion even on a high swell.
The neighbours are friendly and helpful….
An Economic Decision
Our decision to buy a liveaboard houseboat was driven not only by the attraction of living in a romantic and unusual setting but also by economic considerations. Faced with a mortgage problem, we decided to realise the cash value of our apartment and buy a houseboat outright with the money. Since we both wanted to work from home, we needed somewhere large enough and secure, but somewhere with character. ‘Persevere’ has proved vastly superior in quality, access and lifestyle to anything we could hope to trade into in bricks and mortar on the South Coast.
Even taking into consideration the cost of mooring and maintenance over a ten and even a twenty-year period, we would still come out well ahead of paying a mortgage on a four-bed bungalow on an estate full of similar wizened dwellings anywhere in this region without all the benefits that we have here.
Services
We run the central heating, hot water and cooking hob on propane gas delivered in 47kg bottles. Usage depends on how warm you want to maintain the temperature, obviously; but we keep the temperature around 20 degrees in winter daytime and boost it in the evenings by using the log burner in the sitting room that is super-efficient.
There is an installed ring main throughout the boat that was previously used to heat by electricity and this could prove a boon to anyone considering converting to solar panels or if the price of electricity versus gas ever improves.
Otherwise mains electricity and mains water is supplied direct from the service mooring by cable and pipe. Prices are governed to the standard level and are transparently metered to the boat.
We have a landline phone and fast fibre broadband installed.
Shopping
It’s a seven-minute walk into Newhaven town centre where there is a variety of small shops – a branch of Morrison’s Daily, post office, off-licence, Boots, two Indian takeaways, several other fast food shops and two fish and chippies, a café, two local surgeries and a vet, and a swimming and fitness centre. A further ten minutes by foot is the train station and nearby are local branches of Sainsbury’s (with filling station), Lidl, The Range, B&Q, Halford’s, Pets at Home, MacDonald’s and KFC. All the building suppliers and d-i-y shops are close by.