Some thought-provoking notes from David Greenaway, founder of The Houseboat Centre and author of The Houseboat Book:

If you’ve read one of the many superficial web articles or shorter books on Houseboats, you may have picked one of many that have all sorts of wrong ideas, so let’s nail three of them now:

1.“Space, there isn’t as much space in a boat as in a house”. WRONG!

You can have much more space in a boat than a house for the same money, in the same area.

2. “All boats have to have a Boat Safety Scheme (BSS) Certificate”. WRONG!

Boats on some waterways and in some marinas are required to have a BSS certificate. That leaves thousands of boats in private ownership in the UK that do not have to have a BSS certificate.

3. Narrowboats are often spoken and written about in newspapers, magazines, books on websites,TV and radio as if they were the only sort of boat used as a houseboat. WRONG!

People are living in a huge variety of boats, former ships and other floating structures; some even live in super yachts.

If dear friends and family tell you that it is not so good to live on a boat as a house because it is cold and damp, (only those who have no experience of living on a boat would say this!) – ask them this:

Q: Is a house cold and damp?

A: No - why not? Because it is heated and insulated properly – what a good idea!! Exactly the same applies to a boat!

Thoughts and views above are entirely David Greenaway's. Pictures show David's former cruising house boat and a static house boat at Tagg's Island.

Let David and us know your thoughts!