What are Boat versus House living costs?

At a time when CRT are trying to put people off moving onto boats for cheap housing BWML their wholly owned marinas subsidiary have produced a jolly infographic claiming Boat annual living costs are a third of House costs and painting a very rosy picture of life afloat.

How they get those costings is a little bit odd though. And they also give a rather slanted impression of the pros and cons of living afloat.

Basically the comparison produced by BWML (British Waterways Marinas Limited) (right) isn’t like for like.
For instance House costs are mainly the £15,600 mortgage, but the Boat costs don’t include buying the £40,000 boat. Leave out the mortgage and the house costs would be cheaper!
Purchase costs should take into account the ongoing value of your asset. Houses appreciate, boats don’t.
The boat is 4 berth, but an average house would be 3 bedroom, so effectively 6 berth.
The average house has a floor area of 85 sqm, a 60 foot narrowboat would be something like 30 sqm.
Plus most houses have gardens or outdoor areas.
Power and heating seem to come free when you live on a boat.

According to the infographic (see below) these are the advantages of living afloat;
1 – The whole riverbank is your garden, anywhere you moor up
2 – Private pontoon (additional car parking space usually)
3 – A community instead of neighbours
4 – Travelling with your house wherever you go
5 – Wildlife at your windows, birds and river creatures

Just a bit rosy and not typical perhaps? And what about the things they don’t consider such as owning a house gives you rights about the land it sits on, with a boat you have no property rights. Any mooring arrangement can be cancelled.
Then there’s things house dwellers take for granted, such as rubbish removal, power and water supply and sewage systems, security, parking.
And just having an address can be important, if you continuously cruise you may not have an address and may even get classed as homeless.

BWML may be mainly concerned with filling a few available residential moorings but the information they give doesn’t suggest it only applies to life afloat on a BWML Marina! Here’s the rest of the infographic for you to consider.
(We have rearranged the original to make it easier to display but not changed any information.)

Rather oddly BWML created a similar infographic last year, titled House vs Houseboat but which came to the opposite conclusion!
It claimed the annual cost of living afloat to be £14,625 (which this time did take into account the £30,000 finance cost of the boat). That was more than the £13,827 cost of living in a 2 bedroom house! You can see last year’s infographic here. (Notice it makes the startling claim that there were 32,000 boats with residential licences!!)

So if you are considering moving afloat our advice is to do serious research first.

Get as much unbiased information as possible. There’s lots on the internet, read what the Inland Waterways Association say , the Residential Boat Owners Association say , and see our Living Afloat section for example. Plus study all the licencing rules and regulations on the Canal and River Trust website.

And have you heard about something called ‘The Tragedy of the Commons‘? Basically it says if somebody says something is a good plan, then lots of people do it, then maybe its not a good plan anymore. You could find yourself moored 3 abreast with nowhere to get fresh water or empty your toilet. No riverbank garden, wildlife or private pontoon here!

Thanks to BWML for their infographic and their Pennington Wharf Marina.