Looking for Full-Time Houseboaters

[scoutboater]

Hi all! This is my first post here in any way, so please excuse all the idiot newby mistakes. Now, on to more important things...

I am considering buying a houseboat as my next place to live, and I am looking for advice/warnings from people with a little more experience than myself. (That would be all of you, I hope) I live in north Alabama, so the weather ranges from 30's with occasional teens in the winter to 90 or 100+ in the summer. Any advice, warnings, and stories are welcome and appreciated.

 

[The Famous Grouse]

Re: Looking for Full-Time Houseboaters

Rent before you buy to make sure it's right for you. It's a romantic notion, but I think everything depends on how you adjust to and handle the realities of living on something that's floating and requires constant attention to make sure that condition continues.

I would also say even after you buy the boat, I would continue your on-land living arrangements until you're absolutely sure the boat is going to work for you long term. The nature of boats is that the bigger they are, the harder they can be to sell. So like a house, you cannot count on being able to sell a big houseboat on short notice in case you decide live-aboard isn't for you.

Boats are, in general, very hot so while thoughts of cool breezes may fill your head, the reality is that nothing is more miserable than spending a night in an airless tin box with no breeze and high humidity. I would consider a high quality generator and full-on central air conditioning to be a necessity in your area. And by high quality, I mean a sound and vibration isolated genset that is capeable of running quietly and constantly for 12 hours or more at a time.

I would also look for a boat that's inslulated, not because you get any kind of cold, but again because of the heat.

Beyond that, there are specific forums on the web for live aboard houseboaters. I'm not sure what the policy is here about posting links to other boating forums, but as I plan to buy a trawler when I retire I'm a big fan of Passagemaker's forum. There are similar ones for houseboaters.

Grouse