22/08/2026
Steel, aluminium, fibreglass — and HDPE.
An exceptionally busy fortnight with condition surveys, damage inspections, new build assessments and valuations, on houseboats, narrowboats, widebeams, barges and workboats.
It’s the HDPE that keeps drawing comment. Polyethylene hulls are arriving on the inland waterways in real numbers now, and the survey approach has very little in common with steel. There is no corrosion, so the whole framework of wastage assessment that governs a steel survey simply doesn’t apply. Ultrasonics still have a place, with caveats.
What matters instead is the quality and consistency of the welds, whether the procedures were followed and recorded, material grade and traceability, wall thickness at the design stage rather than as a wear measurement, stress concentrations and long-term deformation under load, and the integrity of every pe*******on and fitting through the hull.
Beyond the hull, the same questions arise as on any vessel but the material is only half the story. The instruction type shapes the work just as much.
A damage inspection is a different discipline again. It is not simply a condition survey after an incident — it is an exercise in causation. What failed, in what sequence, and why. Distinguishing impact damage from pre-existing deterioration, sudden failure from gradual neglect.
Valuations carry their own weight. A figure written for a lender, an insurer is a figure someone will act on, and may have to defend. It requires evidence of comparables, an understanding of a market that for houseboats and inland craft is often poorly documented, and the discipline to record clearly what was and was not inspected.
New build assessment sits at the other end entirely — documentation, compliance, and catching the problem before it becomes a defect.
That variety is the job, and it is why no two weeks look alike and We wouldn’t have it any other way.
