The Night Mail

[Dave Hunt]

1 hour ago, polybear said:

 

Add in the fact that Timber Preservative has gone all cuddly?  (Creocote?  Cr@p - you can't beat good ol' Creosote any day - I believe the likes of Farmers etc. can still buy it - but in nothing smaller than 25(?) Litre drums.

 

Also, timber that is supposedly "treated" when manufactured gets such a miniscule dunking etc. that it's barely worth the effort;  when Bear created a raised flower bed in the back garden I used softwood "railway sleepers" (ever tried shiftin' one of those without help? - genuine hardwood jobs would be nigh-on impossible to shift on your own unless your name is Arnie).

I stood the ends in Creosote (I had a bit left) overnight - it really hoovered it up thru' the end grain.  Each one then got rather a lot of coats all over - so hopefully they'll last a while.

 

 

 

When we lived in Boston (Lincolnshire) there was a works just outside the town where telegraph poles were pressure treated with creosote (and, I believe in earlier times railway sleepers were treated as well). You could smell the creosote a mile away. The works stood alongside what had been the Boston - Grantham railway line and had its own narrow gauge system. It closed in the mid-80s.

 

Dave

[Hroth]

9 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Might be helpful if your diet has been lacking in fibre and you need some assistance....

 

And that reminded me of part of this

which I last heard on a John Peel show more years ago than I care to remember...

 

[New Haven Neil]

Hmm.  Preservative (preservatif?) means something else entirely where Jamie lives!

[Dave Hunt]

16 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

Hmm.  Preservative (preservatif?) means something else entirely where Jamie lives!

 

I think it means a local landlord*

 

Dave

 

* French letter

[AndyID]

21 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

I think it means a local landlord*

 

Dave

 

* French letter

 

First day on the job in the US I asked the department admin Nancy if she had any rubbers.

 

[J. S. Bach]

7 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

A friend of ours is fanatical about closing the loo lid before flushing as she claims that otherwise there are zillions of widdle and/or poo particles ejected into the atmosphere.

 

Dave

So am I. Ever dropped anything down in the bowl?

 

2 hours ago, polybear said:

Add in the fact that Timber Preservative has gone all cuddly?  (Creocote?  Cr@p - you can't beat good ol' Creosote any day

 

There used to be a termite treatment product (named chlordane) that, after injecting into the ground at the foundation was good for thirty-plus years. It was banned in 1988 as harmful to health; whatever has replaced it for termite control barely lasts about five years.

[Dave Hunt]

4 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

First day on the job in the US I asked the department admin Nancy if she had any rubbers.

 

 

My finest hour when I first went to work in San Diego in the mid-80s was to ask a buddy in a bar one Friday evening in quite a loud voice, "Terry, can I bum a fag?" The place went silent until my mate said, "He's a Brit - it means can he have a cigarette." Even then, though, I still got a lot of funny looks.

 

Dave 

[Northmoor]

12 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

I think that most problems with timber rotting out is down to three factors.

 

The first is using unsuitable timbers for the task in hand.

 

The second is poor design of what is being made. Or poor design of a supporting device, as shewn by The Q's examples above.

 

Finally we have fresh water.

 

Strangely, you never see a healthy tree, that is soggy and rotten!

 

Yet put a timber post into the ground, and watch it rot.

 

The tree sucks up full of water and yet it survives, the only rot you'll find is where the water supply up to a branch has failed:  The effected limb then dries out and rots!

 

A timber post has already been dried out, either over a few years or in a kiln.  when it goes into the ground, it starts to suck up water once more, expands, which destroys its structural integrity.  It then has no option but to rot as the water it has absorbed has no where to go without branches , leaves and a root system.

 

A wooden boat that is put into seawater can have a long life, but put that same boat into freshwater and there it will start to decay very quickly.  Just look at timber groynes on beaches to see how well they last.  Their rounding off and eventual collapse is down to the erosive action of the sea and the particles of sand the seawater carries.

 

Visit the Welsh Museum of Rural Life at St Fagans (other similar sites are available,) and see centuries old timber framed buildings, still structurally sound.

 

I believe that in these cases the secret is laying the timber frame on a solid stone or concrete foundation so the timbers are kept clear of the ground (earth).

 

The arch I have built rests on a brick wall, the 4 x 4 uprights are not in contact with the ground.  The top of the uprights have caps fitted, so that the end grain is not exposed.

 

If you have no option, but to have open end grain facing the sky, then cut it with a 45 degree taper to allow any water to run off.

 

Ideally it also ought to be sealed as well to extend it's life.

 

To counter these effects we can also use preservatives:  some more effective than others.

 

But that is a wholly different subject.

 

 

 

 

I remember years ago a piece in a preservation society mag - Ffestiniog I think - about placing and securing some very sturdy posts.  The writer insisted that the problem many had was setting them in concrete instead of packed round with stones.  I can see the logic; concrete is porous and if in very wet ground, will hold water long after the ground has drained.  With stones, as the ground drains, the wood can dry out as well.  There is the other advantage that it's probably easier to adjust the position (and re-pack with more stones if the hole starts to open out).

[Northmoor]

5 hours ago, AndyID said:

A lot of the boat docks on the lake are supported on float logs. According to the dock builders the logs can last for a very long time as long as they are always immersed in water. The ones that rot fairly quickly are exposed to the air when the lake level is lowered to accommodate the Spring runoff.

 

For that reason a lot of the docks are detached from the shore and parked in lake bays from November until May.

Most of Venice is goodness-knows-how-many-hundred-years-old and all its buildings stand on wooden posts driven into the alluvial mud.  Apparently any removed are as hard as stone.

[iL Dottore]

9 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

Personally I think that if it is desired to hide appliances there must be something wrong with the appliances. When we were rebuilding our kitchen the salesperson made great efforts to persuade us to include new, built in appliances. I told her that as we already had extremely good, reputable brand appliances we would stick with them. She then tried the 'ah but it will look classier if they are built in' approach, to which I replied that we wanted a new kitchen, not a 12 inches to the foot scale doll's house. At that stage she gave in (and obviously accepted that her commission would be lower).

 

Dave

A lot depends on for what the purpose of the kitchen is: many of the kitchen designs that I have seen (here, in the US, in the UK, and in Germany) are definitely first for impressing friends, relatives, and the neighbours, and second (and sometimes a very distant second) for cooking in.

 

I recall one episode of the Grand Designs TV programme, where the people building this rather hideous looking, designed-to-win-architectural-awards new build home installed a £100,000 kitchen. Yes, you read it right: a £100,000 kitchen. For that sort of money, I could install a state of the art professional kitchen of a standard necessary in a Michelin starred kitchen and still have a big wodge of dosh left over (probably half, if not more).

 

The latest wheeze is to have a video camera inside your “high tech“, all-singing, all-dancing oven which can send pictures of the oven contents to an app on your smart phone. Now, unless you are a witch with a regular habit of sticking small children into the oven (as in Hansel and Gretel), I see no point in such an undoubtably expensive bit of useless frippery. 
 

I might have mentioned that Mrs iD has finally persuaded me to move into a flat and we are currently looking at two possibilities: one, a garden apartment in a brand new building that will be built beginning of the summer (and ready for habitation early in 2025) and the other an existing penthouse apartment which is a few years old and needs refurbishment of the kitchen. Unfortunately, in both cases whilst Mrs iD is perfectly happy for me to install professional equipment where possible and feasible, she is dead set against having stainless steel drawers, cupboards and work surfaces. 
 

Why we “need“/“must have” veneered, painted or enamelled fronts in the kitchen is beyond me… 

 

Must be an XX chromosome thing…

[Compound2632]

1 minute ago, Northmoor said:

Most of Venice is goodness-knows-how-many-hundred-years-old and all its buildings stand on wooden posts driven into the alluvial mud.  Apparently any removed are as hard as stone.

 

And they support vast piles of stone architecture with apparently few problems to do with settlement - although the campanile of St Mark's did collapse in 1902.

9 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

I recall one episode of the Grand Designs TV programme, where the people building this rather hideous looking, designed-to-win-architectural-awards new build home installed a £100,000 kitchen. Yes, you read it right: a £100,000 kitchen. For that sort of money, I could install a state of the art professional kitchen of a standard necessary in a Michelin starred kitchen and still have a big wodge of dosh left over (probably half, if not more).

 

For that sort of money, you could employ a cook. 

[Dave Hunt]

5 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

And they support vast piles of stone architecture with apparently few problems to do with settlement - although the campanile of St Mark's did collapse in 1902.

 

I am led to believe that the greatest threat to the stability of Venice's buildings is the wake from cruise ships.

 

Dave 

[Compound2632]

22 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

I am led to believe that the greatest threat to the stability of Venice's buildings is the wake from cruise ships.

 

Although sea level rise in consequence of global warming is a greater existential threat to the city as a whole. So one might think it is a case of enjoying it while it's there.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[Happy Hippo]

2 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

My finest hour when I first went to work in San Diego in the mid-80s was to ask a buddy in a bar one Friday evening in quite a loud voice, "Terry, can I bum a fag?" The place went silent until my mate said, "He's a Brit - it means can he have a cigarette." Even then, though, I still got a lot of funny looks.

 

Dave 

Saying you are gasping for a fag is somewhat eyebrow raising, and never ever say you are going out to smoke a fag.

[BR60103]

I got into the habit of consistently lowering the seat when we had a couple of lively cats and I was afraid that one of them might have an unintended bath.

 

[rockershovel]

It's probably a sign of anno Domini, but "I should give that ten minutes if I were you" is the working rule around here, these days...

[Oldddudders]

11 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

When we lived in Boston (Lincolnshire) there was a works just outside the town where telegraph poles were pressure treated with creosote (and, I believe in earlier times railway sleepers were treated as well). You could smell the creosote a mile away. The works stood alongside what had been the Boston - Grantham railway line and had its own narrow gauge system. It closed in the mid-80s.

Railway folk typically referred to such facilities as "pickling plants".

[polybear]

8 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

I recall one episode of the Grand Designs TV programme, where the people building this rather hideous looking, designed-to-win-architectural-awards new build home installed a £100,000 kitchen. Yes, you read it right: a £100,000 kitchen. For that sort of money, I could install a state of the art professional kitchen of a standard necessary in a Michelin starred kitchen and still have a big wodge of dosh left over (probably half, if not more).

 

That's cheap - I went on a Factory Tour (25 years ago?) around Royal Crown Derby (or was is Royal Doulton?); one of the things we saw were two Ladies hand-painting scenes on the sides of very, very impressive vases (and I'm talking Arthur Negus stuff on Antiques Roadshow here - the painted scenes were really top-end work.  All the public were told (under pain of death) NOT to distract or try to talk to the Ladies in any way.

Apparently these vases were made exclusively for a particular Kitchen Supplier - order one of their Kitchens and they "give" you a vase when it's completed.  Oh yes, and they fly you off to Barbados for a Holiday whilst it's being installed.  The Tour Guide didn't know how much the kitchens cost....but the vases cost £30K....

 

8 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

I might have mentioned that Mrs iD has finally persuaded me ordered you to move into a flat 

 

There - corrected it for you. 😁

 

8 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Unfortunately, in both cases whilst Mrs iD is perfectly happy for me to install professional equipment where possible and feasible, she is dead set against having stainless steel drawers, cupboards and work surfaces. 

 

"Now look, dearest - you're gettin' an Apartment, so I'm having my kitchen!!"

 

We'll send Flowers.

 

7 hours ago, Dave Hunt said:

 

I am led to believe that the greatest threat to the stability of Venice's buildings is the wake from cruise ships.

 

Dave 

 

I understand they've banned them now.

[Oldddudders]

For those who know a bit about guns, or revere naval capabilities, one to weep over.

 

https://petapixel.com/2024/04/17/us-navy-mocked-for-photo-of-commander-shooting-rifle-with-scope-backwards/

 

 

[bbishop]

All I know about guns is that when I put the sight thing to my eye, there is a bloody great bolt in front of my face.  In the CCF, the other cadets got the Lee-Enfields, I was given the map.

[Happy Hippo]

15 minutes ago, bbishop said:

All I know about guns is that when I put the sight thing to my eye, there is a bloody great bolt in front of my face.  In the CCF, the other cadets got the Lee-Enfields, I was given the map.

 They obviously saw potential Naval officer material.

[SM42]

AUUI  great pains ate taken in The Netherlands to keep water levels down, but also keep them up. 

 

Letting the land dry out too much will allow the wooden piles that many buildings are constructed upon to rot. 

 

When we stayed near Sneek, there was a very  nice little house for sale near the farm we stayed at. 

 

Unfortunately the underpinning piles had got too dry and it had a distinct gradient from the middle down to each end

 

Andy

[SM42]

Talking of water management, it's  raining here. 

 

That's a relief really as I was expecting a hose pipe ban to be announced if the drought of the last 48 hours went on much longer 

 

Andy

Edited April 19 by SM42
Autocorrect my foot!

[Tony_S]

3 hours ago, Happy Hippo said:

 They obviously saw potential Naval officer material.

Just like Nelson at Copenhagen.