Early Risers.

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from a rather cool Charente. We actually put some heat on yestrrday evening. Only the paraffin heater but it works quickly and well. A basket of logs was fetched in case of need.  A lot of family phone calls were made as Beth's step mum has sold the family home and various items will have to be collected before the end of December.  Logistics are complicated by Covid. The plan is to take the trailer over to collect things but we can't find clear guidance on whether we need to quarantine or not.  

I did get rwo coats of stain on the new gate frame so may get it hung today.  Apart from that there isn't much on the agenda.

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[AndyB]

Morning all,

I decided to try out a new spice mix last night for a home-made curry.

 

Whilst prepping the veg I spotted this critter munching it's way through my brocci. 

 

 

I guess that proved it was free of insecticide even if Sainsbury's packaging hadn't made that SO Organically clear.

 

Ironically I was making a prawn curry....chances are I'd not have noticed if it went into the pan. 

 

 

Said caterpillar hailed from a farm in Cambridgeshire, so it was released into the garden.

[polybear]

10 hours ago, John Wass said:

I can now report that the engineer has been and after some eight hours work, the new boiler is installed and working. I was impressed with this young man as he never stopped running. He left everything cleared up, the remains of the old boiler and the box the new one came in. Well done that man! Thank you.

 

Little Bear sometimes ponders the replacement (when I have to, or possibly when the lounge is refurbed - after the kitchen) of the current Baxi Back Boiler (wonderful jobbies).  I'm of the opinion that I want one that still retains a hot water tank (therefore not making the airing cupboard redundant) and the storage tank (not CH Heading Tank) in the loft.  Why?  Because this means I can still have an immersion heater for those very rare events when the existing boiler packs in, and also a supply of water in the loft in the event that there are mains supply problems; apparently a water main about half a mile from my house blew out on Friday, with a gusher as high as a house.  Fortunately water supplies were somehow unaffected though.

 

10 hours ago, Barry O said:

We have a Hive system in use. Very handy when we got back from Oz as the wif allowed us to turn the house heating on..from a very cold Manchester Airport!

 

Baz

 

A friend had one of these at work, and would spend regular moments checking what warp factor daughter had dialled the heating up to (usually 9+); he'd then crank it down to a normal value.  Half an hour later, cue irate fone call from daughter, usually along the lines of "have you turned the effing heating down?"  It was a cycle that usually lasted all day.  Kept us amused for hours.

 

9 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Continuing to be lazy this evening, dinner was a 'ping' meal, a Tesco's tandori chicken.

The engineer who fitted my new boiler left the old one out for the metal faries, it had gone less than half an hour after he had.

 

'Tis rumoured that yer average Gip er, Metal Recycling Engineer can sniff the presence of brass or Copper from 2 miles, sometimes more on a good day....

 

8 hours ago, brianusa said:

If pictures in the papers can be assumed to be faithful depictions of thats going on, possibly if students or anybody else for that matter didn't over socialise, drink too much or enjoy other forms of debauchery, then perhaps they wouldn't have to suffer such confinement or other indignities.   Some just have to overdo things while others have to suffer the consequences of their bad judgement as well.

         Brian.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

I would argue that the greatest amount of energy is used In getting the house up to an acceptable temperature, then - if the system is left running - the only energy required is that required to maintain the temperature - which should be minimal. Whereas, if you turn the central heating off and let the house cool down, you need to chuck lots of energy into the system again to heat it back up. Much like it takes the most amount of fuel to get a plane up to cruising speed at altitude and minimal amounts of fuel to keep it there. Perhaps those amongst us more knowledgeable than I about such matters could comment?

 

 

 

Maybe this will help:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/energy-saving-myths/

 

16 minutes ago, TheQ said:

The telephone man eventually came at around 20:00, far from making it safe I tripped over a temporary cable they've laid on the ground. They didn't tell us about that one... I just held my balance while out on Ben the happy Collies patrol.. He was quite interested in the strange smells from various strangers Foot prints round the garden and he didn't want to go back in...

 

 

 

Clever things, doggies.  I understand that there are some that are trained as "Money Dogs" to sniff out money.  They showed one on telly once; his handler says rover goes mental whenever he walks past a cash machine....

Bear can never get anywhere near a Husky - bl00dy things smell me a mile off.  Good job I've got plenty of cake.  That's one good point (there are very few in my book) about the close-ish proximity of xmas:  Mince Pies become much more readily available again

 

Bear will be painting outside today, followed by a little more to the kitchen.  Then I 'spose I'd better go and collect the blood test form from the docs that I forgot last Thurs, and also fone the Dentist to see if they've started Hygenist appointments again - I had one booked last March that was cancelled due to C-19 close to D-Day.  And they still have my money....

 

[polybear]

30 minutes ago, Barry O said:

Ey up!

Me and my big mouth! Hive system has fallen over..thermostat not working so house got very warm..switched system off..gasman cometh Tuesday.

 

 

Software + RF = recipe for pain, sooner or later.

Wires?  One in, one out, one to ground.  Works for Bear, as does a nice snuggly fur coat.  Cr@p in summer, though.....

[AndrewC]

Greetings all from a rather autumnal boring borough. 

I managed to fustercluck my last missive onto the jokes thread. Serves me right for operating heavy machinery before the caffeine kicked in. <sigh>

A good weekend was had. Saturday trip to Spa Road and the butcher netted several kg of upcoming bbq meals. This included a beautiful 6kg full packer brisket. Can't decide whether to cook the whole thing in one shot then vac-pac the rest, or to split it and make a first attempt at pastrami with half. Decisions decisions. After that we met up with a dear friend who us recovering from cancer treatment. To use his words he is now a "2 bagger". They also discovered during his major plumbing removal, one of his kidneys has never worked. <insert pie and haggis jokes>  We also managed a mini-micro pub crawl and checked out the newish Silver Fox in Sidcup. Lovely place, complete with a Hornby Silver Fox displayed by the bar. 

 

We had our boiler replaced 2 1/2 years ago. The old one was on its last legs. Shortly thereafter during the house renovations all the radiators and about 3/4 of the pipework was replaced. Basically, we've got a whole new central heating system. Wasn't really looking for smart control but the Salus module for the unit was £40 less than the basic module from Bosch. It works. Yesterday was the first time I've had to switch it on since the end of April. We make good use of the schedule. As Il D. implied, it is silly to switch off completely just when going out. You end up spending more to bring the house back up to temp than you do just maintaining a slightly lower temp. Somewhere out there is a formula for calculating the optimum temperature set back and timings. 

 

Shed renovations under way finally. The first of the old plasterboard has been removed as has about half the roof insulation. I now know where all the bloody spiders come from. I must have hoovered up at least 50 nests and remnants. 

 

Coffee at the ready. Time to see what steaming turds are hiding in my work inbox. Enjoy the day. 

[Joseph_Pestell]

You can not decide a strategy for using your central heating without giving consideration to how much heat is being lost by having inadequate insulation, poor windows, etc.

 

When I moved back to the UK in 2002, I was living in a  small 2-bed house built in 1990 and was amazed to find that I only needed the heating on for two hours each evening to keep it comfortable all day. More modern houses will be even better from a heating viewpoint (although rubbish in many other ways).

[Andrew P]

My Granddaughter and her Boyfriend / Partner never went to Uni, but both had normal Jobs, Sec in an Estate Agents and Junior Clerk in a Court. They have just turned 30, They now have two properties. They own one house outright and rent rooms to Students, have a nice Bungalow, and have just commissioned a £60k Extension to be paid cash, and now have big Jobs. Granddaughter for Lockheed Martin Aero and has to work from home as her work is to sensitive to work in an office, and other half now also works for Lockheed in IT and is a self taught Trouble shooter, both are paid megga bucks. Neither Drink, Smoke or Partied as kids.

A friend of theirs went to Uni and now works in McDonalds, but does have a Degree.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Andrew P

[Compound2632]

8 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

"If it bleeds, it leads." 

 

Is that a comment on the leaky piston valves of run down S&D section 2Ps?

[Coombe Barton]

From other reports of boiler replacement, that's only the boiler. I've just had a quick survey and for mine practically the only bit of original plumbing that will be left is the water feed to the loo cistern.

 

The boiler feeding the remainder of the system is connected by a series of temporary fixes pending the replumbing that's going to happen on Thursday.

And when we can get to them, once I've been able to move some of the stuff back into the kitchen and built the bookshelves, for which the move back to kitchen needs to be done first, all the radiators will be replaced.

 

However, I'm warm and getting lazy controlling the heating from the phone.

[tigerburnie]

Morning, dull, over cast and cool today, our central heating isn't on though as we don't have any, no mains gas in our village and we don't want an oil tank in the garden like the neighbours. If it's cold I light a fire, funnily enough up here in North East Scotland it's not that cold yet.

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. I usually just rely on the thermostat to control my heating though the new controls enable me to set different temperatures according to the time of day so that means it can be set to turn the thermostat down overnight but turn it up about an hour before I get up. Polybear, I once had a Baxi back boiler and I agree that they were very good but nowadays parts are no longer available so if it fails as mine did thats it. The failure was in the heat exchanger which had cracked which meant that carbon monoxide was escaping, luckily I had a CM alarm. My new boiler is an evaporation boiler so there's no need for a water tank and living on my own is more suitable. I've noticed that the hot water is a lot hotter than with the old boiler which had replaced the Baxi so gas consumption should be down. 

[New Haven Neil]

Morning.  Dull and dreary out with rain forecast soon, urgh no its just started, me dull and dreary too but without the rain.

 

Mrs NHN safely delivered to her express bus to the Big City for work, lets see what the day brings for me, not a lot I suspect as my mood is a little low, perhaps due to the weather.  A shame after having such a nice day yesterday but I am at mojo level 1 today.  A nice walk would be restorative, but see rain above.  Later maybe.

 

We have a modern bungalow with a combi boiler, plus a log burner in the lounge which does all of the heating after 5pm or so, as required.  Central heating is on for an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening before the log burner is lit if it is cold, modern insulation levels keep both fuel uses to a low level.  Just as well as gas prices here are stratospheric, hence the wood burning.  The wood is from sustainable managed local forests, plus some wind falls we get from a friend who looks after some properties.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

The weekend’s sunshine has disappeared and today it's dull and grey, according to the app on my phone the temperature is 3C at the moment, but no rain is forecast. 

 

There are no definitive plans for today, but I’m sure I’ll find something to do, if only tidying up in the workshop or shed and there is always some dead heading that needs to be done. 

 

Stay safe, stay sane, enjoy whatever you have planned for the day, back later. 

 

Brian

[Tony_S]

Morning all.

We are off out into the wider world (leaving our nice centrally heated bubble) this morning. Nothing exciting,  just a trip to the pharmacy to collect some of my medication. I will drive and let Aditi go in, just in case parking is difficult. We used to use one of the big chain pharmacies with easy parking but they had so much difficulty getting even routine medications we moved to a well established local pharmacy. It wasn’t long before the pharmacist and some assistants moved too! Parking is more difficult but timing is everything, best to avoid school drop off and pickup. I think my rehab nurses think I should walk about the distance to the pharmacy and back every day but what is irritating at the moment is that my walking is limited not by my heart but a bout of sciatica. After 1000 paces I can just about cope with the 1000 paces home but it isn’t fun. 
Tony

Edited September 28, 2020 by Tony_S

[grandadbob]

Good morning all, 

Sunny here and currently 11°C possibly rising to 18°C.  It should stay mainly dry but there is the chance of rain later this afternoon.

Nottalot happening here today.

Abbie is into her second week in quarantine and was getting a bit bored but this week she's been recalled from furlough to work from home so that's cheered her up.

From what I gathered from Joe the other day he and his 5 Uni flatmates are staying in and not intending to go out apart from getting essential supplies.  His room looks very nice and he has his own fridge and en-suite facilities. This was essential for him because of his diabetes.  It's The Boss's birthday tomorrow so he and Abbie will be joining us in the evening via Zoom.

Going for a walk shortly to get some exercise and deliver a birthday present to a friend.  I'm slowly reducing my weight and have lost 7lbs since I started "dieting" 6 weeks ago.  I'm aiming to lose at least another 7lbs.

Have a good one,

Bob. (Soon to be a shadow of his former self!)  

[Andrew P]

53 minutes ago, grandadbob said:

Good morning all, 

 

Going for a walk shortly to get some exercise and deliver a birthday present to a friend.  I'm slowly reducing my weight and have lost 7lbs since I started "dieting" 6 weeks ago.  I'm aiming to lose at least another 7lbs.

Have a good one,

Bob. (Soon to be a shadow of his former self!)  

Go for it Bob, but watch out for Drains. remember you have History.

[Barry O]

Every year, at the start of Term in the Unis in Leeds (we now have 5 of them).. everyone developed a cough, temperature, felt lousy.. could it be we have have had CoVid 19 for years at the start of University term time???

 

Been to the post office.. officially "Parky" out there but it is bright with fluffy white clouds overhead at the moment.

 

Baz

 

PS new medication has lead to a weight loss of 5lbs in a week.. bring it on!  Only another 14lbs to go..ish..

[New Haven Neil]

Ahh, fresher flu, Baz - well known.  All sharing our illnesses we carry and are immune to ourselves!

 

The rain relented so I walked to the Post Office to tax Mrs NHN's car and pay some bills, then a loop through the outskirts of the village, 4000 paces = 2 miles.  Still feel a bit bleurgh and mojo 1.

 

Maybe lunch and then a trip out to the pharmacy later, it's too far to walk to though as it is in Royal Ramsey.  I would also like to visit an ex-employee/good friend (not an ex-good friend!) all the way out west in Kirk Michael who has had a hip replacement, awaiting to be told a convenient moment.  He's been out of hozzy a week, texts sound very positive.  He models in N, OO and 0, glutton for punishment.

[The Lurker]

18 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

We have hive heating and find it works ok certainly the app is handy

 We even have a couple of lightbulbs i used to love turning them on an off at random when i was at work i once scared the bejeesus outof one of Swmbo friends doing it she thought we had a ghost

We use nest which controls our heating. The boiler is a combo so hot water on demand.

 

spreadsheet king who used to work for me was obsessed at building a remote control light switch that could also be voice controlled and from an app on his phone, so much so that he bought a raspberry pi in order to get it to work. He was most put out when I called his landline and told Alexa via his ansaphone to turn his light on - it worked!

[AndyB]

We have a thermostat and two controllers.  The first controller (swmbo) turns it up. The second controller (me) turns it down.   

 

The light switches work the same way. I figure I get my steps in walking round the house turning lights off after everyone. 

[Coombe Barton]

Wowee! We now have self-duplicating posts!

 

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by Coombe Barton

[The Stationmaster]

Afternoon all,

 

Our CH has a small control unit (a timer basically) with separate control in thh same box for hot water but the latter is also very much governed by the thermostats in the tank because the tank integrates the solar heating element and the temperature of that, if high enough, tells the boiler bit not to bother  (more or less).  Talking of technology yesterday evening I received an email from the NHS giving me a link to download something called 'track and trace' - which seems to have nothing to do with either Peco or Tracey Island although it sounds as fictional as the latter.  Regrettably in their eagerness to tempt me to download 'track 'n trace' they forgot to send something to download it to so it was a waste of their time demonstrating (proving?) their total stupidity and ignorance by sending me the email.  I do wonder where they got my email address - especially as it bears not the slightest resemblance to my name; interesting question that one?

 

Drying out man (not sure which one) will be making his weekly visit again today.  Presumably if progress has been insufficient some plaster will be knocked off some bits of wall?    I wonder if they'll chose the recently redecorated downstairs facility and kitchen or the not redecorated utility room - this could get interesting although the downstairs facility is the only one of those three which has not has skirting board removed.   In the meanwhile Charlie cat has developed the less than helpful skill of carefully relocating the exhaust hose from one drying machine out of their lord and ladyships' cat flap.  Trouble is the exhaust is getting rid of damp air (not that it feels damp) and the super dexterous cat cleverly drops it right next to a damper piece of wall, blithering idiot animal.

 

When the lad was at Sheffield Uni (the original one) he was in a shared uni owned flat which was quite well equipped and had a proper kitchen.  Only problem was his flatmates were a bunch of idle gits who used his utensils etc without asking and never bothered to clean either them or the kitchen - fortunately most Britons are forbidden to own firearms because I'm sure he'd have used a gun on those lazy clowns had he had one to hand.  Maybe they all had servants at home?

 

Anyway have a good day folks and stay safe

[grandadbob]

 

1 hour ago, AndyB said:

We have a thermostat and two controllers.  The first controller (swmbo) turns it up. The second controller (me) turns it down.   

 

The light switches work the same way. I figure I get my steps in walking round the house turning lights off after everyone. 

 

We also have one thermostat and two controllers although ours work the other way round.   I'm more likely to turn it up whilst The Ice Maiden is forever too hot and turns it down and flings every window in the place open even in the depths of winter.  This sometimes leads to hostilities and World War 3.

As far as light switches go if they are two gang or more the Technical Department (me) has to deal with them.

[Compound2632]

42 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

In the meanwhile Charlie cat has developed the less than helpful skill of carefully relocating the exhaust hose from one drying machine out of their lord and ladyships' cat flap.  

 

Well, what would you do in his position? Sounds like you've been guilty of an impertinent usurpation of feline purrogative!

Edited September 28, 2020 by Compound2632

[PhilJ W]

Afternoon all from Estuary-Land. Being as I like to be warm I set my CH thermostat at 22 C. At the moment it is showing 25 C. despite it being only 19 C. outside. The reason being that the room is a perfect suntrap due to the patio doors facing due south. The front of the house is the opposite, the temperature in the hallway is only 20 C. and even in a heatwave it remains comfortably cool. 

2 hours ago, The Lurker said:

 

spreadsheet king who used to work for me was obsessed at building a remote control light switch that could also be voice controlled and from an app on his phone, so much so that he bought a raspberry pi in order to get it to work. He was most put out when I called his landline and told Alexa via his ansaphone to turn his light on - it worked!

You weren't tempted to ask for a wake up call at 2 AM then? The ride of the Valkyries at full volume would be my choice.