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46

General Discussion Area / Well ,thats me

« on: 29 May 2017, 15:35:27 »

done for the weekend....

Worked Sat
Sun morning went to garden centre and bought runner bean seeds and a couple of patio planters. Gonna try growing the runner beans in these this year as a couple of years ago when planted in the garden they totally got eaten by slugs snails, even tho I used slug pellets

Popped the seeds into a seed tray and that's sitting in the kitchen window.
Then over to my mums and cooked a roast dinner for her and myself.
Today I have been clearing 2 years of neglect and dumped rubbish from the patio.
Filled 7 garden waste bags....one bag I filled with a rusty gas bbq I dismantled. another bag was full of a small plastic greenhouse, again dismantled. Other 5 were filled with general crap I had dumped out there!

Probably will take me a month to get rid of those bags in the wheelie bin

Just started to rain now.....and I'm knackered, having a well deserved, I reckon, old speckled hen

Dinner tonight is beef and kidneys in a red wine sauce that I threw in the slow cooker this morning

Just ordered one of these to replaced the dumped gas bbq......could be rubbish.... $:-\$
http://www.wilko.com/bbqs+tools/wilko-bucket-grill-barbeque-assorted/invt/0342383

Anyone else been busy ?

47

General Discussion Area / It must be summer

« on: 26 May 2017, 17:10:17 »

Coz my central heating controller says so!

Where it says 'summer', it usually says 'auto' ....but its decided summer is here by telling me and turning off the heating

I can override it, but as the inside temp is a tad warm I wont bother

48

General Discussion Area / Technology again!

« on: 18 May 2017, 18:07:53 »

Spent most of the day on it

Bought a new Android 6 phone ....with 16Gb of Ram ... fed up with my other Android 4 phone with 2 Gb of Ram...kept running out of space and a 16Gb SD card in it is next to useless as Android 4 insists of installing new apps to the phone memory

Popped my sim from old phone in it....took a bit of sorting out but fine....but soon discovered it wouldn't connect using mobile data, but would on wifi

Even tho it was saying I had 4G connectivity every app said no internet

I'm on giffgaff and had set the APN up correctly according to giffgaff web site but no luck

Just now I discovered a setting under 'data usage' and a tab labelled 'O2-UK'. In the tab there was a setting 'Mobile Data' and it was off...swiped it to turn it on.....and lo and behold its changed the APN setting to use an O2 one and its now working on mobile data

Happy days....but doesn't technology make you waste ages of time sometimes trying to make it work for you

49

General Discussion Area / Any crapper experts

« on: 04 May 2017, 18:08:36 »

Downstairs loo, was very slow to flush, it was taking ages for the bowl to empty.
Its not the loo itself its the soil pipe to the main sewer.
How do I know this? The output of the bowl is connected to a flexi pipe that then goes to soil pipe. If I unplug the connection to the soil pipe and shine a torch down it, it goes down about 2-3 feet and there is standing water in it, which shouldn't be there.
This morning I shoved a litre of 95% concentrate of sulphuric acid down it, left it 3 hours reconnected the loo and flushed it. The flush was better but still not as it should be. So tomorrow morning I plan to shove another litre of sulphuric acid down it and leave it all day.

Don't know what else to do tbh, rodding it from the sewer end is likely to be a costly job, as the manhole, as far as I can make is buried under the patio....if there is one there, peeking over the neighbours fence seem to suggest this, tho the neighbour on one side has got an extension over his...... $:-\$

50

General Car Chat / Challenge for tunnie!

« on: 10 April 2017, 18:28:32 »

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/10675185.Car_clocks_up_507_759_miles/?ref=mr&lp=13

With his VW

51

General Discussion Area / A tip for home brewers

« on: 07 April 2017, 17:32:53 »

If you use an immersion heater....don't bother with expensive brewing ones...

I used one, they're about the £30 mark....until it decided it wasn't going to heat anymore...

So I bought a fish tank one instead for £7.50 delivered.....

Ok, a bit fiddly taking the mains plug of it, so you can thread the mains lead through the bung and then put the plug back on (the brewing ones come with bung already in place)

But for the saving, its worth it.....my brew is now sitting at just over 26C

52

General Discussion Area / ooppsss...should i tell them

« on: 01 April 2017, 18:38:24 »

I get to see my mums energy usage online....her account is linked to mine...same supplier.

I couldn't work out why her leccy usage was so much higher last month.....seeing as my mum has been in hospital for the last 6 weeks....going home next week tho

Theres only the cleaner been going in, plus my weekly visits to check everything is ok. I usually have a cuppa whilst there....

I took her meter readings last week as requested by energy company.....and sent them in online.

So today I was over there again and checked the meter readings .....

Ummm ... I submitted a reading last week that was over 600 units too high.....must have read the meter wrong

Today we both change tariffs to another fixed price tariff.....however the leccy per unit is about 5p/unit higher than we were paying.....

So.....as that means about a £30 difference.......should I let the energy company know I goofed up on the last meter reading $:-\$

53

General Discussion Area / Ignorant bastids...

« on: 22 March 2017, 19:54:48 »

Received a letter today....

Started Dear Mr ........

And ended Yours Faithfully....

Wont bother replying if they don't know the correct way to start/end a letter..

54

General Discussion Area / Window lock?

« on: 19 February 2017, 16:52:25 »

I want to restrict how far one of my UPVC top opening window opens....say to 4 or 5 inches

Its the downstairs bathroom window.

I have a shower in the morning and used to leave the top opener open all day for ventilation. But since getting broken into about 18 months ago (that's how they got in....through the bl**dy top opener!) I leave it in the 'vent' position, which only leaves it open by about 1/2 inch...which isn't enough to allow the bathroom to dry out....

Ive been having a look about, but cannot see anything suitable.....

Any ideas chaps.....

55

General Discussion Area / Air in a central heating rad

« on: 19 February 2017, 10:30:12 »

Radiator upstairs was cold....I thought perhaps the TRV had stuck shut....but thought I would check for air first...

Completely full of air....so much in fact the pressure in the system dropped from just under 3 bar to just over 1 bar...so I topped it back up to about 2 bar...

So wheres that air come from in a sealed system? $:-\$

56

General Discussion Area / Always worth an ask....

« on: 13 February 2017, 17:47:57 »

Bought a new dishwasher today...

Was going to buy one from John Lewis....but as they have jacked up the price on the one I had in mind....I decided they could take a walk!

So......decided on one from Curry's and remembering topcashback...check the cashback online....it was just over a fiver....

Popped into Curry's this afternoon....pointed to the one and asked can you do anything on the price....if you can better the topcashback price then i'll buy it now.....otherwise i'll order it online....

Sales person went away and came back within a few mins.....we can take £13 of the price.....job jobbed

57

General Discussion Area / Smart battery charger...

« on: 06 February 2017, 17:27:55 »

Bought one of these a few years ago from Lidl/Aldi (carnt remember which one) after someone posted on here about them

Its now broke

Turn it on and it goes into standby mode...press the button to select 12V and car battery and nothing happens, it remains in standby mode...

It was about £15 iirc....

So any suggestions for a replacement....searched Aldi/Lidl and cannot find anything similar......don't want to spend much as its for a leisure battery which I may/may not (most probable) use again....

58

General Discussion Area / Leccy problem...

« on: 04 February 2017, 18:09:07 »

I have a fault with the kitchen/bedroom circuit...

Basically a short circuit between neutral and earth (as measured by my multimeter)

So I thought I would try to find out where the problem was....I was thinking it was going to be in the loft above the kitchen, where I get occasional furry visitors who like to chew cables.

After a bit of diagnostics....ie breaking the circuit...I identified which cable had the problem...

So up into the loft ...... and cut the cable I thought was the problem about 6 inches from where it enters the loft from the main house....stripped it back (the cable from the house) and opps me its still got a short

Obviously changed the cable as I had to now.

Ive broken the circuit upstairs and now all the kitchen sockets are good apart from the one I changed the cable.

So, to my thinking the fault must lie in one of the bedrooms....which is a buggar.....coz it means clearing rooms and floor boards up

Unless any of you clever chaps can think of another reason for the short....I did think there maybe a problem with the circuit breaker...but as it only switches the 'live' I had my doubts.....

The only other thing I can add is when the fault developed I had left an iron turned on in one of the bedrooms.....ummm for about 24 hours....but seeing as the iron still works....I carnt see it causing the fault $:-\$

59

General Discussion Area / Warm Home Scheme

« on: 17 January 2017, 18:13:45 »

I posted about this a few years ago....

I hope you all applied back in Oct/Nov last year....if you are applicable ....this is an excerpt from an email myself and my mum got today....

I am pleased to inform you that your application has been successful and we have applied the £140 rebate to your energy account. You will see this rebate on your next bill.

60

General Discussion Area / Power Flushing...

« on: 16 January 2017, 17:28:53 »

Just been quoted £450 to power flush a central heating system with 8 radiators

Seems a tad steep to me......was expecting around £150 $:-\$

Any plumbers on here that can advise $:-\$

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