New Grump of the Day

[Flyfisher]

Anyhow, my grump is having to spend all last weekend & today fitting a very non-period CCTV system to Feltwell Towers, necessitating not only holes through the walls but lots of furniture moving, carpet & floorboard lifting in order to run the cables.

Very sorry to hear that Let’s hope their mere presence keeps the little darlings away.

I’ve got a few cameras (though thankfully they’ve not been needed to date). I went for IP cameras rather than CCTV, which means I can view them on a PC, tablet and my smartphone - which is very handy if I’m working in the workshop while expecting a courier delivery, for example. Using Cat5e/6 cables means that power can be supplied over the cable, eliminating separate ‘wall warts’ for each camera.

 

[Craig89]

Out of more than a passing interest, where can you get new lead paint?

Im assuming malcolm means new lead for the roof and not lead paint.

Really? Roofing lead is available pretty much everywhere. I’d be surprised if anyone found it hard to find.

The way I read it was that it was just on the to do list, not that it was difficult to find?

 

[Craig89]

Does the varying direction of grain cause a problem when sanding with a pram sander?

I've got a sppecialist in to do it so haven't researched the details. He's doing a nice job. He seems to be mostly going up and down in the direction of the sanding machine, 45 degrees to the grain on each block.

Certainly seems to be making a good job of it. I like pine parquet, especially when they are old big blocks as yours appear to be. Hopefully when I finally get round to doing mine it looks half as good as yours

 

[Me!]

Out of more than a passing interest, where can you get new lead paint?

Lead primer is still available for use on boats https://www.traditionalboatsupplies.com/leadbasedproducts/43-16-red-lead-paint.html#/1-size-25l
I have no idea how legal it is to use it on houses.

 

[Feltwell]

I’ve got a few cameras (though thankfully they’ve not been needed to date). I went for IP cameras rather than CCTV, which means I can view them on a PC, tablet and my smartphone - which is very handy if I’m working in the workshop while expecting a courier delivery, for example. Using Cat5e/6 cables means that power can be supplied over the cable, eliminating separate ‘wall warts’ for each camera.

You're more technically able than I am FF, I confess I find most wireless things to be inherently unreliable, I prefer wired where I can. My system is actually a hybrid in the end - 2 cameras on the front of the house that are hard wired to the DVR box, and then a third camera on the front of the garage that is on a wireless data link to the DVR box (though it takes power from a socket in the garage) - as a data cable would have been far too hard to run.

What is disappointing though is despite going for a decent spec 4MP system, the night vision really isn't good enough to make faces out - you can see figures very clearly, but not faces. It seems you can only really do that with the aid of decent security light to put the camera off infra-red recording and back into "day mode".

 

[Flyfisher]

. . . and then a third camera on the front of the garage that is on a wireless data link to the DVR box (though it takes power from a socket in the garage) - as a data cable would have been far too hard to run.

When I relocated the overhead mains power and telephone cables to the house via our outbuildings and buried conduits I also installed a couple of network cables to my workshop. How sad is that? :roll:

 

[Feltwell]

Just well prepared I think!

In my long-ago Civil Engineering days, if you were putting a cable duct into a structure or under a road - the duct just being a length of plastic pipe - 2 principles prevailed:-

- The duct was always far bigger than the immediate need, to allow for future needs
- You'd always leave a draw cord - a bit of polypropylene rope - through the duct for drawing future cables through, and if you had to pull a new cable through you'd pull another draw cord through to replace it at the same time. You blow a cord through an empty duct by tying a wad of plastic sheet or an old bag to the end and then use compressed air to shoot it through.

It would be good to have the same principles in the house when fitting a cable - put in ducts with room to spare - but alas with drilling holes in joists etc there's rarely enough room.

See, I can out-sad you :wink:

 

[Flyfisher]

Yep, when the trench is already dug it’s trivial to lay some ducting before covering everything up again. Actually, a similar thing used to done in new commercial buildings back in the 80/90s to allow cabling upgrades and BT were pushing something called ‘blown fibre’ around that time whereby they wouldn’t install the actual optical fibre on day one but the ducting provided an upgrade path. It was used a fair bit for financial trading floors, which required masses of commas cabling between the trading desks and the equipment rooms. But I’m out of date with it now so things might have changed.

I did install a few bits of plastic pipe for such purposes during various works but the only one I’ve really used is the plastic drainpipe between the attic and the kitchen extension ‘plant room’ where all the heating gubbins was installed. It’s also where I located the comms ‘hub’ where all the various network cables converge into a small wall-mounted cabinet. Unfortunately I seem to have fallen foul of your first principle. I was certainly mindful of future expansion and I thought that a 65mm drainpipe would be more than adequate whereas it’s already packed almost to capacity and it’s now increasingly difficult to feed/pull additional cables through it.

As for blowing cables through ducts with compressed air, I’ve also found that a vacuum cleaner can also be used to suck cables through them as well.

I bet we’d be the life and soul of any party :wink:

 

[Feltwell]

:lol:

My new CCTV recorder is sitting in an old built in cupboard in my kitchen, on the very top shelf, about 10' in the air - with an old monitor. Not exactly convenient to use it there! - but it is a good place for it long term, out of the way and with good cabling access into the floors above & below.

To finish it off I need to run a VGA cable round to another room where the family PC is, and a USB extension lead with a wireless mouse dongle plugged into it - so I can control it all from a separate mouse using the family PC monitor, that's the idea. That means going under the floor - whilst it's undoubtedly good to have enough sub floor space to crawl under and run cables, it's also an easy job to put off - a tiny hatch to squeeze through (it's got smaller since we moved in....), then a filthy, cold and dark sub-floor space to crawl around in, with numerous bits of old brick and other things to hurt the knees.

 

[paulc]

Having collected several doors from houses in the neighbourhood that wer in the process of being "renovated", I find myself with quite a few 1920s period doors. A perfect match for the ones in my house. Picked out the best of them, removed much of the ironmongery, and sent six off to be dipped & stripped. Two days later, our glorious leaders put us in to lock down and pretty much close all non-essential businesses.
No idea if or when I'm going to get my doors back.
Still having to go to work because I am deemed a "key worker" (my pay packet disagrees...).

On the bright side. I had stocked up on toilet paper just before Christmas, so have enough to last about six months. 8)

 

[Abi Cott]

Having collected several doors from houses in the neighbourhood that wer in the process of being "renovated", I find myself with quite a few 1920s period doors. A perfect match for the ones in my house. Picked out the best of them, removed much of the ironmongery, and sent six off to be dipped & stripped. Two days later, our glorious leaders put us in to lock down and pretty much close all non-essential businesses.
No idea if or when I'm going to get my doors back.
Still having to go to work because I am deemed a "key worker" (my pay packet disagrees...).

On the bright side. I had stocked up on toilet paper just before Christmas, so have enough to last about six months. 8)

Watching the more bespoke businesses run by friends I would think it will depend on if your door dipper is "vulnerable" if he isn't expect to see him back at work in the next week with sensible social distancing in place.

 

[Feltwell]

New neighbours, in the house opposite mine, got themselves some hens. Fair enough, they've trashed their garden as they have free rein, but that's up to them.

However they've now decided to add a cockerel to their menagerie, as I get reminded of at 5am. The house is a 1930's semi with a small garden totally surrounded by other houses with similar small gardens which back onto theirs - it's not exactly a farmyard - I'm just glad we're opposite and not next to them.

At 5am today thoughts of chicken pie filled my mind...………….

 

[LadyArowana]

New neighbours, in the house opposite mine, got themselves some hens. Fair enough, they've trashed their garden as they have free rein, but that's up to them.

However they've now decided to add a cockerel to their menagerie, as I get reminded of at 5am. The house is a 1930's semi with a small garden totally surrounded by other houses with similar small gardens which back onto theirs - it's not exactly a farmyard - I'm just glad we're opposite and not next to them.

At 5am today thoughts of chicken pie filled my mind...………….

Do you have any useful urban foxes?

 

[paulc]

New neighbours, in the house opposite mine, got themselves some hens.
However they've now decided to add a cockerel to their menagerie, as I get reminded of at 5am.

Do you have any useful urban foxes?

At least they are not quails - Noisy little things, and hardly worth taking for the pot - The eggs are no better.... Neighbour used to keep the darned things, but they slowly got picked off by the local cats & foxes.

Nice thing about urban environments, there are always predators of one sort or another just waiting for a free meal - Either of the four legged variety, or two.

 

[Gothichome]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Abi Cott]

Coq au vin?

 

[Feltwell]

Coq au vin?

Might run the bloody thing over with my van, does that count as Coq au van? :twisted: :wink:

A fox would be very convenient. Alas I've never seen one here.

 

[Feltwell]

Cheer of the day - spoke to my neighbour, he's agreed to get rid of the cockerel! He did say to me that he's been getting up very early for Ramadan, so he's heard it - he must sleep like a log normally...…

I suspect it's fate will be linked to Eid. Chicken stew anyone? :lol:

 

[DJH]

Hummpf. Just been told I have to stop working and I'm only seventy three!! I've been in hospital for eight weeks with something called discitis....no, I'd never heard of it either.

Oh well, there's still the forum to read...

 

[Zebra]

Hello DJH, haven't seen you for a bit. (You may have been here all the time, it's me that's been missing...)
Discitis sounds painful, whatever it is. At least we'll see some more of you on here.

My Grump of the Day is that it's so much colder inside the house than outside. Indoors on the computer I'm almost shivering even with a jumper on, but outdoors it's shorts weather. I've been imagining some sort of thermal transfer system - what are the most thermally conductive objects I have, and if I put them outside until they heated up and then brought them in until they cooled down how much heat could I bring indoors?! (I didn't try it, the neighbours probably think I'm odd enough as it is.)