New Grump of the Day

[Cubist]

Just finished stacking the last consignment of firewood, circa 12 cubic metres, for the coming winter. That lot plus the other 10 cubic metres or so stashed elsewhere on site 'may' get us through unless its a particularly bad one.

Grump enough in the stacking but all the more to come as those stacks slowly diminish as they are humped on a daily demand basis the 50 metres to the house! Much more GRUMP to come with the hernia risk and no wonder the family calls me the Grinch at Xmas - Bah Humbug.

 

[TudorCottage]

We have underfloor Electric heating in our cottage. It warms the place up a treat but is insanely expensive to use so is limited to really cold spells.

I’ve recently switched to an electric vehicle and to make that as cheap as possible to run I’ve switched to my energy suppliers night time tariff. It’s a quarter of the day time rate and saves me a good few quid compared to my old diesel.

I decided to experiment with the underfloor heating and crank it right up during the cheap rate and see if I could use it as a form of storage heater. It sits below some nice tiles that I was sure would hold the heat for a good few hours.

Cheap rate runs from midnight to 7am and it’s on the whole of that time. At 7am the cottage is lovely and warm and I was hoping to hang on to some residual heat until at least midday when the central heating could takeover for the rest of the day (the central heating isn’t enough on it’s own downstairs in cold spells)
Unfortunately it seems to have lost it’s heat by 9am

So it’s back to the drawing board I’m afraid.

One bonus is the dog likes sleeping on it during the night

 

[Cubist]

Unfortunately it seems to have lost it’s heat by 9am

I seem to recall from very early Science lessons at school, that the land absorbs heat during the day and releases it during the night and similarly that the sea draws heat from the land and warms it during the winter. Blessed if I can rely on such distant memory but your 9am watershed may owe something to that phenomenon - it certainly gets parky here a little before then most days. No doubt it will sound counter-intuitive but maybe you should consider inverting your approach? But of course - that will play directly into the energy providers hands just as they planned all along.

 

[a twig]

Pffft.... Who reads the manual anyway.

I do now since I used to write them and realised how much safety related “get out of jail free cards” were available as long as the risks were mentioned in the manual

 

[Cubist]

I do now since I used to write them and realised how much safety related “get out of jail free cards” were available as long as the risks were mentioned in the manual

I am so, so grateful that my days of having a lawyer hovering over my shoulder are no long gone. That said, I do wonder how Ikea's lawyers manage with that organisations penchant for Pictograms only in their assembly instructions?

 

[Flyfisher]

We have underfloor Electric heating in our cottage. It warms the place up a treat but is insanely expensive to use so is limited to really cold spells.

I’ve recently switched to an electric vehicle and to make that as cheap as possible to run I’ve switched to my energy suppliers night time tariff. It’s a quarter of the day time rate and saves me a good few quid compared to my old diesel.

I decided to experiment with the underfloor heating and crank it right up during the cheap rate and see if I could use it as a form of storage heater. It sits below some nice tiles that I was sure would hold the heat for a good few hours.

Cheap rate runs from midnight to 7am and it’s on the whole of that time. At 7am the cottage is lovely and warm and I was hoping to hang on to some residual heat until at least midday when the central heating could takeover for the rest of the day (the central heating isn’t enough on it’s own downstairs in cold spells)
Unfortunately it seems to have lost it’s heat by 9am

So it’s back to the drawing board I’m afraid.

One bonus is the dog likes sleeping on it during the night

Apologies if this adds to your grumpiness but I'm a big fan of UFH. However, my experience is that electric UFH is exactly as you describe whereas 'wet' UFH does indeed perform like a very effective storage heater. We had wet UFH installed in our kitchen extension with the pipework running through a 50mm screed sitting on top of celotex insulation, plus 20mm clay pamments. I program it to come on at 5am and off at 9am then 4pm to 8pm and that's enough to keep the large kitchen and adjoining room at about 19c throughout the day.

In an existing room, we had a limecrete floor installed (based on the Mike Wye model using foamed glass) but this time the pipework was running through a 100mm screed with the original 25-30mm pamments on top. This floor has a much greater thermal mass and the first time I fired up the UFH it took the best part of half a day to warm the room! However, the upside is that the floor and room remained comfortably warm for the next 12 hours or so and could be used to 'time-shift' the energy consumption. Indeed, the thermal lag has to be taken into account when programming the UFH heating. Having said that, being a mains gas wet system is no great help in utilising cheap overnight electricity (which I already do for my electric car and charging the house batteries, but that's another story).

Finally, when we refurbished a bathroom, we had electric UFH installed under the ceramic tiles and their thermal mass is tiny compared to our wet UFH floors so the thermal lag is only about an hour or so and therefore of little use when trying to 'time-shift' cheap electricity tariffs.

 

[fernicarry]

That question wouldn't even be covered by BS7671 in my opinion. That's more a matter for the Part P regulations

I think that's more the cooker manufacturer covering their backsides. They don't want Joe Bloggs on the phone wasting their time asking how to wire up his new cooker. Whoever does the work should do it to an appropriate standard, thats the BS7671 part. Depending on the work, local/national authorities may require that person to hold a ticket of some sort, for similar sorts of CYA and "we don't want to get involved" reasons.

Often these big hobs need 3ph to get their full rated output. Ours is on single phase so it you try to boost it on more than two zones it refuses because there isn't enough juice available. Haven't found this to be a limitation in practice.

 

[Zebra]

I agree entirely but here’s the relevant page on the cooker manual. I also can’t imagine having a 3 phase supply in a domestic kitchen
View attachment 14678

Don't pay any attention to that, they're just covering their own arses.

 

[fernicarry]

Took the french windows that I've been working on for weeks to the glaziers. Confirmed with the guy that I wanted linseed oil putty. Came back to pick them up and he proudly annonced that he'd bedded the glass into silicone!!!!

Now I'll have to clean up the squeeze out on the inside of the rebate before I can paint them. Doubly annoying because one of the old panes I took out was also bedded into silicone and it was an absolute mare to clean up the gunk from the rebate.

Also regretting asking for laminated glass as they are now *extremely* heavy so I'm wondering if the cast iron hinges will cope.

 

[aockenden]

Storm Darragh, here we go! We are directly in the epicenter of the storm path (near Aberystwyth). Let’s see what breaks. I’ve got my eye on my new DIY reclaimed slate roof on my WFH outbuilding. That and my soakaways getting overwhelmed, rain backing up into my French drains and then damp coming into the base of the stone walls.

 

[LadyArowana]

His Lordship nearly had a heart attack when the emergency alert went off last night. I had heard the gossip it was coming so had wisely put my phone on ’aeroplane mode’ and made a mental note it would be a bit windy.

 

[Cubist]

Last week I decided to start one of those irksome projects that can disrupt the household for days, if not weeks on end and re-decorate the kitchen with the aim of getting it finished before the First Ladies return from her latest overseas jaunt. This exercise has been on the 'Pending' list for some time now and, with the likelihood of considerable sanding dust, I elected to clear the decks and strip the kitchen of every movable item and drape the remainder in suitable covers to prevent any unwanted dusty incursions.

For two days now I've been living off items from the freezer rapidly de-frosted to sustain myself and supplemented with only the occasional choccy biccy while accumulating the barest minimum of unwashed dishes. This morning, with the home stretch in sight and with hopes of seeing the job finished no later than tomorrow morning - well ahead of the First Ladies arrival back home on Wednesday, I sauntered over to my shed for for some now forgotten tool to find my path blocked by this: -






A gift from Storm Darrragh in the shape of a circa 50 foot bough of the 80 foot Lawson Cypress that stands at the end of the footpath from the house. The second photo is of the remaining two boughs that now leave the tree looking a trifle incomplete and considerably less fulsome. Said bough did have the good grace to fall away from the house and also avoided destroying the fence and gates around the yard... BUT, it did completely block the entrance to and first 50 feet of the Bridleway AND our yard while somehow and fortuitously also avoiding blocking the lane as well.

Why am I Grumpy? I own the bridleway and am obligated to ensure that it remains open as a Public Right of Way. Consequently its down to yours truly to dismember and dispatch this unwanted blockage at the earliest opportunity - whilst also clearing the driveway so I can get my car in and out as needed but most importantly to ensure the First Lady is not confronted by a blockage that might divert her to the nearest Spa Hotel!

So today I have been mostly playing lumberjack and carefully reducing this unfortunate bough to sizes and weights I am comfortable to tote by hand the 100 metres to its final cremation site. An exercise set to continue tomorrow so no flaming chance I'll get the sodding kitchen finished - and that means the First Lady will doubtless absent herself to another of her favourite Hotel haunts so I'm going to lose on every perishing front!

Christmas is coming - Bah Bloody Humbug!

 

[Gothichome]

Fortunate the tree fell away from the home or your grump would be really grumpy. As a Canadian I can offer a Canadian plaid lumberjack shirt if it helps.
Ron

 

[Cubist]

Fortunate the tree fell away from the home or your grump would be really grumpy. As a Canadian I can offer a Canadian plaid lumberjack shirt if it helps.
Ron

Hi Ron,
Would you believe me if I told you that just as I hit the 'Post Reply' button the sodding lights went out and the house was plunged into darkness and silence but for this old geezer ranting at the deities!
Thanks for the offer but much as I like the plaid look I find the Python promoted undies a trifle binding.
I think I'll just wrap myself in a duvet with a bottle of Scotch and sulk until its all over.
Cubist - aka Deprived and Disconsolate of Ludlow

 

[aockenden]

Yeah our power is out too (since yesterday afternoon) and not due back until bloody Tuesday.

 

[Feltwell]

Took the french windows that I've been working on for weeks to the glaziers. Confirmed with the guy that I wanted linseed oil putty. Came back to pick them up and he proudly annonced that he'd bedded the glass into silicone!!!!

Now I'll have to clean up the squeeze out on the inside of the rebate before I can paint them. Doubly annoying because one of the old panes I took out was also bedded into silicone and it was an absolute mare to clean up the gunk from the rebate.

Also regretting asking for laminated glass as they are now *extremely* heavy so I'm wondering if the cast iron hinges will cope.

View attachment 14861

Late to the party but glazier may have done you a favour - if I remember rightly, use linseed putty on laminated glass and the linseed oil can creep inbetween the glass/plastic layers.

I gave up on linseed putty some time ago - Repaircare Dryseal MP and a Palu tooling block, decent finish, paint over it straight away and it should easily outlast linseed putty whilst being pretty much indistinguishable in use.

 

[Feltwell]

Hi Ron,
Would you believe me if I told you that just as I hit the 'Post Reply' button the sodding lights went out and the house was plunged into darkness and silence but for this old geezer ranting at the deities!
Thanks for the offer but much as I like the plaid look I find the Python promoted undies a trifle binding.
I think I'll just wrap myself in a duvet with a bottle of Scotch and sulk until its all over.
Cubist - aka Deprived and Disconsolate of Ludlow

I ended up driving a Community Nurse round the very dark, windy, flooded and tree-strewn country lanes of Oswestry in my Land Rover last night, as she had elderly patients who needed their insulin jab and they didn't think her Ford Fiesta would make it through the flooding. It was certainly pretty breezy out there!

 

[Stevers]

Despite being on the edge of town, with said town lit up below us complete with Christmas Lights, we are on a rural circuit and our power went out Saturday morning for almost a whole day. We had eventually been told it would take until Sunday evening to fix, so spent a few hours on Saturday spreading the home grown contents of two large freezers amongst the freezers of some very helpful neighbours starting four doors down the road! That still left one very large freezer full of home grown produce deemed less likely to spoil. Power came back on this morning so that was a relief, although only after we found out what happens to our burglar alarm when the backup battery finally runs out - there are several bouts of beeping, each of which needs cancelling at the keypad downstairs. When the keypad finally dies, the external alarm goes off for twenty minutes!

I gave up on linseed putty some time ago

On preparing to patch paint my sash windows for the winter, and to prepare the way for a full coat of paint next year, I too had intended to give up on Linseed Oil Putty, but I soon came to the conclusion that all of the failed putty beds that I was removing had blue paint and sometimes also green paint neither of which had anything to do with me. This would make them 70's and 80s vintage, so some forty years old, so a pretty good result. All of the beds that I'd replaced over the last 27 years were good for just a couple of coats of paint, so I've stuck with linseed putty this time.

Linseed oil putty is interesting stuff; as I understand it the linseed oil needs to oxidise for the putty to set - and this is why it skins, and not because the linseed oil is evaporating. The linseed oil needs to stay in the putty for this to happen and not escape into the wood - which it would definitely do given the chance, hence presumably the old advice to prime the rebate before applying the putty. In this round of puttying I treated the beds to a couple of coats of clear exterior wood preservative, and then Bonda resin wood hardener which I have found to be excellent stuff. After allowing time between coats for each to dry (or set), I applied the linseed putty which was a much pleasanter experience than working with one of the new modified polymer putties. The putty has been left to skin for a few weeks and will shortly be top coated - apparently they shouldn't be primed.

Whilst mulling over my options I came across some interesting ideas regarding the storage of linseed oil putty.
1. It can be kept in the freezer pretty much indefinitely, and warmed through for use in a microwave - that's now what I do!
2. Water can be added to the tub and removed before use, and this will also help keep it fresh.
3. Because the oil tends to come to the top at room temperature some people turn the pot every month or so to keep the oil on the move - can't say that I've noticed this myself.

Not having until now availed myself of any of the above tips, I had to buy a fresh tub from my local independent DIY store - except for the first time in my experience it wasn't very 'fresh', and needed a bit of oil added to make it usable - that says a lot about linseed oil putty consumption trends in the UK!

 

[Cubist]

with said town lit up below us complete with Christmas Lights

A silver lining to the dark clouds surrounding me at last.

Thank you Stevers for this timely reminder - I can at least add another push-back argument to the annual blandishments to 'dress' that Lawson Cypress. All that glitters round here is not tinsel - if I have anything to do with it!

 

[Cubist]

A Victor Meldew moment today. Popped out to the shops for urgent supplies and on the short journey down the lane beside my southern boundary I counted another four mature trees downed by Darrragh. I just don't believe it but now at least I know how to pronounce the last syllable of Darr....aghhh properly.

Ho hum, choppy biccies I'm coming to get you.