Who was the coldest last night?

[Penners]

Ooh yes - I forgot about those.

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol:

Rabbit hutches come in very handy for naughty birdies who'd like to sit on eggs - so don't throw it away Robin!

I've also been struggling to de ice the car at 6.30 am whilst the poots hop round on all those bits and pieces - roller blades - what's the point of keeping them? ( when we first got together Chris roller bladed to work - a passing whim, thank God. )

 

[middi]

Paint, you have all forgotten those half tins of paint that you kept for touching up in 1980. :wink:

Middi

 

[Penners]

Oh my goodness - you're right, Middi!

I'd forgotten to open that cupboard - there must be a couple of dozen tins of dried-up paint in there. Not to mention the crusty old brushes.

 

[Carol]

Any ideas on how to defrost guttering down pipes? Should I bother?

Now we are thawing in the daytime, water is pouring down wall over the gutter as it can't get down the frozen pipe. Whole of this wall is saturated and looking very dodgy. Mind you, this is the concrete rendered part which I have been itching to strip off but OH has forbidden it...... wonder if this will all fall off?
I have managed to defrost about a metre from the ground but hesitate to get big ladder out, given slush and ice we have still. Our daytime temp is now rising above 0 but at night its been regularly down to -13.

 

[Flyfisher]

Any ideas on how to defrost guttering down pipes? Should I bother?

I've had to pour kettles of hot water down the lavatory in the unheated part of our house to clear the ice. I guess the same thing would work for the guttering, though be very careful if you need a ladder for access.

My previous report of the indoor temp being 'only' -0.9C can now be updated to -3.3C in this latest cold snap. Fortunately, I had already turned off the water to that end of the house but I noticed today that a temporary bit of plumbing using a plastic pushfit elbow to join two copper pipes had been pushed apart by ice. Not that surprising really.

 

[CatherineB]

I don't disagree with all those comments regarding The Proper Use For Garages...

However, as we're not yet living in this one (the house, not the garage), it hasn't yet (the garage) succumbed to its Proper Use (apart from a Hippo Bag full of garden rubbish, an electric lawnmower with no cord, sundry garden equipment and a box of duplicate parts delivered with our new trampoline, of course) so there is still room for the car. And you have to admit that right now this would be quite useful - if we wanted to keep our car 1/2 mile from where we live, of course :wink:

 

[Penners]

Any ideas on how to defrost guttering down pipes?

Pouring hot water in from the top can work - or it make the problem worse. It depends on how much depth of ice is in the pipe. If there's too much, then the hot water can cool and freeze before it's fully penetrated the ice. So you end up with more ice.

In such circumstances it can be better to attach your hose to a hot tap, then push it up the downpipe from the bottom. As it melts the bottom of the ice plug the water flows out of the pipe. Keep pushing the hose further up as the ice plug retreats upwards.

 

[Tom]

An alternative plan might be to bundle up your livestock and go and camp in Jaqy's house for the duration (Chris not invited, of course, because he doesn't mind the cold).

Whilst I'm recovering from my current bout of the lurgy, I've been re-reading through some of the threads and realised I hadn't seen this bit before. Joce would be more than welcome here if things got too much...she knows that already Chickens and Macavity, too

 

[MdB]

The Saturday Telegraph says that people living in rural areas could find their oil costs rising to an extra £564 per year as a result of this recent price hike, 76p a litre was mentioned. :shock: :shock:

The Boilerjuice quote for my area is 70.99p! I hope I've got enough to get through this winter. The Rayburn will be gone or converted back to solid fuel by next winter!

In today's Sunday Times there is an article which states that a company called DCC controls between 25% and 50% of the UK domestic heating oil market (depending on who you ask). This goes someway to explain the increase in prices recently.

You may also be interested to know that they also own boilerjuice.com and other price comparison sites as well.

 

[worms]

In today's Sunday Times there is an article which states that a company called DCC controls between 25% and 50% of the UK domestic heating oil market (depending on who you ask). This goes someway to explain the increase in prices recently.

You may also be interested to know that they also own boilerjuice.com and other price comparison sites as well.

That's interesting! Turns out Boilerjuice Ltd is owned by Energy Acquisition UK Ltd, which is owned by DCC Energy UK Ltd, which is owned by DCC PLC, which has its HQ in Dublin. DCC Share price (in euros) about 14% up on this time last year and 34% up on its price last June! :roll:

 

[philpjuk100]

Even at 76p/litre and with cooking oil at less than 70p/litre depending on quantity bought it makes them both much cheaper than diesel at £1.30/litre and the discovery seems to run just as well on them.Used oil is even cheaper!phil.

 

[Penners]

Careful, Phil! Running your vehicle on untaxed fuel is illegal.

The price of diesel is, of course, artificially inflated by the huge tax on it.

 

[philpjuk100]

No duty now (since july 2007)if it is for non comercial use and you use less than 2500 litres per year (the old system cost more to operate than the duty it raised) but it is recomended oil recipts are kept and mileage is recorded in case you need to prove your consumption.phil. (found a "german"supermarket that sells 15 litre drums at 55p per litre but was beaten to it by a taxi driver who had the last three drums in his trolley!)

 

[Penners]

I didn't know that. Very interesting!

 

[Flyfisher]

I've read about the 2500 litres/year thing, but I thought that only applied to "biofuels". I doubt that central heating oil would qualify. Mileage-wise, that limit should more than cover average annual mileages (I calculate it at about 16,500 miles at 30mpg).

However, I've read all sorts of conflicting stories about such fuels being bad for modern diesel engines and especially turbochargers, because they lack (allegedly) the various additives in modern diesel fuels. Problems are supposed to include gumming up oil pipework leading to oil starvation to carbon build-up on the valves and pistons. Unfortunately, I've never been able to find anything that I would regard as particularly reliable information, but I confess that such doubts have prevented me from trying cooking oil in my car. I'd be more inclined to try it in my old tractor, but at 79p/litre I might just as well stick to red diesel.

 

[AMc]

Any ideas on how to defrost guttering down pipes? Should I bother?

Well after the fact but some big threads lose my attention...

We have a long run out from the utility room which wasn't 'falling' properly so froze up - last year I messed about with kettles etc. which was a royal pain.
This year I took the spreader plate off the hose on the wallpaper stripper and fed it up the pipe from the gulley end - it did a fine job of melting the plug in quick fast order and required no real effort or danger on my part.
Be careful applying steam to cold cast iron (I probably wouldn't for risk of cracking) plastic might crack but it's cheap enough I wouldn't care.

On balance I might not bother with downpipes and accept the overspill was a short term issue not a long term problem.