grendel

he has nearly accidentally won it several times.

why is it in the photo that everyone else is laughing and Griff looks like he is hanging on for grim death.

how about we all raid the piggy banks and pay with loose change- malicious compliance.

both sides of the dyke where all the boats are, there is an overnight fee- if you go in the pub and pay before they come around you get it cheaper, its slightly more if they have to come round and collect, the area to the side at the end is private moorings. (i think last year it was about £6 if you paid at the pub- couldnt swear to that though)

It was a busy day, and I had to pick the daughter up as she had been working away from her office in ramsgate, so I didn't get a lot done, I did drill and tap the 2.5mm thread for the fixing bolt, then while my tea was cooking, I drilled the 1mm hole to secure the anchor line to

the problem is that they do do it in the night- for them, the servers are based in America, so overnight maintenance for them is a pain in the morning for us

Well, I made a timeslot and spent 1 1/2 Hours working on the lathe, and now have myself a winch drum, still have to drill out the retaining set screw and tap it, but another day's work (and ok there was cleaning that wasn't done)

so as Griff intimated on another thread, progress has been slow, life has got very busy for me, and my weeks disappear in a haze of work- we are getting really busy just now, and the inbox that supplies my jobs is rattling through 40 emails a day with new jobs, divided between 6 of us thats still six jobs a day each. on top of that my weekends are now divided up into shopping for myself and once a fortnight shopping with my dad (mum stays at home) which solidly fills another day remaining time at the weekends is divided between household chores and everything else (including sorting through the pile of stuff that was left behind by my ex, and my daughter when she left home). but this hasnt stopped me totally, I have been trying to work out the best motors and other ancillaries for the mudweght winch, this has involved a lot of testing of the various bits and bobs I have to hand, this culminated in the arrival of the motor I want to use for this, its tiny N20 motor with built in reduction gearbox was one I had, but it was a bit reluctant to run smoothly, so after initial tests a new one was ordered and arrived today, this has good torque, and with a gear reduction down to 60rpm (metal gears), I think I am there, i tested the arrangement today, a cheap 20A speed controller, powering the motor to give forward and reverse. as there is a worm gear the drive stays put when topped. next step is to make the winding drum for the winch and test its lifting power, and then sort out a power supply, unfortunately this needs to be below 9.4Volts for the speed controller, but i have some adjustable voltage regulators so I can run that from the main battery, once I have turned the drum from some brass or aluminium.

considering its a split charge relay, I would imagine that if it was omitted then the battery would try and share with any other batteries on that circuit, which means that if something caused the battery to go flat, it might well take the starter battery with it, plus when you cranked the engine it would possibly try and draw power from that battery through the charging cables, which might well exceed their capacity and cause them to overheat, possibly catch fire. the split charger is there for a reason so probably best left in circuit, the split charge relay may not be faulty, as others have said above, it can take ten minutes for the thing to cut in (to ensure the starter battery has received some charge before diverting the power to charge the auxiliary battery) might there be a better way of doing this- maybe, but some form of separation must be maintained.

well took another look at the boiler, the spark igniter definitely needs replacing as I found 1/4 " length of it sitting on the top of the burner, its still producing lovely fat sparks though. I did find an online manual, and tracing through that it looks as though the main culprit will be the injector, a gas part so no touching that. I did find that the spark igniters are available but the injectors are only available for the very last of the model (I have a glowworm energysaver 40a parts are still available for the 40f, but not all are compatible.

i do have pretty good pressure - its enough to force the hot water back to the tank in a mixer tap if I turn it up too high.

currently to keep the house warm, all i use is the 2 smallest radiators in the house, the one in the bathroom and the one in the downstairs toilet, this is enough to keep it above 20 degrees in the whole house, and generally they are set on setting2 or 3, so it doesnt take a lot. to be fair I had been considering a combi boiler which will do away with the tank in the airing cupboard and then I wont need the cold tank that was installed in the loft.

Lol, that wont happen, as it will mean upgrading the whole network all the way back to the substation, including upgrading the substation. not that it doesnt need doing, as basically the whole network for about a mile around is all similarly under specced now, I know this as I used to work at the DNO that supplies this area, there just isnt available capacity locally to upgrade anything easily.

new builds will stop having gas boilers fitted in 2025, though I do read that replacement boilers may need to be compliant with hydrogen (if not that may be another replacement expense further down the line.

shower is currently a 10kW electric power shower, with one of the 5kW elements isolated to stop it potentially blowing the incoming fuses, it gets warm enough. I suppose if I go for gas again they may be able to reuse most of the original pipework that was installed 20 years back.

so, my 20 + year old gas boiler finally quit on Thursday, its trying to start as I can hear the spark, but it then doesnt light. as an emergency stopgap I have turned on the immersion heater to fill the gap, but am aware that is probably not going to be viable long term (££££££££) I know that anyone I get in to try and fix it will give me the parts not available, best to replace it story, so I am trying to research the options available. bearing in mind gas boilers are being phased out, and the boiler is the only gas appliance I still have, I am wondering whether its time to change over to some alternative. the main issue we have here is the electricity supply, it was designed for the 1960's, when pretty much the only load was lighting. the cutout is only a 64A cutout, so this rules out a lot of the modern electric boilers, also as I work in the industry I have access to the cable records, so I know I am one of 16 houses fed off what would now only ever be used as a single small shop service, (a 35mm2 3phase cable)so I know that anything much bigger than 3kW wont be suitable I do have an electric cooker too which also restricts the available spare power. So this has got me looking at the options - do I stick with gas and just get a cheap replacement boiler? do I try and work with an electric boiler around the power limitations I have? do I look into alternative heating methods - eg air source heat pump? (space considerations here as I only have a small wall space where the existing gas boiler sits) what I am looking for is anyone with any of the above who has tried any of the above and can say whether for example a air source heat pump works to heat a house and provide hot water. I am also looking in the interim to turn off the heating and maybe replace that with a couple of small oil filled radiators which I can run on timers to take advantage of economy 7 electricity so the immersion only needs to keep hot water in the tank rather than run the heating system too (which will mean its not bleeding all its heat out through the radiators). so any suggestions?

the problem is that councils ignore the locals and aim to gouge the tourists, here in Canterbury, the parking is an eye watering £1.60 an hour. this doesnt stop the tourists parking up and visiting as the town centre is always packed, locals often use the park and ride if staying for the day, but thats expensive if you just want an hour (£4 a day). then there is the local issue that you are expected to use the ringgo app to pay for parking (lets hope the BA dont go down that route) if you dont own a smart phone (and many of the older generation dont,) then you will find it difficult to park. I took my dad shopping in the town centre I grew up in yesterday, we got to a car park and parked up, and all I saw were signs for ringgo, luckily they also had a cash pay machine (ringgo £1 an hour- Cash £1.20 an hour- discrimenation) when we got to the high street, the once diverse high street had changed, if you wanted a coffee or burger, or to have your hair or nails done, great, you were well catered for, but groceries, hardware or other goods, well for those you needed to head out of town to get to the supermarkets.

too true, I sampled it at pub right next to the brewery in Dublin once (it was rumoured there was a direct pipe from the vats to the pumps) and i can safely say I havent tasted a better drop of guinness

or you could always go with a marthams special mudweight - 28 lbs of the best cast iron

yellow flappy ones or tummy ones

i would be more concerned whether it made you stop better than if it makes you go faster.

you dont even need to be resident to be a parishoner of a parish - you just need to regularly go to church in the parish I see some big loopholes forming in their plan, and attendance at Ranworth church might improve as a side benefit too. https://lawandreligionuk.com/2019/03/04/who-may-enter-a-parish-church/

I would still like to see what the rangers reaction would be if you claimed to be a parishoner at ranworth. (due to it being absolutely clear in the title deeds that parishoners cannot be charged). would you need proof? would they be allowed to ask for proof? would they still claim they could charge you?

I always use analog scoring - (paper and pencil), dont think you have to rush

during covid, my dentist changed their policy and said they would contact me for the next appointment, then they didnt ask to make a next appointment, I now find that as I hadnt had a checkup in a year I have been taken off their books as a nhs patient, but I wasnt given the opportunity to go for a checkup, apparently policy changed again and i was supposed to somehow know i needed to book an appointment to stay NHS, a few years ago they became a BUPA dentist, so I think they have used covid as an excuse to clear out all of the remaining NHS patients, and of course nowhere around is taking on NHS patients any more. The only funny tale I have of the dentists was once we were talking and he said he had to take his dog to the vets, and he was charged a small fortune for antibiotics for the dog, he said if he had known thats what the dog needed he could have taken some home from the dentists surgery for a lot less than he was charged, as they were exactly the same tablets.