and today i have mostly been...

[steve_earwig]

15 quid's not so bad for repaired and ballanced, before I left the uk the local tyre place wanted a tenner a corner just for ballancing

[trufflehunt]

Fixored!

£15.00 lighter; puncture 'plugged' wheel re-balanced* and a new eggsauce rubber hanger fitted what I told them to do as well.

'kin hope they've balanced it proper, got some motorway travel looming.

It's about £15 to repair a tyre round my way too.

Which is why I've used these for years.

Saved me around £150.

[annie]

today i have spent the day trying to view cars to replace my 406 estate, but no luck. people dont answer phones or emails. and peoples idea of good condition is nothing like mine
id like another 406 but auto this time

[steve_earwig]

I do like an auto I do...

Today I have mostly been still enjoying* the headache I woke up with Saturday morning. Bloody change in the bleedin' weather arse














On Friday (trumpet fanfare) contractors for the electric co finally came and fitted our new meter! Complete with new cupboard...





I thought this guy was being very brave, until Denis (the PV guy) told me they'd turned off the whole village so they could do this.

With t'wife at work I was a bit worried they'd want to make a big mess of the facade, at one point they noticed the tails from the OH were a bit too short to reach the fuses in the new panel and I thought they were going to start chopping a new channel for it. Then in steps Denis - "why don't you move the fuses to the other side of the box? There'll be plenty of slack then." So our snazzy* new meter cupboard ended up backwards, with a window you can't see anything through:


I didn't get a key for it either, Denis did suggest borrowing the contractor's key but the locksmitsh in town here are a bit iffy and I didn't want to spend ages finding the right blank, so I left it. Ah well, it's digital so I wouldn't be able to see anything spinning backwards anyway.


SO we're finally legally feeding power back into the grid. As I must have mentioned the tariff thing is no more (thanks to the blasted EU - it's been scrapped in the UK now as well) so we'll only be paid for anything we don't use (so anyone thinking of sticking four panels on their roof for a bit of cash is now out of luck). We've no idea how much cash we'll be getting out of the buggers now, as the actual power used is a very small part of the bill calculation I suspect very little, if anything.

Oh, and apparently the last two month's wait were because the contractors and the elctric co couldn't agree on a price for the job. Wankers

[Welly]

Aww, puddy tats. Sorry missed this before Those Electricians* look a bit casual....that'd be a H&S mans nightmare over here...... you'd need Hi-Viz road cones, road closure, 35 x men and a thousand-page document in case it all goes wrong..

Today I've been trying to renegotiate this years Phone and Broadband package with [supplier] except they won't budge......I can go online as a 'new' customer and get what I want for £33.00 a MOTH but as an existing customer I'm entitled* to be charged £48.00 a MOUTH...got this down to a reasonable* £40.00 but basically told them to jam it.

Now need to go through the whole application again with some other company full of promises and hidden charges for 12 MONTHS until it all happens again....oh and [supplier] decided it was 'ok' to Direct Debit the 'new' £48.00 this month without warning (or if they did warn it wasn't clear) maybe they wait a few months until customers notice this and recoup what was lost in the speshul offer you thought you had.

Why do we have to renew absolutely everything EVERY year like this, I don't have the time, it pisses me right off.

[steve_earwig]

I realise it's confusing (deliberately so) but at least you have a choice (of sorts). They don't just ream you because you have no other option.

Kitty kats now weigh 2kg a piece, they're getting big. Teatime will probably loose his nadgers next week, I'm not comfortable with it but he keeps getting into fights and is always the looser because of his eye, which is very vulnerable. Last time, as well as his eye getting scratched open again, he got bitten on both front legs so he could hardly walk. Plus there's winter coming up, I'm hoping he gets a bit friendlier to our cats and I can at least move him into the boiler house.

[steve_earwig]

...piššing myself about piggate http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/DavidCame ... s/popular/

[OllieNZ]

...piššing myself about piggate http://www.b3ta.com/challenge/DavidCame ... s/popular/

You're not the only one [emoji23]

[Bailes1992]

Our meter box is upside down too.
Although not as sophisticated as yours it means the latch undoes itself and starts banging away in the wind. Maybe being an electrician I should just sort it out... but technically I'm not allowed.

In fact I'm considering rewiring our whole house. The entire house is full of stuff I'm not quite happy with. Loads of bodges electrically and plumbing wise.

There is two 22mm copper pipes for the CH that come from the boiler to a manifold under the floorboards on the landing which bang very loudly when the heating goes on and off. They haven't quite notched the joist out enough so the pipes are tight between the joist and the floorboards. Am I confident enough to consider repairing that? I think not. Maybe I should learn to solder pipe?

Biggest issue I've got with rewiring the house is not having electric for 2 or 3 days. My Father has a 2kw generator but I don't think the neighbors would be too happy if I start that thing up at 5am to have some lights on.
I'm trying to work out how I can get it done in phases. Get the new consumer unit(s) mounted, get all the wiring in and get the tails down to the meter ready to be connected. Chase out anything I need to and then spend one day ripping out all the old stuff and getting the new in. Can I do it? I'm not sure. Might have to just move out for a week while I get on with it.

Good news is I have a project I have to do for my second year of my HNC. I'm considering using my house as my project. Would be good to have a real life example I guess.

[Welly]

I think with live-in house rewires you have to frig up a couple of temporary power outlets with extension leads all over the place and one or two temp lights/plug-in lamps/floods and just get cracking. It'll make a right mess though and really you need to re-plaster. Would be nice if houses were done in re-wireable conduit......

The copper creaking on the joist should be 'eased' off it if there's room and introduce some of that felt stuff plumbers use to stop such creaking. My last house had a 15mm elbow which had took 40 years to rub trough the copper enough to make a pin-hole leak. I can haz do copper work and soldered joints, cleanliness is key and once you've done a few it's very easy. Biggest problem is if there's any water present it fucks up the joint and the solder won't run. I always use a compression fitting on 'wet' work or those push-fit plastic fittings are ok I've found.

[lozz]

Your spot on there welly..

We have just been thru all that lot and lived with mess its not good
It's took months..everything sorta looks easy on paper..

Only good thing out of it for me was getting the house for peanuts from auction.

[Bailes1992]

This is where the banging of the central heating is coming from...




Don't know what to do about it.
Ideally I'd like to drill separate 15mm holes in the joist and put them all through separate with a 15mm sleeve but it's too much work for me.

[steve_earwig]

I'd think the microbore stuff would be a nightmare, particularly if you've never soldered before.

Slap some grease around it where it goes through the wood? The alternative would seem to be a lot of sodding about for no real improvement whilst further weakening the joists...

[steve_earwig]

I've never rewired a house (although I have rectified a lot of dodgy bodges) but would it be possible to do one circuit at a time? Upstairs lights then upstairs ring etc. Leave tails from the new panel going into the old (or visa-versa) and then swap it all over in one hit when you're done.

Just a thought.

[Doggy]

Sam's probably your man on this - I've rewired a few of my own, but that's about it.

No fundamental reason why you can't install a new circuit, then add or swap it for the old one, but ultimately you start getting in your own way and/or have real trouble finding an alternative route to get your wiring to the consumer unit.

Rewiring houses is a prize PITA and has far more to do with knocking 7 bells out of the structure than anything faintly skilled or interesting of an electrical nature.