Good Morning Good Night and General Chat.

[Steve_M]

On 28/11/2023 at 10:23, Grumpy Old Git said:

Morninininininininining all.

 

2 more days till SORN. 

 

I don’t usually take mine off the road over winter but it went on SORN when its MoT went out of date at the end of October. Having injured my hand I wasn’t able to ride it to the MoT until late November and there was no point losing a month’s RFL for the sake of waiting a few days.
 

I’ll tax it in December, I thought. But then the snow came and riding on snow and ice isn’t that much fun… 

So it’s sitting indoors, Optimate on, waiting for the weather to improve.
 

In the mean while it seems I still have much DIY needing to be done on the house.

 

PS. The steam bending of the skirting board experiment went reasonably well… 

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2023 by Steve_M

[rennie]

Good Evening 

[dynax]

Good morning

[Grumpy Old Git]

Morning? - Actually it is the afternoonoonooning!

 

Today I have:

 

Collected some lightbulbs from 30M away.

 

Strung up the outside Crimble lights

 

Fitted a new Toilet seat

 

Fixed the bathroom scales

 

Fitted new batteries into Last years Penguin decoration

 

Got the Tree + Decs out of the attic (Mrs GoG will be scattering these throughout the house today).

 

Currently sipping Spiced Rum.

 

 

[rennie]

Good Evening 

[Fiddlesticks]

Good evening. Was getting chilly on the way to work so I stuck my heated grip on.

 

Off to find the receipt to see if the left hand side one is still under warranty.

[Bender]

On 04/12/2023 at 09:25, Steve_M said:

I don’t usually take mine off the road over winter but it went on SORN when its MoT went out of date at the end of October. Having injured my hand I wasn’t able to ride it to the MoT until late November and there was no point losing a month’s RFL for the sake of waiting a few days.
 

I’ll tax it in December, I thought. But then the snow came and riding on snow and ice isn’t that much fun… 

So it’s sitting indoors, Optimate on, waiting for the weather to improve.
 

In the mean while it seems I still have much DIY needing to be done on the house.

 

PS. The steam bending of the skirting board experiment went reasonably well… 

 

 

 

Did you have a peg board and a big steam boiler

 

Thin kerf cuts not good enough ?

Looks ok from here.

[Steve_M]

16 minutes ago, Bender said:

Did you have a peg board and a big steam boiler

 

Thin kerf cuts not good enough ?

Looks ok from here.

I made a form fixture to clamp it to,  and used a Heath Robinson steam box out of scrap ply, with a wallpaper steam stripper to supply the steam. I made a few shallow cuts across the back of the skirting to help it bend.

[Bender]

19 minutes ago, Steve_M said:

I made a form fixture to clamp it to,  and used a Heath Robinson steam box out of scrap ply, with a wallpaper steam stripper to supply the steam. I made a few shallow cuts across the back of the skirting to help it bend.

Ahh I can see the cuts on that one

 

Looks good

[Steve_M]

47 minutes ago, Bender said:

Ahh I can see the cuts on that one

 

Looks good

That was our first attempt, the right bend turned out to be too tight.

 

We’re using 18mm thick kiln dried white oak - it really does need to be steamed to form a bend.

[dynax]

Good morning

[Fozzie]

Good morning

 

A proper hard frost last night where I am. One of the 7 times a year my fords heated windshield is actually used, before going back to slightly distracting me the rest of the year  

[Steve_M]

4 hours ago, Fozzie said:

Good morning

 

A proper hard frost last night where I am. One of the 7 times a year my fords heated windshield is actually used, before going back to slightly distracting me the rest of the year  

We had a tree cut down a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been inaccessible ‘cos the ground has been a quagmire. The ground was frozen solid this morning so hitched my trailer to the mower and managed to get over to the woodpile to bring much of the wood back to be split. Hoping for another hard frost tonight so I can retrieve more wood to be split tomorrow.

[S-Westerly]

No frost here and the ground is sodden.

[Fozzie]

1 hour ago, Steve_M said:

We had a tree cut down a couple of weeks ago, and it’s been inaccessible ‘cos the ground has been a quagmire. The ground was frozen solid this morning so hitched my trailer to the mower and managed to get over to the woodpile to bring much of the wood back to be split. Hoping for another hard frost tonight so I can retrieve more wood to be split tomorrow.

 

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but last night might be the last frost for a little while as we've got double figures making a comeback this weekend. With plenty of rain. 

You must be out of sight from the road, as in Anglesey where my parents are, if a tree goes over a rusty 4x4 towing a trailer soon turns up and starts cutting it up. Fire wood sells well by the sack!

[Steve_M]

34 minutes ago, Fozzie said:

 

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but last night might be the last frost for a little while as we've got double figures making a comeback this weekend. With plenty of rain. 

You must be out of sight from the road, as in Anglesey where my parents are, if a tree goes over a rusty 4x4 towing a trailer soon turns up and starts cutting it up. Fire wood sells well by the sack!

We are out of sight of the road. It does make it tricky for new delivery drivers… 

 

Weather… bugger!

Edited December 6, 2023 by Steve_M

[rennie]

Good Evening 

[Fozzie]

2 hours ago, Steve_M said:

We are out of sight of the road. It does make it tricky for new delivery drivers… 

 

Weather… bugger!

 

Double bugger if you have solar panels on the roof. 

Triple bugger if they also have heat pumps, cold and nothing to offset that electric consumption. Although with it getting a tad warmer, heating their 3 bed will only be £400 a month now, rather than the £800 last week  

[Steve_M]

52 minutes ago, Fozzie said:

 

Double bugger if you have solar panels on the roof. 

Triple bugger if they also have heat pumps, cold and nothing to offset that electric consumption. Although with it getting a tad warmer, heating their 3 bed will only be £400 a month now, rather than the £800 last week  

We have solar panels but given our geographic and topographical location, we knew we wouldn’t get the best performance out of the - we’re getting about a 10% return on investment.

 

We considered wind turbines ‘cos it’s quite breezy where we are, and we have space. We don’t have enough money, unfortunately. 
 

What we do have is three wood burners, and two trees worth of freshly felled wood - ash - that will become useable next year and should see us through a couple of winters. Not cheap, mind given how much it cost to have the trees taken down. 
 

This year we’re burning wood from trees that were felled by last year’s storms, supplemented by some we bought. 

[dynax]

Good morning

[Grumpy Old Git]

Morning all - Raining.

[Mawsley]

Morning.

 

I am looking for one glove. It’s grey, warm, thinsulate lining and part of a pair that I always use for dog walking in inclement weather.

 

Last seen (probably) in the mouth of a retriever.

[S-Westerly]

Bloody windy today. 

Looking at changing my bike. Got a  quote from my current insurance and the insurance is double my current. Not sure why other than its a bit bigger engine (+100cc) although identical hp. More or less same price too. Annoying although not a deal breaker. Still mulling it over.

[Ian Frog]

Ooh what are you looking at @S-Westerly ?

Another Multistrada I`m guessing.

Cheers

Ian

[Fozzie]

17 hours ago, Steve_M said:

We have solar panels but given our geographic and topographical location, we knew we wouldn’t get the best performance out of the - we’re getting about a 10% return on investment.

 

We considered wind turbines ‘cos it’s quite breezy where we are, and we have space. We don’t have enough money, unfortunately. 
 

What we do have is three wood burners, and two trees worth of freshly felled wood - ash - that will become useable next year and should see us through a couple of winters. Not cheap, mind given how much it cost to have the trees taken down. 
 

This year we’re burning wood from trees that were felled by last year’s storms, supplemented by some we bought. 

 

Do I interpret right that's a 10 year estimated pay back time? 

My old man has fitted them to his property, and weirdly it was the addition of the batteries that cut the pay back time in half. Those things in theory should last about 15 years, before they need recycling. 

 

A back boiler might be a cheap solution to heat the home if you haven't got one already. I was going to fit one into my flat, but the previous tenant fully sealed off the access to the joint chimney. I was hoping to ship some of the surplus wood from my parents place home, and store it in my garage. Save on the gas bill as much as I can. Technically it's carbon neutral, so long as you grow a fresh tree.