Bald Monkey

Donation made (if I've done it right), great effort everyone!

we have been looking at these, the testimonials seem to be ok but I never know whether to believe them!

Electric Radiators & Electric Heating | The Economy Radiator Company

The biomass route is a no but I will look at the air source heat pumps.

WorcWuss, what type of heaters are they, can you let me have a website to look at?

Cheers

As the title says which is the best electric only heating system? Recently moved into our new house and the village has no gas and the house currently has storage heaters. We have just received out first bill for 3 weeks and this was a mighty £143 We intend to get a wood burner fitted in the future but would also like to maybe get some of these new electric radiators fitted but there are so many out there with varying reviews on economy and performance. Just wondered if anyone has any experience they can share. The wife doesn't want to go down the oil route because of the hassle of having pipes etc fitted and making a mess of the house.

Cheers guys and girls

Going to buy some Jura superstition next week see if my taste buds have developed enough to taste the differences, that's the excuse I told our lass anyway (-;

Just opened a bottle of Jura Superstition and it's going down very nicely.

Hey Chipper,

I'm sort of in the same boat so hopefully I can offer a bit of advice from my situation.

Basically I retrained a few years back and got all my Arb tickets then spent a couple of years working for various tree surgeons around my area as and when they had work, when there was no work I volunteered for my local wildlife trust which looks great on CV's and also built on my knowledge base. This volunteering led me to securing a 1 year contract working at a local nature reserve which turned out to be the best year of my working life. This was what I was looking for all my life. Unfortunately this was only a year contract and this finished a couple of years back and I'm still looking for a permanent job in this field. Trying to find a full time position in conservation is probably harder than Arb, for example the last interview I had a couple of months back had over 250+ applicants for one position but at least I got an interview. This is something I want and I will stick at it until I succeed.

In the meantime I have been working for various tree surgeons, volunteering and I'm currently employed full time working in a warehouse. This is something I don't enjoy but you do anything to earn money to pay the bills and put you through training (or driving test in your case).

Basically what I trying to say is if you are prepared to do anything there is always a job, you might not enjoy it but it will only be in the short term and you'll be earning money in the meantime.

It might also be a good idea to set yourself some targets, on new years eve I wrote down a 1 year, 2 year, 5 year and 10 year target plan. It will be good for you to cross them off as you achieve them.

i still volunteer and get out when I can increasing my knowledge on wildlife in my own time as ultimately it will only help me with further applications.

I wish you all the luck and stay positive, I know it's difficult as I've had to stay positive for the past couple of years, you have your ups and downs but I'm confident I will reach my goal eventually and I'm sure you will too.

Good luck

Happy new year everyone

Been heating up the flue before lighting recently and touch wood no further problems. So it was either the wind in the wrong direction or a cold spot in the flue. As it's a rented and we are moving out in March it's not really a big problem for us, if we were staying longer then I would have got the landlord to get someone to look at it. Will mention it to them anyway but no big deal for us.

Cheers for all the responses and advice

cheers chaps for the info, I'll have a think about it. I don't want to get really big just fitter and leaner.

Thinking of giving these a go. What weight set up do you suggest to start with? Personally I'm thinking of getting 8,12 and 16kg to start with. Is this a good start?

Cheers

Well had a good look round the stove today and found no obvious problems. So I've lit it this afternoon and so far no problems so thinking maybe it was the wind in the wrong direction problem and it back drafting down the chimney.

Cheers for all the posts

(Assuming your flu is clear)

If I leave my stove till the chimney is completely cold, my stove does exactly the same, I have to use a gas blow lamp firing up inside the firebox to get the up draught started, two minutes of that then start your kindling fire directly under the flue opening or as close as possible to the exhaust part of the firebox. Then leave the stove door open a half inch or so till the flue warms and it starts drawing nicely.

You will always have initial draw problems with a cold chimney as mentioned above with the cold plug

Thanks Dean,

Sounds like a good idea, will give that a go later

Has the stove been lit regularly, or left cold for a few days? You can often get a "cold plug" sitting in the chimney if it's been out for a while. One of our chimneys suffers from it - though not the one right next to it for some reason! I'd suggest lifting the baffle plate out, and lighting a scrunched up sheet of newspaper and holding it under the flue outlet - this should put enough heat into the chimney to get the plug moving then assuming the chimney is in fact clear, you should be good to go. Put the baffle plate back in though! Also when starting it - use a good bit of paper and kindling which will produce a good bit of heat without much smoke to get the draught established in the chimney.

Haven't used it since last weekend so that could be the problem.Will have a look getting the baffle out tomorrow. Cheers

Try to note the wind direction when the problem occurs, that could be key to sorting it.

+1

 

If you let the flue get hot first, i.e. really load it up with very dry kindling before you put the logs on does it still do this?

Didn't get chance to get the flue hot, it happened almost straight away after lighting. Will give it a go tomorrow when I've had a chance to have a look at it.

Cheers guys,

No trees nearby but a few houses that are taller than the cottage. The chimney is higher than the ridge tiles.

The smoke is coming out of the actual stove from around the glass and the vents.

Not sure about the ventilation into the room?

Thanks again.

Hi everyone,

After a bit of help please guys. Currently living in a rented property with a wood burning stove. Never had one before and not long after moving in we lit it and there was no draw and the room filled with smoke. So we had it swept by a qualified chimney sweep who was recommended to us. He said it could of done with a sweep but wasn't overly bad. Anyway it's been fine now for about 8 weeks and then this evening my wife went to light it and the same thing happened. All the smoke came out into the room. Surely it can't need sweeping again this soon. The wood we are using is seasoned and when we light it we use firelighters and kindling and small logs to start off with. Anything you think we are doing wrong or potential faults you can think of?

We leave the ash in it and only clear out the excess when necessary. I'm gonna have a good look tomorrow to see if there are any obvious blockages but it's strange the same thing has happened within 8 weeks.

Here the stove.

Thanks in advance

Just a thought, have a look at honest johns site. He writes in t'telegraph and DPFs feature heavily, pros, cons and tips also other reviews about vehicles.

 

James

Cheers James will do

I'll be doing around 70 mile round trip a day commute. That's why I have been thinking of the diesel. It's a skoda fabia 1.6tdi, get about 68mpg and yearly tax only £20 so sounds really cheap to run. I had skoda fabia vrs a while back and never had any major problems (although that didn't have the DPF), also the customer service from skoda is the best in my opinion.

Hi All,

Thinking of getting a new car next week and it has a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) fitted and I have been reading some horror stories about the hassle they can cause. Does anyone have a car with one of these fitted and have you had any problems.

Apparently they need to go through a process called regeneration every now and then by driving at over 30mph for a constant 20 mins or so to heat up the exhaust system to burn of the particles. Sounds like it could be more trouble than it's worth.

Any advice welcome

Cheers

I'm assuming you own the later style ranger ie 2007 onwards? A customer of ours sold his after a few weeks coz it scared the poop out of him and he wouldn't drive it again. He ook it to a ford dealer after it happened,they didn't find anything wrong but one of the techs told him it wasn't the first one they'd had in with brake problems. ???

it certainly scared the poop out of me this morning

Road conditions were wet and it was very smooth tarmac. I never push it down this road because on several occasions I've had deer run out and there are lots of blind bends. It may have been my fault, I'll never know. All I know is when I hit the brakes I kept going, either something happened with the brakes and they didn't work properly or I skidded because of the wet surface. It happened so fast I don't really know. Can't remember seeing any skid marks come to think of it but it was wet.

Great start to the day, managed to put the ranger in a ditch. Was driving to work along a single track road came around a blind corner and met another car. Both slammed on brakes but mine seemed to lock and I just skidded, managed to get it on the verge to prevent an head on collision but unfortunately the verge turned into a ditch Finally got it towed out and the front wing has took a battering and can't open the passenger door. I'm pretty sure the brakes didn't work properly because they just seemed to lock and I can honestly say I wasn't going very fast 20 - 30mph max.

Luckily no damage to me which is the main thing just peed off!!

So stay safe guys

Cheers people for the replies. I feel a lot better now I've made that decision and walked away. I actually got to the stage where I was driving into work dreading it and thinking 'today something is going to go wrong'. This is definitely not the mindset to be in with working these trees.

I want our move north to work, I'm not really bothered what I do as long as I can spend time with the wife and dog and earn enough to pay the bills. We are intending to by a cheap place in the future and have as small mortgage as possible. Luckily over the years we have built up a decent deposit from equity in other houses.

I'm currently applying for a job as a refuse collector, not ideal but it would be a permanent job with more than enough money for what we personally need.

Well today I made a big decision, hopefully the right one. After being asked to do a few more windblown with root plates attached I decided to tell the estate manager I wasn't comfortable doing these. This has done me out of work but he appreciated my honesty and agreed that if you are not comfortable doing them they are best left alone.

The work I'm actually looking for up here is general estate maintenance, i.e. fencing, animal husbandry/feeding, road repairs, mowing etc. This job was 9 to 10 hrs a day on all windblown trees on my own for not a lot reward. If something had gone wrong I dread to think how long I would be there anyway not the best start to the move north but I'd prefer not to be earning money than earning money and potentially picking up a nasty injury.

Feel free to comment

Only had mine about 2 months and not really tested off road yet. I did get stuck the other day on a soft verge but after putting it into 4wd I was soon out. Comfort wise I think they are OK. I drove all the way from Leicester to scotland the other week and on the motorway it cruised along just fine.