djbobbins

I put a co detector and a smoke detector up in our utility / boiler room when we moved into the house. I never thought much of it until recently, when I had my trooper parked up outside the back door for a few weeks. After about 30 seconds of running the engine, the co detector started going off. It's never sounded before and I was pleased to know it is working. Made me think very carefully about running petrol engines in any area without really good ventilation, and definitely will be adhering to the regs and fitting a co detector when we upgrade the stove this summer.

Lots of "could", "possible" and "suggest" on the website... The thought of groups of people getting together to build, install and run a biomass-fired generator is optimistic to say the least. And the stats might make vague sense (44,000 kWh per year is about enough for 9 or 10 houses) but based on peak demand, a house with electric cooking, TV, hoover, washing machine etc can draw 6 or 7 kW easily (7kW = just over 30A). So unless everyone is going to take turns in doing their cooking and laundry, they will need to install a backup gas turbine to meet peak demand! Anyone else fancy harvesting 5 acres of coppice by hand? Ironically, at micro-scale this is exactly the same issue the UK power system faces - how to back up low carbon generation sources to ensure that the lights stay on, whilst keeping prices as low as possible and the CO2 emissions down.

TBH I don't know if it's "correct" or not, but my slightly lazy way of getting around the risk of an untidy stump is to fell the tree, thus getting rid of the weight and most of the risk, then take a nice tidy ring of about 2 or 3 inches off the top. Incidentally I was taught to do the bottom cut first, but I might try doing the top one - see if it is easier to line the two up.

No drinking on a schoolnight for me (unless there is a special occasion) and normally max 3 pints Friday and Saturday. Any more than that and life with two small kids is a bit too hard on the brain / ears. Until I was about 25 I could get pie-eyed and sleep the whole night through but nowadays if I have more than three pints, I find that I drop off to sleep quickly but then wake up at about 3am and can't get back to sleep properly - meaning that I end up feeling shot at the next day. We gave up drinking red wine; the missus and I would open a bottle, quaff it down in about half an hour with dinner, then she'd decide she still wanted another glass so she'd open another new bottle. She'd have about an eggcup more and then suddenly realise she felt tipsy, leaving me forced to finish the rest off. After about the fourth time of going to work and feeling like crap most of the day, I realised it made sense to let her have a teensy bit more out of the first bottle and grab myself a beer instead :-)

I take it you mean Center Parcs?? I don't know about the log prices but it's a good time of year to go... we went to the one in the lakes a couple of years ago in Jan, minus 5 outside, 30 degrees in the dome. Running from the indoor pool to the outdoor pool was "invigorating" though. I was so invigorated that I thought they'd disappeared, if you get my drift... During school holidays it's a no-no though. Nearly a grand for four nights

I would go with the "recommend" camp on this one, and sooner rather than later for three reasons: (1) The sooner you start making contributions, the more years they have to earn a return. (2) Once you have had a couple of months of paying the money into your pension, you will get used to not having it in your take-home pay so won't notice the difference. (3) Based on my experience, company pension schemes only get less generous as time goes on, but are often left to run under the old conditions for existing contributors. If the scheme is anything like the one I am in now and the one I was in with my previous employer, it can be left in deferral should I change company, so come 65 (if I make it that far) I will hopefully have a small pension from one company and a healthier one from another. Re: the comment earlier above about there not being a pension when we get old (i.e. from the state) surely all the better reason to start investing yourself!

I am going to change my open fire for a stove this summer and just as a precaution although I live in a non smoke -control area I am going to go for a defra approved jobby to make sure it is future proof in case someone changes the regs! Fwiw I'm pretty sure that there are already regs on at least maintaining efficiency levels when a heating appliance is changed, so as I understand, it would not be theoretically allowed to take out a stove and replace it with an open fire. Unless I'm talking a load of pooh!

Get a set of winter tyres on and be amazed at how much better a standard 2wd car will perform. I bought a set of steel rims from Ebay for £25 (including two decent summer tyres already fitted) and have since had dedicated winter tyres put on them. Fitted to a boggo spec Zafira, driving it on fresh snow you literally have to boot the throttle to even get it to lose traction. The winter tyres are made of different compound so give better grip in any conditions below about 7 degrees. Even though winter tyres are not required by law in the UK, I'm going to keep these and put them on from about November to February - having seen the difference, I am converted to the benefits.

I'll be interested to find out how it goes! I don't doubt that there are some differences between suppliers, but for a standard-ish consumption (between 3000 and 5000 kWh per year, say) and like-for-like payment method etc, I would be very shocked if the overall difference is anything like double. The last I heard whilst I was working in the UK, E.ON was not focusing on being the outright cheapest, for example all of the call centres were brought back to the UK from India because the customers weren't happy with the service. Personally I like being able to use £10 of Tesco clubcard vouchers to get £15 knocked off my electricity bill...

Dean - I assume your new company also charges a standing charge though, and that the E.ON price quoted was for the first 900 kWh per year? I checked mine today and I am paying 23.6p for the first 900kWh and then 12.4p for the rest. Say I use 4,000 kWh per year, but don't pay a standing charge, my total bill will be £597 or thereabouts. If I get a tariff where I pay £100 a year but then 12.4p for every single unit, my annual bill is less than a quid different. If you have got a tariff with those low unit rates and no standing charge, I'm surprised - I honestly doubt how the company would be covering its costs in the long term.

I'm genuinely curious - how much do you pay per unit then (for gas and electric)? I think all the suppliers have to offer some kind of social tariffs (which will be below the average price) but obviously only to a certain proportion of customers. My last two year deal has just come to an end in the middle of January so this has reminded me to go and update it; I will let you know what I find (p.s. there is no special discount for employees either!)

Right, at risk of getting slated... I work for E.ON in my "day job" but in the generation side of the business, not sales. I think the comments about direct debits previously have some merit, for example I have had arguments myself with the sales business for my own home account that the direct debit is too high. The only way I have ever managed to get any money back is when they do an annual reconciliation. However, the whole concept of direct debits is to try and average out payments across the year - so forecasting individual customer consumption is never going to be perfect. Regarding complexity of tariffs, E.ON has now openly decided - based on customer feedback - that the old system was too complex. The company is therefore moving towards a simplified tariff structure, so hopefully that will change things for the better. For info, I can't disclose too much obviously, but in 2013 the E.ON business in the UK will probably just about break even. As far as I understand it, for as many years as I can remember, the company has invested more in new or replacement infrastructure than it has made in profits.

A friend of mine breeds pedigree jacobs and they were all "lined up" for lambing on the 1st of Jan. She's probably been lucky with the weather, a month for them all to toughen up a bit before the cold set in.

No snow in Dusseldorf. Temperature got up to a tropical minus 4.5 today at lunchtime though; warmest it has been since Tuesday - I was outside without my coat on!

Forecast to get down as low as minus 11 over here in Germany on Friday...

I used to commute mon-fri every week with a flight at each end. Tbh I would say it depends on if you are flying with kids etc, but my advice would be to sleep, then in the morning don't have any caffeine - that way you should be able to have a kip on the plane too, and will benefit from it later. Worked for me, anyhow...

Batch cooking is the way to go. We did huge pots of chicken stew, bologneise sauce, chilli etc when my wife was pregnant with both children. A 500g margarine tub full will serve two adults, so all portioned up and frozen. Out of the freezer before heading to work in the morning, then at the end of the day just cook a bit of rice, pasta or a jacket spud. Plus, it's a good way to save on electricity, which always helps.

Abrasive wheel on a big power drill if none of the above work. We did some cleaning up on a farm a few years ago and managed to get hold of a drain cleaning jetter, I.e. like jet rod or similar use, it was the mutts bits and even managed to take the metal paint off the wheels on a case 685. I reckon one of those would have your wall clean in a pretty short period!

Based on the size of that euc, I think it'll need a hell of lot more copper nails than that to finish it off. I have seen stumps painted with creosote which still covered themselves in new sprits of growth. I would have thought there is more risk of infection from the quality of some of those cuts... But at risk of creating controversy, I could understand the neighbour being aggrieved about the presence of the tree. I would be decidedly unhappy with a euc of that size so close to my house, risk of land heave, structural damage, leaf shedding etc. It's just not a suitable tree for that location. Not that this justifies the measures taken, but just my opinion...

In that case, congratulations!

Gents I mean this in a positive / constructive way... but if you have sold out already do you think you were underpriced or under-stocked? Or has it just gone crazy with people stocking up ahead of the forecast cold weather?

I got the same effect splitting some seasoned euc by hand, compared to alder and ash. I didn't do a great deal of the euc - maybe 2 or 3 cubes over the course of a week or so - but it was (sorry mods) a bugger. I'll swear the kickback in my arms and wrists has meant they've never been the same again. At least, that's the story I'm sticking to anyway... In the end, I sliced the really gnarly bits up with the saw. Stuff that for a game of soliders. If you are doing firewood regularly, even as a sideline, I would say spend 300 quid on a 6t splitter now rather than get to 70 and be knackered with arthritis.

I can't imagine there's much of a market personally, unless there's a pub or homeowner that wants one for decorative use! Mine has stood in the corner of the garage for about five years... Mind you I do remember me and father ringing up a 1 metre beech trunk with a big cross cut saw about 25 years ago!

I know that someone will come along and say "Clearview" or "Woodwarm" within a few posts, but I was wondering if anyone had any first hand or reliable experience to offer on a stove? I am looking for a relatively slimline, 4-5 kW stove. It is going into a 1970s house so I don't want something cottage style, but nor do I fancy one of these ultra-modern looking things with soapstone panels etc. I've been having a look around and saw the Hunter Kestrel stove, which matches all of my requirements in terms of output, appearance etc, but would like to know what anyone thinks of it in real-world use? Hunter Herald 4 stove

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