djbobbins

I did wonder at first if it was a head gasket problem but don't think it is. I've had a couple of head gaskets go on previous cars (a 1.2 litre, 4 speed Vauxhall Nova will cruise at three figures on the clock, just not without consequence) and the Isuzu hasn't got the telltale symptoms of misfiring on one cylinder when cold, nor the (particularly) steamy exhaust. There are no visible leaks or drips when it's ticking over and up to temperature, but putting two and two together I did realise that the inside seems to suffer from a lot of condensation. A bit of investigation led me to a damp carpet in the passenger footwell so I am guessing perhaps a heater matrix problem...

Has anyone got any experience of Radweld? I noticed my Trooper was getting hot over the weekend and when I checked the coolant it was low - shamefully low, I have to admit - I put about 4 litres in to bring it back up to level. So - having refilled it and done another couple of hundred miles, it'd emptied the reservoir again this morning, so I have stuck a couple of bottles of Radweld in it, filled up with antifreeze and tried again. After a couple of trips today (about 30 miles) the reservoir level appears to be staying constant. I can't say that I expect the radweld to be a permanent fix, but just wondered whether I should be getting on the phone to the friendly mechanic now or whether it will hold up until the next service is due in about three months time? Could do without a big bill at the moment, what with Christmas and all that! If anyone has got any experience of using radweld I would appreciate a bit of feedback... Cheers

Seeing Ben Collins on Fifth Gear makes it easy to realise why the BBC never let him speak!!

14/20 - all the US related bits made it a bit more tricky!

I did Crib Goch a few years ago, although wasn't expecting to do so - a mate set up a weekend of "walking in Betws-y-Coed". What he didn't warn is that his brother, who was making the walking arrangements, does full on hiking like 2 weeks at a time in the Alps with all his kit. We had just got to the top of the horseshoe when a Sea King started flying over - one of the walkers had got to the top and frozen at the prospect of the drops on either side of the path. Probably the only time I will have the chance to take photos of a Sea King at about 15m distance, from directly underneath. Ace scenery but I was cream crackered at the end of the day. Came back the easy way down Snowdon and had a swim in one of the pools, gave the young lady onlookers something to admire! Good to see the film clip to remind me of the day.

This is going to be a really noddy suggestion, and I don't mean to offend anyone, but has it got air con? If so, you sure it's not just the condensate dripping off the air con unit? (I don't know if they got around to fitting AC on 200TDi's, the friendly Japanese at Isuzu did on my '93 Trooper - although AC at the moment is about as useful as chocolate boots!)

I guess I am feeling twinges of guilt (hence the need for catharsis by writing this) but just wondered what anyone else thought. We needed to do the weekly grocery shop today, so the wife stayed at home with the kids and I got the Trooper out. The good karma bit of my day was that I deliberately went round to speak to the elderly next door neighbours to check whether they needed anything. On the way back from the shop, I stopped at a junction and saw on the other side of the road a guy of about 30 kicking snow away from the front wheels of a Saxo VTR. He was trying to turn off the main road, up a slight slope onto a D road (i.e. country lane) which is only a rat run to another A road, but not having any success. He was in shirt sleeves and presumably had neither coat nor shovel. So my twinge of guilt is that I didn't stop to help, but then I kind of thought that if he hadn't got the brains to help himself by (a) taking a coat, (b) taking a shovel, or © sticking to the main roads - which were driveable in 2wd vehicles, then he probably needed to learn a lesson from it. I guess my mood at the time wasn't helped by some local teenage toerag having having lobbed a snowball at me through the window of my car. So - should I be guilty? Or had I done my good deed in offering to help elderly neighbours and the guy out on the road was just due the snow version of a Darwin Award?

In Warwick, a bit of snow yesterday, about another half inch overnight, but has been snowing continuously since about 8:30 this morning and forecast to do so through until about 9pm tonight. Not particularly big flakes but constant and fairly intense - if it was rain I would describe it as heavy drizzle...

Looks like a real improvement. Are the stumps being left to re-coppice? If it's anything like the 40 or so alder I felled last year it will be 6 foot high again this time next year! Out of interest, I used a couple of pieces of green alder (about 3-4" diameter) as props for an upside down water tank which I was using to stack some other timber under. The bottoms of the props were pressed into rich loamy soil, not too wet or anything. Three months later I went back for a look and was a bit surprised to see my "props" had sprouted leaves all the way up and were growing. Is this common? I've not seen it before and don't know if it's something specific to alder??

Here you go:

I visited one of the wood-fired district heating plants in Malmo in 2008 when they were still dealing with the wood coming in from the aftermath of the (2006?) storms. Have got a few pics on an old phone somewhere; I will try to dig them out and post them on here. I seem to remember the chipper being an impressive piece of kit...

I've got a contact through my day job with a certified fuel testing lab, so I think it would be possible to get some calorific value tests done on different woods at different moisture contents. I would also be very interested in properly assessing the difference between burning green ash at eg 25% moisture and burning seasoned ash that has been dried down to e.g. 15% moisture and then allowed to soak up water to 25% again. I have a theory that latter would burn better since the water is driven off in a different way but no real way to prove my hunch without doing the tests. As far as different qualities and types of woods go, I agree that there ought to be a recognised guide (perhaps scientifically backed up?) of different burn qualities of different woods - e.g. speed of burn in addition to calorific value. Anyhow, I genuinely thought there might be interested in some form of accreditation scheme to give consumers a sense of confidence in their supplier, and hopefully to allow those legit suppliers with a quality product to get a bit better price for it. However from the paucity of replies I'm guessing I was wide of the mark!

I just wondered following on from discussion threads recently, would people be interested in some kind of national association of accredited firewood suppliers? If so, what would you want such an organisation to do? And what not to do? I was just thinking that as demand for logs / briquettes / pellets / chip grows, there will be a market for suppliers who customers have a degree of assurance won't be selling them green pop or leylandii... If needs be, what about doing some properly calibrated, independent lab approved tests on the calorific value of different wood types at different moisure contents, to be able to give customers a real idea of what they are getting? Does anyone reckon suppliers (and customers) would see any merit in the idea? Not sure what else could be provided but I am sure there must be some thoughts out there.

Is that for kerosene? If so, pardon my French, 'effin hell! And I'm glad I filled up at the end of October when it was about 40ppl. I'm based in Warwickshire but I know from work that a red diesel supplier in the west Cumbria area refused to release any stock to one of our sites last week. Anyone know if this is just exceptionally high demand or are there some refinery issues going on? (Just thought that with the sulphur regs changing in January some of the oil refiners might have plant off to make modifications??)

It's not very quick, full stop. Or should that be "period". Too much time spent having to release the air valves etcetera, let alone picking up the logs. Less likelihood of lost or mangled fingers / hands admittedly though!

As my day job I work in the electricity production industry so thought I would weigh in (pun somewhat intended) with another solution. For generation, we buy solid fuel (coal and where required, wood) on a net calorific value (NCV) basis. We also provide a spec sheet in terms of size of fuel, so if this was to be applied to logs it might read like: NCV not lower than 13MJ/kg Moisture (as % of total mass) not greater than 25% Length, width and individual weight per log: max 12", min 6" long; max 6", min 2" diameter, no individual log greater than 3kg This means that the customer pays only for the energy that they can get from the logs in the condition they are delivered in, and can't be delivered a tonne of kindling, sawdust or a solid piece of stump. Dry wood is worth more than wet or green, since for wet wood the customer uses a proportion of the energy they have bought making steam to send up the chimney. A customer can choose to buy green logs and season themselves if they wish. There is no scope for arguing about how it is stacked, since the delivery is made on weight. The downside is that deliveries get more complex to price (since both weight and average moisture content of the delivery need to be known). So there wood be a standard moisture content published, e.g. 15%, and any moisture above that content means a lower price per tonne. Have a read of this: http://www.videncenter.dk/Groenne%20trae%20haefte/Groen_Engelsk/Kap_04.pdf

Who exactly buys this stuff? Maybe I'm missing something, but having grown up with open fires, stoves and a rayburn we have always managed pretty well with the ashpan and a brush & shovel. Got to love the dubbing as well, and the quote that says "if you go into your husband's workshop" - so it must only be the ladies that need an ash vacuum then, chained to the sink and left at home as they are!! LIDL

I felled a long-dead holly about 16" diameter early this year. Seemed to take a lot of getting through with the saw compared to e.g. the live alder I was felling at the same time, so I'd agree with whoever it was that commented about dead holly taking its toll on chains. Spilt better than I was expecting though. It looked knotty as bu66ery as if it'd be a real pig to spilt (given that I split using a maul and wedges, not geared up for this mechanical splitting lark). I had a chunk about 2'6" long, hefted the maul on it just as a trial expecting it to bounce off, and was amazed to see it split pretty much in two at the first blow. Burns alright too (open fire) - better than dead willow I'd been using at the time but not to the same standard as seasoned alder, ash or euc that I've been stoking up with more recently.

I remember my mate telling me when we were nippers how his Dad used to do that. Driving home one day heard sirens and could see a plume of smoke coming from their place. He'd lit a fire under an old International they had for scraping; he was a bit over-zealous and there was all manner of oil and shite all over the sump. Bye bye tractor, bye bye shed, bye bye straw!!!!

They do some auctions but at a guess I'd say they perhaps auction the stuff they don't feel able to sell at a fixed price? There's a 4x4 Bedford MJ on there at the moment, only 17,000 kilometres on the clock allegedly and bidding is about £2000. Alternatively, there's an APC - which might also be useful for in the snow!!

Mossies obviously have good taste then; the brown yeast extract is satan's excrement in my opinion!

Seen the next video where he starts on the big stuff?! [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0S4Gy3uA3w&playnext=1&list=PL376A3AAD7704BE76&index=18]YouTube - Redneck Log Splitter - Round 2[/ame]

Apart from the complete lack of eye protection, guards etc, that at least looks like it's marginally safer than the first one though - the bulk of the time he's keeping his hands well away from the splitter head as it comes around. Got to be likely to give you arthritic wrists in later life though (I'm sure there's an innuendo in this somewhere too...!)

Hmmm, what to think about this one? I guess my thoughts are: 1) It's simple but ingenious - I can't see the detail but assume it's just a splitter head bolted to the flywheel. Like the belt feeder running off the same engine, less manual handling. 2) F&^% using it for a game of soldiers though - I can't say I go in for H&S overkill, but I would want some guards in place and some kind of tooling to hold the piece of wood being split. Can anyone else see from the video whether "Uncle Jesse" has still got all his fingers?

Don't know about rubbing it on your hands, but if you've got a vehicle with grey or black external plastics (not body coloured) then get some smooth peanut butter on a piece of rag and give them a rub over. Brings back a nice shine!