openspaceman

No I broadly like the ideas except the wealthy do tend to look after their own, albeit by putting them in a comfortable care home rather than living with the rest of the family. Neither my parents nor the in laws ended up in care (except my mother was discharged from hospital to a care home which was funded by her money but she died during the first night). I had cared for her at her home alongside my younger brother and late sister's daughter in rota prior to hospitalisation.

One little thing we can agree on then

Yes and gas will be discouraged from now. Our town centre has two internal combustion engined CHP units that deliver electricity and heat (or cooling) on a district water heating main to various buildings in the town. What I was meaning was in the smaller domestic sizes especially if it can deliver enough to charge a car battery as well as heat a house. The small Stirling engined units were being touted for this some years back. The thing is if you are already committed to using gas for heating, and even if gas gets expensive it will still be imported if UK can compete for it on a rising world market, then why not get 25% of its thermal energy out as electricity and using the rest to heat the house? Actually the Stirling ones only generated 1kW so only about 10% conversion but a lean burn high compression spark engine optimised for working at its sweet spot should easily exceed 25%. Capital cost is the issue but heat pumps are similar to Stirling engines with regard to wear and moving parts and are eye wateringly expensive compared with gas boilers. Heat pumps are grant funded but only if the natural gas supply to the house is removed. There has been talk of no new gas connections for a while now but it would seem to make sense to get a bit more utility from existing connections. Same applies to oil heating. BTW most of our electricity comes from dual cycle gas turbines, I was in the sea swimming by the Shoreham one yesterday, and these just about double the thermal conversion to electricity compared with a traditional coal plant.

I agree and on the assumption that there is enough money within the economy to fund increased care/health care costs what is your proposal? Government and big industry doesn't seem to want to flatten out the peaks of high pay, because it leads to "braindrain". Chasing efficiency in public bodies doesn't seem to work. It is human nature to want more and that leads to a widening of the gap between ris=ch and poor. Philosophically this doesn't bother me, I have generally had enough and not been overly envious of the super rich, my problem is that this is the part of the society that is disproportionately damaging our environment, It always struck me that purchase tax was more sensible than VAT as it simply applied the tax at the point of production of luxury goods. Mind deciding what is a luxury may cause some comment.

I suspect firewood will never be an economic fuel unless you DIY but yes there is a big hike in gas and electricity costs coming. For my part I shall cut my use of electricity and for my granddaughter's house I have ordered a new flue fitting and compliant register plate in case she starts using the woodburner. I have suggested my elder daughter does not have the chimney removed in planned alterations. My chief worry as I become increasingly decrepit is my ability to supply enough dry logs from odd jobs. As to the general picture there is no way homegrown wood can make much of an impression on home heating. To my mind in the winter and given the need for EV charging why are we not seeing viable home CHP? British gas trialled this but just seemed to drop it.

Not a big problem if it is enforced, drain tank, flush injectors with DERV and hire out again, selling diesel contaminated with red to someone in farming etc.

Yes briar was what pipes were made from, I assumed it was the rootball of a rose bush so the tree heather is a new one. Rosewood is a tropical hardwood, my dad used veneers in his marquetry hobby.

You need to have a smart meter to take advantage of these tariffs and the agile one penalises you heavilly for power used between 1600 and 2000

I think the 200kWh free is an EON option but there are quite a few EV tariffs around.

Very little coal used for electricity, mostly gas and that is in extremely short supply. I expect a major hike in gas prices next year. Maybe a problem charging in the day but the few fission reactors we still have providing 15% of our electricity run 99% of the time 24/7 and wind continues to gust overnight most places so charging at night at home uses some otherwise surplus, indeed on the Octopus agile tariff some punters with electric cars have been paid to take a charge in the small hours. My daughter gets 200kWh a month free electricity if taken between 1100 and 0400

Doesn't make a lot of sense for normal driving, brakes have very little use and the regeneration slows you down unless you set level to zero. My daughter's Kona came with it set to zero and the paddle on the steering changes it, I left it at 2 but personally would drive with a higher level, then bakes only used in an emergency or coming to a complete stop. There have been issues with updates and recalls and the 12V battery has no under voltage protection so has gone completely flat on several occasions, possibly related to a recall update.

Interestingly that correctly shows the TU16, which I have and earlier said T15, but the TU32 pdf is actually the T35, which I have, and does show the speed change. I somehow doubt the TU32 is a two speed.

I am not sure of the differences between TU and T but the gearing is by changing the distance from the pivot point, the pin on which the power lever pivots is an eccentric which is fixed by the little knob in the top of the power lever, pull this out and rotate the shaft until the knob can drop back in. I only have a vague memory as I always left it in low and took the T15 if I wanted faster.

I cannot remember how I got my Tirfor handle, it didn't come with the winches which were second hand, but before that I would use the handle from a Hi Lift jack as that was in the Land Rover and held on by a split pin. Scaffold pole would be far to heavy for me to carry in to the sorts of places I needed a winch. Now the Eder 1800 with 100m of rope and a pulley and chain can be carried in and is lighter than the t35 and its wire rope.

Yes but that's why it's twisted in a cable lay so the tension on any individual strand is the same even when it goes round a pulley. I suppose the type of steel in a chain differs between types as a load binder chain is much milder than a grade T choker chain and yes the load binder deforms plastically a long way before it breaks. Choker chain less so and it always struck me breaking a choker chain was more exciting than breaking a wire rope.

I think a chain stores more energy than a wire rope because there are parts of the link that have a bending stress in them as well as pure tension.

I used AVS and the above with no problems but Beacon Fencing at Ansty tended to be a bit cheaper.

Yes one needs to define memory, as @Haironyourchest says no stretch then no way to store energy. Modern steel rope with a fibre core squeeze the core as it tensions and expands when it goes, normally with no or little stored energy. The problem comes when another part of the system stretches or bends and stores energy when it does, if the rope snaps then it's this which provides the catapult effect. KERR are famous for this when a weak attachment point fails and gets flung into the towing vehicle. Back in the days of 3 strand nylon climbing line a young lad was killed when it was used as a throw line with a weight on the end, this got stuck and the rope was pulled, elongating it until the snagging branch snapped releasing the weight with all the energy in the rope's elastic deformation and striking the bloke on the head. Most ropes used in arb now are "static" with minimal elongation rather than "dynamic" ropes used in climbing, to absorb the shock of the climber falling on them.

The genuine Tirfor handle is telescopic and the outer is 610mm long with a diameter of 33mm OD and wall thickness of 3mm. Not sure how long the inner is as mine is bent and jammed in the outer but it is 25mm OD with a 2mm wall thickness. The outer is swaged down at the telescoping bit so the inner used to ride freely in it (this probably avoids problems with the weld seam). It looks like it was electroplated zinc. If it is mild steel these sections are available. I don't expect ever to use either of my Tirfors again nor the screw ground anchor as the Eder winch is better in all respects. I just need access to a hydraulic press to see if I can get it telescoping freely again.

Hey they used to seem to go up and down in a mesmerising sort of way as the train window passed them, I suppose there was an arrangement between British Railways and the GPO before the voice signals could be multiplexed and each line only carried one channel. I have hit one of those ceramic pots and it folded the tooth downward for a way, the work hardening meant the file wouln't bite. I suspect I threw the chain away.

I had another look at it today, it is firing the once then flooding from the state of the plug. I shall have to strip the carb again and check if the needle valve fork is set right.

An old thread but I have a problem with my HL75, it's old but not a lot of work and on the original blades. Problem is it has sat with aspen in it for 2 years and now I cannot start it. I suspect an electrical fault but just a question about the carb; it has never had the mixture screws altered from factory setting, indeed I don't have a tool to alter them. It fires up once from cold every time with the choke and then never fires again. I have stripped the carb and nothing visible (I was half expecting to find a little globule of water somewhere). I'm a bit loathe to undo the mixture screws and flush the jets out with carb cleaner so can they be altered to just take a screwdriver? Is there anything else different about the Zama carb, I'm assuming the check valves diiscussed earlier in the thread are just in the purge bulb part of the carb? In the meanwhile I'll buy a new plug and research a replacement coil and work off a ladder 😞

Are any of these small forwarders operating in the mid Hampshire region?

I don't know if things have changed much since broadband appeared but as long as its Plain Old Telephone Service, two copper wires used out of seven, then the line was often held to the house by a wrap guy lashing then the non tensioned dropper either joined the house wire via "jellies" like a scotch block filled with insulating jelly of else went straight to a terminal block in the master socket. It was easy enough to disconnect the two wires as long as you noted their colours and which terminal they went to and then unwrap the lashing and drop the wire.

Is it in UK? It looks like a juvenile foliage sport of Lawson's cypress