openspaceman

This one is just one year now, biggest pleasure of my weekend is walking with him. He's fast with a good nose. One mishap is when he ran through the woods opposite my house and returned to me with a puncture wound through the nearside front between the bone and tendon.

So you have 3 100 litre expansion vessels for the three DHW tanks and three in parallel for the space heating? Do you manually switch the solar heating? I worked on a sandler system in Brixton that used one 3000l tank for DHW and underfloor with super insulation and solar thermal input. The backup was 25kW pellet boiler. System was a disaster because it used a stratified tank with a diffusion tube, The heat wasn't metered so the 12 tenants controlled their temperature by opening windows. This meant the underfloor pump worked constantly and quickly ruined the stratification, the DHW plate heat exchanger pumps were cut out at 50C so no hot water. The design was also daft in that the solar thermal and boiler both fed into a common header, effectively the solar thermal circuit diluted the 75C water from the boiler. They should have switched solar heat to just pre warm boiler feed when there was no chance of solar reaching 50C in a day. Apart from discomfort there was a safety issue in that the housing association did not appoint a service contract, I was freelance snagger for the installation company which went bust, and went to fix minor problems when called by the housing association handyman. The solar system leaked and no one noticed and an automatic pump refilled the system. With no solar input the boiler ran 24/7 with a switch off every 6 hours to automatically de ash. Consequent to this with no chimney sweeping and a gas cowl terminating the flue, draught was lost because the cowl was blocked with soot. By this time the boiler internals had burned out in 4 years of constant use. This was all made worse by the housing association people being an uncaring bunch of jobsworths. Against my advice they replaced the boiler like for like instead of going for FIT under the RHI with a new bolier. I have only one circuit, a simple fan coil unit running straight off the accumulator. As it's running on arb arisings I have lots of feed problems so it generally only runs when I am at work. Yup I'd be interested in looking at the site. Woking BC crow about their renewables ( big CHP scheme and lots of PV but don't allow one to see what is being produced.

If that is centigrade then yes you are sending far too much heat up the flue. One reason may be too much air (probably secondary)

Second attempt at posting this : what about trying a couple of the load covers from an estate car, about 1.2m x 1.2 m and roll up. I used ones from an old astra estate.

Yes but he mentioned dhw tanks as separate volumes. I wondered if that was significant. I need to add a second expansion vessel as the new accumulator tank increases the volume such that I've had to reduce the temperature. That's my view as long as there is only iron and copper in the circuit, mind he says he spent £65k on his so an extra 600 quid for inhibitor is minor. I'm working on a fraction of that budget. I used a couple of 6m lengths of 2" barrel which my old boss came down, designed, cut and threaded just for the bends and connections. I think the black iron came to over 500 quid. I wouldn't want to try and tap threads on that by hand. Then 2 8m lengths of heat main into the barn where the accumulator sits. The small load I have on is run off 28mm ersatz hep20. I see I poked 1.5MWh into the system last week.

Any particular reason for 6 discrete expansion vessels?

Is it possible/practical to repair a punctured tank on an ms200t? The translucent side bit with the filler in it.

The corollary is that because it is not stable it's highly reactive and that is what makes it dangerous, I believe it inhibits the chemical that takes oxygen from blood and bungs it in the cells. Butterfly collectors used to use crushed laurel to kill their finds so I am always wary of being in an enclosed space with fresh laurel chip. I wouldn't worry about cyanide surviving a fire.

50mm heat main is about 60 quid/metre for the twin pipe, personally I would avoid it and pay more for a pair of singles if the delta T feed to return is high to better isolate any cross conduction. The end fittings are about £100 each though. It's just a 2" mdpe water pipe with closed cell insulation all round stuffed down a normal rigiduct. Many biomass systems will have thermal stores and this amounts to a lot of water in the system, often too much to dose with corrosion inhibitor. In a sealed system (still not allowed under building regs in domestic premises unless the latest part J changed that) it's not a big problem as any free oxygen dissolve in the water gets vented or reacts and then there is no more to do harm. In a vented system there is still a point where fresh air can get in at the F&E tank so these should have inhibitor. Antifreeze is another matter and apart from keeping the boiler running I don't know what would happen. I would hope the expansion vessel would cope with the main body freezing.

I saw at canford, one imported for ARBRE around the turn of the millenium, on a rottne base, it only managed about 80 500kg bales/day, has this improved?

I don't expect a battery electric one to compare well with a petroil one but what does 30 minutes run time (mentioned for the husky lion powered one)mean in practice, e.g. has anyone cut 5" discs until the battery of one of these runs out?

+1 and the spool block will be the bottleneck. You get more wear and tear as well as oil deterioration once the temperature gets above 40c (blood-heat).

Would this be a typical cost or a guess? Tracked chippers are fairly difficult to move without hydraulics being live unless you can get alongside and lift. So taking it off the trailer and away from lorry access should be more secure if the engine is well immobilised, and yes £700 is a small price to pay on a £28k machine, especially after having a 1928 nicked as well as a more expensive one. It is similar cost to the aftermarket tracker-immobiliser fitted which isn't without problems.

I agree about Greenmech customer service a year old 1928 went down with a major drive train fault, they were there and fixed it next day. One of my colleague's hired a 160 but I didn't get to play. Do they still use simple keys for the ignition or have they got sensible yet? It amazes me that my old pug van has a chipped key and I am told that modern cars have become difficult to steal yet a bit of kit with ten times the value can be started with a generic key.

It may qualify as an agricultural trailed appliance and depending on number of wheels it could be up to 15m (18m including drawbar or overall, not sure) long when towed by an agricultural machine (Fastrac or unimog) but would be restricted to 40mph on all roads.

I found with any of the pellet burners I dealt with even screened chips jambed in the feed tube. The reason being the auger and feed tube were round and steeply inclined. With an augur in a square tube the larger and longer pieces can ride in the corners. When the auger is horizontal only the bottom of the tube is occupied but as you raise the angle the angular shapes fill the tube and start compacting. The crux will be in the angle of repose of the chips. Make a "sandcastle" of chips in a tumbler and gently raise it above a table, see the angle of repose and compare that with some pellets ( or grain/olive pips). My guess is that an oscillating screen with round graduated holes is likely to sort chips with more cubical shape.

I believe Clementine Churchill was accused of arboricide after felling a box, for a good cause.

Profile says Hemel Hempstead wjere there's not enough wind to turn the wind turbine

What sort of dumper? My old thwaites 4wd artic steer would skid out quite big bits tree length in reverse, you could chain them with the skip fully tipped and jack the ends off the ground when returned to normal, just drilled keyhole for the choker. Killer was the little petter 2 cylinder diesel was gutless. Also it was a pig to hand start.

He is already if you work under his direction Grey area but I agree I think you meant cannot, because it's quite difficult to dismiss an employee without going through full process. In fact even if he doesn't put you on PAYE you will have a case that an employment did exist if taken to court or tribunal, as samarb says the employer is on a hiding to nothing by keeping you self employed apart from his saving of the employer's contribution to NI. Yes this is how I see it.

What is the taxation class of quads and their legality on the road in general? If they are covered by a B licence and their tow hitch has a plated rating then following on from earlier discussions about cars pulling trailers it would be legal if the actual weight of the 3.5 tonne braked trailer were under the tow rating of the quad.

In the past, pre 97 large poplar was milled for coffin boards and other one trip uses (dunnage) there was a good market but a lower price than mining timber (chocks, cover boards and wedges not pit props). There was a market for peeling logs with prices similar to softwood bars in the 10" to 24" range. It was not acceptable for mining timber nor pallets because of poor crush resistance but it was used for the inners of cable reel drums. Yellow poplar from the states was p deltoides but I think the tulip tree was also known as yellow poplar in america, Liriodendron wood is similar to poplar but yellow and fragrant. Once the briant and may poplar scheme collapsed and because the 8 metre planting spacing was also the final crop spacing the abandoned plantations produced timber too knotty for good joinery.

The flue temperature seems about ideal, if the stove body is all up to temperature then the stove should be radiating/convecting it's designed power. You can increase heat exchange by using a fan to circulate air out of the alcove, I would use a simple fan blowing downward to force warm air to run along the floor. The only thing that would affect efficiency is the massflow up the flue, which (assuming clean burning) is dependant on excess air and water content. The heat exchange will be similar at a given flue temperature in steady state. My stokers seem to burn clean at between 120C and 200C flue temperatures on whole wood (stay visibly clean to lower temperature when burning out char bed) but trip out at higher flue temperature to avoid damage.

I still enjoy it but I'm slow, rope management is a mess and whilst I migrated to army abseil line and petzl 30 years ago, to save wasted effort ascending, I never did keep up with new techniques. Muscle strain from lack of use is a big problem. The economics is the killer, as you get old you have less time to recoup training/recertification costs. As you do less the cost of maintaining kit increases per job. I'm on two days recertification for a different industry and was quite surprised my employer put me forward for it given the few years they will continue to employ me for.

Again as with the rope drying thread, this is what I would choose and have chosen for drying kit but if the container is not frequently opened tubular heaters with a thermostat and a little insulation may be more economical. My home de humidifier seems to consume 150 Watts and as long as you set the humidity at just the right point that there is no dripping it should hardly ever come on once the container is shut and the initial load of moisture removed. The danger is with moist air able to diffuse in and keep it running, which not only uses electricity but would shorten the life. I still haven't decided if it makes any difference how high the dehumidifier sits but for convenience mine stays on the floor and drains to a bucket in the room the giant insulated wardbrobe has been built (8' by 4' by 8' high and 100mm of glassfibre between a 4 by2 stud wall clad in 12mm ply) which I hope will accomadate 8 guys' clothing. I have used a Blyss dehumidifier with higher capacity and a built in heater for this but I'm dubious about the quality of the control as it doen't switch on and off like the smaller Delonghi one.