Billhook

We had the foam done in 2009 and it shows no signs of deteriorating 12 years later i wrote a testimonial for the firm who have now gone back to Ireland I believe but I was amazed at the deterioration of the fibreglass as I pulled it out apart from it being useless in high winds I was looking for a better type of insulation for the locked pantile roof of my house, which was constructed in 1983. In those days the eaves had to be vented with soffit vents. The roof is a 30 degree pitch gabled half dormer. It has a false ceiling which makes a small attic space above the bedrooms. Before the plasterboard was put on the five inch deep rafters the space was filled with glass fibre wool and the ceiling was covered with the same material but to a depth of over eight inches. On still cold days all this worked well and after a fall of snow, the snow did not melt on the roof for some days. However all this changed with a cold wind, especially from the East, when it would be forced up the soffit vents and find its way under the fibreglass causing the ceilings of the bedrooms to be freezing cold. It also found its way under the floor of one bedroom, and was so bad sometimes that it would lift the carpet. The cold air would find its way in through any crack however tiny. It is a very exposed site and a good test for effective insulation and draught proofing. A friend had his slate roof covered with polyurethane closed cell foam and was pleased with the result. I had some quotes from similar people but they all said the ceilings would need to be taken down to expose the rafters at vast inconvenience and cost. Airseal was a company I found on the web having watched impressive demonstrations of Icynene on ‘Youtube’. The foam was interesting because it was open cell which breathed, it was inert and smelt of nothing, and it would not catch fire when I held an open flame to it. The main advantage had to be Airseal’s promise that it could be fired down the ten foot long cavity between the plasterboard and the felt and completely fill the space down to the eaves without disturbing the felt, tiles or plasterboard. I hooked out all the old fibreglass, a job so vile that I felt I could not ask anyone else to do it. I used drain rods and bent the corkscrew end into the shape of an anchor, which was very effective. A six ton farm trailer was filled volumetrically with the stuff. Interestingly, when I pulled out complete lengths of fibreglass from the eaves, the last couple of feet were black with mould. This presumably had formed as a result of moist air entering the vented soffits. Hopefully the Icynene foam would stop this happening, but still allow the timbers to breathe. We had an initial trial of the Icynene foam with the builders lifting up the bottom layer of tiles to see if the foam had reached the eaves when fired from above. The result was most impressive and it was an easy decision to continue with the rest of the roof. The job took two days and would only have taken a day had it not been for the ceilings being enclosed. Simon and Karl were very enthusiastic about the product and did a good job, Simon Walker having been sent to Canada to be trained. The weather has been very windy and cold since the job was completed, but our house feels completely different. The product feels benign. It is quieter and warmer. So much so that when the builders came back to do some more work they had to open the windows because it was too hot to work. They could not believe the difference We are so impressed with it that we are planning to have some more applied on the garage loft.

Some years ago we used this icynene foam which has been fantastic, no chemical smells as it is water based and it breathes like a sponge allowing wood to breathe whilst stopping draughts

Just had a look at it on YouTube a neat idea with the cone splitter to save on hydraulics. And a reasonably safe way of presenting the log to be split by the cone which normally seems to be asking for trouble with loose clothing or log spinning. Good to see the stop button in a sensible place too

Not arguing with that, just saying that a quick fix for some people in certain areas is to install a wood stove which can be done without the big disruption of full insulation, ground source heat pumps etc

Me here again and I have to ask the question again now that there are abundant U turns on Fracking, Nuclear, Oil and Gas . A lot of these will take time to implement in the meantime many vulnerable people are having to choose between food and heat. Surely a government push for firewood is in order to alleviate the situation? It ticks a lot of the green boxes, renewable and environmentally friendly if done correctly

Not sure if I told you of being let down by the NHS with the death of my dear old father in 2007. He was 87 and had actually had a very successful open heart operation at the Glenfield in Leicester in 1999. NHS working well as far as the surgery went, although we were forced to go privately to avoid a long wait during which time father's life would have deteriorated a great deal. However even after paying £10,000 he still had to be in a public ward to be monitored. BUPA we stopped paying some years before because of the high premiums and we worked out that we wold have paid£30,000 in premiums so by cancelling BUPA we saved £20,000. However he also had a pace maker which needed a new battery in 2007, the main heart operation having been a total success and given him a new lease of life for eight years. The new battery operation was a simple local anesthetic op, same day in out but it was done by an inexperienced person who botched something and the wound started to weep. This was of concern as the weep could go back down the wire to the heart. Anyway it was 50/50 as to whether to leave it or not and after a discussion with the main surgeon we decided to redo the pacemaker as long as he was in and out the. same day. Took him in on Friday (always a bad sign) they phoned to say that the op had not been done and he would have to wait till Monday. Every day in a ward is no fun, no peace, lights on , people groaning moving about. I stayed in a building for relatives and was shocked to find that simple things like his urine bottle had not been replaced. I eventually had to go into the stores and find one for him "Hey you are not allowed in there" "What are you going to do about it?" seemed to work He was on a ward with several other patients who had pace makers fitted and the bloke in the bed next to him had a lump on his chest the size of a tennis ball where they had fitted the pacemaker. He was showing it to us all when an Asian surgeon burst in still in his bloody gear and shouted, "This should not have happened, I am sorry I am sorry" and then ran out again leaving us all a bit stunned. Eventually after three days Father became so run down with lack of sleep and confusion that I demanded his release. We brought him home but he was in such a state that he died a week later, at least in his own bed with his family around him, so I feel for you with your father Stubby, who died alone. I actually had a call from the surgeon who apologised which was something I suppose.

Thanks for that, actually it is not hurting as much as I thought it would and maybe the tear looked a lot worse when it was fresh. Now all sown up and cleaned I find I have no pain and can pick things up between my thumb and forefinger as before. I will obviously have to be very careful until the stitches are removed and consider myself very lucky so far not to have been permanently disabled. The other really important thing is that I am left handed!!!

Yes but how do you shake it up? Creating a scene in the hospital does nobody any good. Politicians keep up the NHS being the best in the World Mantra hoping that if you repeat it enough times people will believe it. I am afraid it will have to break down completely, with many innocent deaths before things change. A bit like our current energy change of plan, nothing happens until there is a crisis

How did it happen? Chainsaw kickback? Barber Chair? Chopping kindling? Kickback feeding wood in the planer thicknesser? Like a lot of accidents it was not related to arbwork. I went into the garage to drain the oil of my car and lifted the heavy wooden cover over the pit which flipped up and trapped my thumb between the chassis and the cover. I really thought I had broken it or at least ripped the tendons. Anyway next part of the story is a journey to A&E at Louth who were very good and quick but could not stitch it and I would have to go to Grimsby. Arrived there at 5.00 pm and there were eighty two people waiting and the projected waiting time was eight hours which turned out to be accurate. Sitting there for all that time I see more people from different walks of life than I would see here on my remote farm in twenty years! Interesting conversations A policeman and police woman (am I allowed to use those terms anymore?) walked in with a distressed 15 year old girl that they eventually put in handcuffs. I could not see why as she seemed to be behaving but would not give the permission for an examination Everyone in the room could hear the conversation and at one point glass in the vagina was mentioned When my wife came to fetch me at 2.00am she passed three young girls at a junction near the hospital and saw a man cruising with his window down. I had the feeling that the handcuffed girl was another one of these. All a big eye opener for my wife and I as to what goes on in the world while we are tucked up safe and warm most nights The young female doctor was brilliant when I was eventually seen and put five stitches in very skill fully and assessed that there were no broken bones or ligaments The moral of this story is for goodness sake be as careful as you are when doing arbwork when you do other jobs like cleaning windows, gutters, hanging pictures draining car oil. The A&E system is overloaded and you will be at the end of a long queue

Are you saying that if I put Brut on before I go outside to fetch the wood in, I will not feel the cold??

Forgot to mention the North East Wind that cuts like a razor

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Global Warming has blocked my solar panels, solar tubes this morning with a layer of snow and we have just lit the wood boiler again As my dear father would say “ Beware the Blackthorn Winter”

A load of us old Codgers sitting around a campfire saying "Do you remember when" thread! At college up early after heavy night at pub for five lectures, maybe an arm wrestle at coffee time, show off lifting two 56lb weights above my head and clacking them together, drive 30 miles to play game of rugby in afternoon come back to party, dancing boozing, then spending most of the night doing what young men do best with girlies! Today wife gives me job list, tidy shed, I get up, spend ages making tea ,breakfast, go and buy newspaper spend ages reading it and tut tutting, forget about the shed, go down to yard tinker with saw or engine spend half my time looking for tools I have put down somewhere or my phone, eventually sit down have a rest and observe the beautiful sunset, find my phone just in time to send yet another picture to the picture forum here before retiring for a hot Radox bath to relieve aches and pains, not long before bed time then! Oh the joys of old age!

You can find all sorts of graphs and computer projections to enforce what ever your belief is. Just look at the hockey stick graph and the amazing death toll from Covid computer projections I have a great deal of trouble in the theory that CO2 is the main driver of Climate Change and find it far more likely that it is caused by the sun not being a constant, our orbit around it also not being a constant, our wobble as we rotate, the influence of other planets pulling us about not to mention whatever radiation and other energy coming at us from outside the solar system CO2 is 0.04% of our atmosphere and of that tiny percentage 95% is produced by the oceans and general life on Earth leaving about 5% caused by humans. Here in the Uk we produce 1% of that 5% which I make to be 0.0001% of the CO2 in the atmosphere I am willing to be corrected but it seems to me that the real way to control our emissions and abuse of resources if you believe it to be the cause, is to reduce the human population to about 3 billion, preferably by education and financial incentive rather than nuclear war

Where is World War on your graph??

I feel that we need to revisit this subject. One phrase I dislike is "The science is settled" The science should never be settled but always be able to answer questions when theories do not seem to materialise as predicted. Just to question any climate science labels you a denier in the same way as you might question the existence of particular God. I believe that the Earth is warming, but I am unsure of the cause and amount. A lot of the scare predictions do not seem to have happened. (Al Gore predicted ice free Arctic by 2013) I believe that we should all try and limit our use of polluting fuels and limited resources, breathe clean air and protect life on the planet. But there does not seem to be a proper cost /benefit analysis of the move to green energy. For instance what is the energy and CO2 emission of one Euro fighter takeoff and practice mission compared to a family car. It would not surprise me to hear that the fuel used would keep a family car going for a year, five years even ten years and the CO2 who knows. Then look at the energy cost of a full naval exercise with the Prince of Wales and Queen Elizabeth carriers and their fleet and aircraft. Then look at the pollution and energy and CO2 of every bomb and rocket in Ukraine and maybe all our efforts to put in heat pumps, insulate homes, drive electric cars cut out fossil fuels is just pissing in the wind and virtue signalling whilst giving the Chinese all the economic advantage building new coal fired power stations at will. Are we just in the process of a modern self flagellation? Flagellant - Wikipedia EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

You are only as old as the woman you feel!

And the sunset

Me again I’m afraid, I am a hopeless addict perhaps need some rehab maybe in the Caribbean! Today full day on the Sycamore log which would not be my first choice but the tree belongs to a friend and it came down in one of the storms in his driveway and he wants to make a table from it.

I remember hearing about a chap going to the doctor with similar symptoms in one of his legs. The doctor examined his leg and concluded, "I'm afraid it is just old age and there is not much I can do" He replied "Well it's the same bloody age as the other leg and it doesn't hurt!" I agree with Woodworks on the subject of making machinery take the hard work out of firewood. Not many on here still use a hand saw or an axe to cut down a large tree. The physical challenges of old age are the reason I built the Lockdown Firewood processor in the first lockdown when I was trying to see if I could bring a wind blown tree up from the bottom of the farm to my stove without any lifting.

Same view from our bedroom, but with daffodils instead of snowdrops

Hard day’s work on a large log with the Lucas Slabber. Worked till sunset!

I asked my mother for Electric Ladyland when it first came out and she and the elderly record shop owner were so embarrassed that he put it in a brown paper bag. Still have it but a bit scratched now! When Hendrix died there were only two fans at our school and we were considered "Hendrix Freaks". Kenny Enahoro was a very tall and handsome Nigerian son of a Chief. We both went around with black armbands. Somebody came up to him and said why are you doing that, he is dead and gone. Kenny just said "Jesus Christ is dead too man"

Worth repeating Mark I think