Steven P

So I am not a fan of having one, purely that that adverts for these (I think by thr Tesco advert lady) are full of -almost- lies. If they are trying to sell me stuff by lies then you have to ask why.... My take on them is that the meter reading companies can sack the meter readers, get rid of the cars and their depots and save money... which they might pass on to me, they might pass the saving to the shareholders (shareholders might be who I invest my pension into, they might not) They say that they can bill me an accurate bill, so when you ask the electricity supplier to check and callibrate your existing meter.. because the smart meter adverts suggest your existing meter cannot give you an accurate bill... they kind of back track on that. No more estimated bills.. so you pay for your energy as you use it. In winter you pay a lot, in the summer not a lot. As oppsed to estimated bills where generally the bill is averaged out and you pay the same each month. Imagine a pensioner on limited income seeing a big winter bill happening, the thermostat is being turned down isn't it? This is the biggest drawback to them. I can save money with a smart meter.. err... no I can't. What I can do however is use any meter and work out with that, and with the help of the internet to work out what eats up electicity and to cut down on that (anything that makes heat, or cold costs a lot). My electricity has gone down from £110 to £45 a month, which is purely hot water, lights and stuff like internets and TV. Heating is by stove, and I reckon I can knock another £5 off this if The Boys could wear trousers 2 days in a row and if Mrs would use the dryer or clothes line... They suggest that knowing what each supplies individual use profile is they can upgrade the system efficiently, and again, this is a lie. In each Substation they have or can install metering for each cable leaving it, half hourly metered (or more frequent). The generators know exaclty how much they generate and when and so on. The information is there for them to know exactly what is used and when. Final thought on the adverts is that we can choose to upgrade the meters they say. As a part of their general maintenance they have to callibrate a meter every so many years if the adverts just said "we're upgrading our metering to smart meters, but you can get one early by calling us" and I would give them more credibility. Many people get a smart meter, fiddle with it for a month and then put the display in a drawer, never to be seen again. In the future I can see the economy 7 being changed to economy 24, with an app on the phone to tell you that days hourly prices, perhaps the same app to set everything to run at the most efficient times (big overnight wind = cheap electricity for example, dead calm night and daytime electricity might become cheaper). Maybe all linked up to a smart home hub thing where you can text your smart cooker to boil the veggies. And we are all gong to have one As for prices.. yes some genertors cost more per unit to run, so these are generally turned on last, and the cheapest are used first. Electricity company would love is to know the true price by hitting us in the pocket so we can change our use and time we use it,maybe to get rid of expensive generation. In the next few years we are going to need a big infrastructure change where coal and gas power stations are decomissioned, nuclear power is still being built and even with new battery storage green energy like wind or solar can't quite keep us going 24 hours a day. The country has cables to Europe to meet any shortfall. Domestically we loose new gas boilers soon, and get electric cars and our electricity use is gong to go up.. the government need to push smart metering and to change our habits to meet their green stuff, electricity companies need us to change our habits to reduce their infrastructure costs (more profits), but the one thing they are not selling and I cannot see is any benefit to us, the consumer.

Take the bar off, run the saw and see where the oil comes out?

So a battery saw is out then - not enough charge to last a day or a morning of just cutting without a lot of battery power I guess you would need 14" to 20" bar then? which at that budget is about what you'd get.... however narrows down what people might suggest

Just going to say that, we often put the fire on for a couple of hours mid-summer just to draw out the damper house air and let the dryer outside air in

Similar to GDH, some longer split logs lengthways propped up on bricks at each end, and then shorter cut and split logs on top at right angles to that. Once dry they go in the garage on pallets. Are your log piles on hard standing or over grass - might make a difference to the height they'll need to be to keep the lower ones dry

I guess it depends on the diameter for firewood you are cutting. I tend to split mine first where I can and cut it later once it is dry. I am tending to go to a Qualcast battery saw (about 650W) over the MS181 (which needs a service and tune up) for what is already split - more neighbour friendly too. First question might be what is your budget? How big are the logs that you normally get (diameter), that might get you a better answer and reading this we all like what we use and very few have a wide range of saw to make a fair comparison. It might be that you'll get a couple of answers "Oh my saw will struggle to do that size". Lastly how many do you cut at once? A full day cutting logs or 20 minutes on a Sunday morning type of thing?

When we got our stove - 8 years ago and rules might be different, the option was to have a chimney liner / flue pipe or a short stretch of pipe into the existing chimney, and based on that I would say it is OK to go from small flue to larger flue.

This chart is the temperature outside my front door for the last 4 years, 2019 was cool as well, but I can't remember having the fire on this late in the year before

I got a sonic cat scarer (Catwatch from the RPSB) and from 3 or 4 cat poos in the garden a week, 0 since November... so I guess it works well enough. As for mamals, seen a few badger, deers and foxes 'sleeping' om the roads round here - about the usual number, but the localdeer herd has gone from 4 or 5 to 2. I normally see the hare once a year and saw that the other week

Which is pretty much the problem, quite ambiguous on this. Unfortunately the UK is based on case law - what did a previous judgement judge to be the law and no one will know until someone is prosecuted for selling 'wet' wood, tested with a meter that was out of its specified limits - not calibrated.

I'm not arguing about the accuracy of the meters in the sub £50 price bracket, they are what they are, come out of the factory and reasonably accurate - I have a Stihl one.. it is the calibration requirement that I was commenting on more

A couple of comments today.. First calibrate the meter and then measure a freshly split surface to get the best reading.” So for everyone who knows these things, how do I calibrate a moisture meter that a domestic user might use? I can spend hundreds on a meter and calibration device (just checked, prices in dollars for a quick check but $600 was the sort of starting price), but for the sub £30 meter..... (engineering head here, bung a known value electrical resistor across the terminals will give a consistent value as a check it is still reading that value next time but I am not sure an inspector would accept that "Yeah, I jus test it with this" unless it is a commercial product)

If you are struggling to find out what it is, my fire bricks are 1" thick, 25mm and that seams to be a standard. Then you need 3: 1 across the back and one along each side, at a height roughly 2/3 of the height of the fire box. Mine has a 45 degree chamfer at the back 2 corners so that the bricks lock together at the back and at the front there is a metal clip to hold them in place. if you can work out how far back the side bricks need to stop you can probably get some made up / buy off the shelf with that size / buy some board and cut them yourself if that helps. Measure the dimensions and take off a few mm and you should be good to go like that.

But the seller did travel, what 50 miles to help out, think he sounds genuine in this case

I take it with the £1 a cube, that the wood isn't split? £1 would be what, 4 minutes work with no equipment costs? If it arrives at you in a container to slide straight in a kiln that might be realistic, if you have to handball loose tipped split logs into the kiln / container to put in a kiln then your £1 looks too cheap. Equipment - if you have the machines to do the work standing idle and paid for by other work might be £10, if you are buying machinery and a kiln to dry logs, might not be but that will depend on how much you are contracted to dry (contracted the important part... if they don't deliver you can still get paid)

Takes me back to my teenage years and playing on one very similar. I rarely crashed it either. 2 speed (or 3 if you count the clutch never quite disengaging) and in top, with a seat polished through time, a tight corner, and hanging on to the wheel bum over the edge, foot flat on the throttle till it was straight enough to climb back on again... all good, till dad saw me once and I had to do corners 'safer'. So from what I remember starting, lever on the top - decompression? up (starter handle easiest that way on that machine, others might vary) and behind the gear lever there was a knob - throttle thing? that twisted and locked shut to turn it off. So if the lever works OK, my suggestion would be to check the throttle thing isn't locked in - it twisted to release and pop out. Might be the old owner put that in without you noticing? Technical terms here - lever and round knob, I was 14 and technical things were more limited to descriptions rather than names.

Think you are right with the QC thing. A big name company will make stuff in China but have QC in place to ensure that their reputation for quality is kept. In this case the Zama carbs being made there. In the back of my mind though is that there is someone with a set of callipers taking measurements, running down the back streets to their mate with say, Zama carb measurements and saying "Make this".. dimensions the same but what they don't get is the materials spec. Same with a lot of their stuff I suspect... but in some industries they know all the specs and make reasonable stuff. I used to work with a company that imported Chinese stuff to a German spec, far cheaper and the quality was the same or better.. but they had the full spec. The Japanese used to be the same - example here being their car industry, 1980s Nissan anyone? But their cashcow sorry, Cashqai is everywhere, Echo chainsaw anyone? (to keep it relevant). China will do the same, catch up and overtake us soon. Where we get lucky and get a thing to Western quality my other suspicion is that these are made in the same factories, so a quality Chinese saw might have the same metal in their castings as a Stihl and same QC - different shape but made in the same factory over the weekend with the same metals. (boringly back to my question, I have no idea if they are making carbs to just the same dimensions or if they are to the same full spec as the originals you see.. might be some parts are and some parts arn't at the moment)

Thanks, I've been through it easy bits first. Exhaust is clear, no spark arrestor on this one and inside the exhaust is OK, new air and fuel filters (proper genuine parts), new spark plug, cylinder looks good, it's as tight to pull over as the hedge trimmers (similar sizes), new fuel + quality 2 stroke oil (which run the other machines OK). So the next step is the carb itself, I've blown carb cleaner through it - though not down the L & H holes, I never thought of that (maybe I should have thought more, that makes sense). If it is coming off to clean it... my thought is for the time, effort and costs, put a new unit on or strip and build the old unit back up is it worth putting an after market carb in (loath however to pay as much for a carb as the whole machine did for an OEM one). Maybe it isn't worth it. Yes, I think your right, Zama C1Q. Thanks, I think I have made my mind up, I'll rebuild it, bit of a project for the next week or so. First though, a bit of a spray with the carb cleaner. Might get carried away and do the hedge trimmers too, chainsaw is a bit noisy for night time, that can wait.

Thanks Paddy, this is my third e-bay special, first 2 just needed the carb diaphragms freeing up and they came to life again (1 of these is in bits again to change the fuel tank - another story, on hold till i get a screw extractor). Both needed the carbs adjusting too. I didn't get them ideal but near enough - you can hear if the machine is struggling to idle, or racing and set the screws somewhere in between. Likewise while waiting for a service kit (lockdown) for the saw (had from new) had to adjust that as the filters got bunged up and back again working OK. Hoping I can set this one up as easy once carb is fixed... but as always, good to get a reminder what to do. The LA adjust will come later, just getting the thing to idle well would be nice (nice thing about this blower is a throttle lever - same effect as the LA by holding the air valve open and so much easier to fiddle with as I adjust the fuel screws. Still 50-50 really, guess if you get a better copy you'd be OK? but how do you know quality I wonder, or just take a chance.

How long wold you have access to the floor for and how much could you get in there? Best - cheapest - method of drying is to keep the rain off (a roof) and to let lots of air flow, it would be quicker than an outside stack, slower than a kiln, but cheaper than a kin too. I might throw in a question, how long does a log have to b in a kiln for to be 'kiln dried'? (dry the logs naturally on the crop drying floor, put them in a kiln for a couple of hours, 'kiln dried', you don't need to heat the whole space)

In a block of flats you'd have to know also which chimney is which to see whose fire is smoking. As it stands I don't think t can be widely enforced. Its the sellers who have to comply but once delivered and after maybe a week they would all shrug their shoulders and say "it rained, the sample of logs we tested for that delivery all met the standards". Guess this would be enforced by customs and excise and if they turned up at a yard the seller would simply say "that pile isn't ready to go out yet", you'd have to test the logs as they left the yard or at the delivery address, and then likely only to happen if there were a few complaints put in against a specific log supplier. Interesting thought though a forecourt or DIY warehouse. renowned for their wetter logs (also supermarkets) would buy their wood at the required 20%, storage would let that rise, however would they then pass the responsibility back to the producer? Almost guaranteed that the local supplier would be enough under 20% to be OK but the large warehouses want to save every penny, buy it in when it is exactly 20%, not a drop less, not a penny more spent on the kiln heating.

That's my gut reaction but seeing the AM carbs, they might work, they might not

It's a Stihl BG85 - not sure if it makes much difference (reasoning being that there are plenty of spares available)

Good morning, I picked up a leaf blower from ebay, right model for the right price, and knowing that no one sells stuff in perfect condition it needs a little TLC. Done a basic service, but I think it needs a carb kit (bogging down with the throttle, fiddling with the adjustment not doing much). So todays question: Do I go for a proper carb kit and put it in the original carb, or do I go for a Chinese copy and a new carb, save the hassle of rebuilding one - very similar prices for both What are your thoughts? Thanks

First job in an industry, unproven, and needing to be trained up at the moment you are more likely to be a cost to the employer - someone needs to keep half an eye on you so their productivity is down a bit and you'll probably need some one to one supervision. The employer is taking a chance to spend the cash to train you to be useful to their team. Chances are they are paying the going wage in your area - pay too little and they won't get anyone, pay too much and they will loose money. The probation period of any job is great, take it as work experience and your 3 months will help you decide if that is what you want to do for the next 5 years, 10 years, forever... If not, after 3 months both sides can walk away and chalk it down to experience. However if it is enjoyable for you and you can work hard then make a go of it, show you are willing to learn (same as in any job), ask questions, ask how you do stuff and if it is possible for future training in 6 months times - not in your probation but show the boss you are willing to stick around for longer. Often after probation I have had a pay rise, but it also shows on your CV that you are willing to work - easier to get a new job if you have one I've always thought that great wages means great hassles - the car manager on 200k hates the job with massive hours (and at home too), wok minimum wage and you might love the job... and somewhere between the 2 is a level of job satisfaction balanced with the wages that is acceptable for you. So if you enjoy the work, stick with it. You'll get used to the physical side, and an enjoyable jo b can make up for lower wages. Tree felling from Big J - a walk in the forest at the weekend that is being felled, half a dozen caravans on site for the workers, that £300 a day is OK, live cheap on site, bank the cash.