Baldbloke

My wife likes her Handy vertical splitter. Believe it’s rated at 6 tonnes with a 3000 w motor. Runs from a standard socket and has done about 4 years without issues. I find I can split most logs more quickly with a maul so tend not to use it too often. Though she’ll need to give it a workout this year as there’s four times more to do than what’s stacked here.

Totally agree about Tirfors being the most useful safety tool for remote pulling. Even with the hassle of the weight. In the 70s and 80s when I earned money by the ton that was always my ‘go to’ if there was a job involving a jumble of trees whether they had rootplates attached or not. I remember seeing another chap cutting free a root from such a jumble and an entire mature Sitka getting re-erected by others springing free. I was filling my saw away from it at the time and recollect the surprise on the chaps face. I last used my old Tirfor winch two days ago to anchor back a split beech limb prior to freeing it to save the neighbouring cemetery building having a ton or so land on it. Except for a couple of replacement hawsers it’s the one I’ve had and used for the last 40 odd years. A very useful tool.

What, brown shirts and jackboots?🤣

That creepy SNP twat Yousaf Humza was recorded saying he was very interested in the possibility of utilising people’s own Alexas and Google Nest appliances against them if suspected of Hate Crimes. Some jackboots and brown shirts and they’d be all the way.

That’s a handy machine, but it’s amazing what a mini digger can do.

Or of her previously up and coming replacement before he was discovered to be trying to insert his sausage up an unsuspecting schoolboy, or of the gender fluid Green weirdos. It’s like politics in Scotland has become the go to place of all the weirdest wankers so they can mandate their wet dreams.

I always think her looks resemble a mouse.

I did too. Right down to getting the meter retrospectively fitted and being approved for the reduced subsidy. This ‘commercial’ aspect being excused through doing sub 7.5 k B&B. Then did the figures as well as wondering whether it’d compromise my domestic consumer tax free status on the turbine subsidy, so dropped it in case of future tax complications.

We also have the biomass (logs) but the boiler is too large to get the domestic consumer subsidies. However, the 8 years saving in oil has probably covered the 24k outlay. Very reliable bit of kit.

Don’t think that’s right if it’s anything like the wind tariff. He’d have gotten the £11 k subsidy over the years as quarterly payments.But, the bonus is that as long as his usage didn’t exceed what the panels generated, the consumer meter would’ve stopped so that electric generated was free to use. Meanwhile the generation meter is still operational and you’re getting paid for it. So you’re in effect being paid for electric EVEN when you’re actually using it.[emoji1303] If you make the effort with extra wiring and careful usage you can keep the bills down while enjoying free generation. Our electric bills range from £250 -£500 a quarter, but the quarterly subsidy payments range from £3-5k. When the wind blows everything goes on. Dishwashers, washing machines, dryers and immersion heaters in a 4000ltr accumulator. There’s also a hot tub continuously being kept up to heat and everything else needed to run a large house. So if you get in early enough on these green incentives it can be one of the few things that pays. Our investment of 91k paid off after 7 years, although I’ve just had it fully rebuilt at a cost of 28 k to help it run for the remaining 13 years of subsidy. And those direct payments don’t include the free electricity we’ve enjoyed or the reduction of what we’d have been paying had we’d been so free with our usage,-but without a turbine.

Yes, we definitely have two types of Ivy in the garden

I’ve seen farmers put them on their cattle sheds but think that’s under a micro generation commercial subsidy. I’ve not seen domestic consumers putting them on sheds, but if the garage was adjoined to the house it may be viable. However, you’d need to look at the subsidy rate as it tends to get lower as time passes. Existing installations usually get an increasing subsidy linked to RPI, but as a new entrant, it may be that it just won’t pay these days as any subsidy will be minimal. You also have to realise that assuming you put up a 2kW installation, the moment your consumption goes over what the sun is giving the meter starts to rotate and you pay like anyone without panels.

I’ve heard that although the cost of panels might be lower than at the start, the subsidy itself isn’t the incentive that it used to be. So unless you can warrant the saving against future bills it may just not be worth it.

The odd tendril does try to work its way up but is easy to tear off. As noted in another Ivy related thread, I believe it’s two kinds of Ivy I have. One is predominantly ground cover and little threat to trees while the other is thicker in the stem and similar to your pictures.

🤣By inadvertently releasing another dose of virus or Covid variant

Good post. Our issue is that because we bought a property that should have been listed, ours isn’t, so I don’t have that valid argument. The chap we bought it from worked in the Council and was able to avoid listing in order to rip out some features during renovations and not have the burden of inspections after work[emoji849]

I reckon you’ve hit the nail on the head. Sturgeon and her Green partners meanwhile want to make Scotland look like Ireland. Lots of little characterless eco boxes littering the countryside.

You do wonder what will happen to these estates and vast houses in an independent Scotland. Not many owners of these big houses can keep them wind and watertight, let alone bring them up to an insulated standard where they’d be rated C.

Supposedly Sturgeon is being pushed by the devoted to publish a White Paper on Independence. The current issue is how to address pensions for the multitude of elderly Scots after independence when there aren’t enough contributors. Bunter Blackford however seems to think there’s a big pension pot to access rather than the actuality of the present status quo of day to day funding.

Today the Scottish SNP have announced a consultation over a Bill to stop the renting out or sale of any property that fails to perform over energy rating over C. Effectively this will hold me (and others with period property) to ransom by ensuring our windows/skylights are double or triple glazed (mine already are) and that all the internal walls are either ripped out and replaced with additional insulation, or clad over the outside stonework. Otherwise our properties could be unsaleable, and at the very least will require additional expenditure to make good. Obviously this makes a mockery of retaining the appearance of a Georgian house, or retaining any semblance of its plasterwork, cornicing and other period detail. When an official came around a few years ago to assess our property for some insulation needs, he classed our Georgian house as F rated, so a long way away from the proposed C rating needed. No Acknowledgement was made for the £25,000 I’d spent on the biomass heating, nor the £91,000 I’d invested in the wind turbine to power and heat our F rated home. Yet these two installations actually not only heat and power our house but additionally export probably 50% to the Grid too. My point is that I’m happy with my property. I can afford to heat and power it without relying too much on outside suppliers or fossil fuels, yet by being ultra green in my investments I’m still likely to need to have to waste product for renovations and history to satisfy future legislation by the f……. SNP.

Not much gets me angry but the SNP certainly can. Recently they’ve been arrogant enough to pass a bill to make all homeowners install interlinked fire/smoke and Co2 alarms, no matter how new or what set up you’ve already got in place. All supposedly in the wake of a high rise flat with outer cladding going up in smoke. Because of the outcry over this imposition on peoples personal ownership and living area they’ve since admitted no one will be criminalised for ignoring the legislation. Today they’ve announced the proposal of another Bill to ensure all homes that are rented out or sold are up to a minimum of being C rated prior to being let or marketed. This possibly to pander to their Green Allies to whom they rely on for their majority in pushing through their legislation. I do wonder what response Central Government would get trying to impose this crap on the English? The Nats have already failed in their Named Person bollocks which was basically a big brother is watching you scenario, but I’m now absolutely gobsmacked that fellow Scots will put up with such an intrusive and domineering administration interfering with their lives. SNP Humza Yousaf, who last year fronted their Hate Crime Bill, admitted that he was hoping to use modern technology by utilising peoples’ own Lexa and Hey Google type appliances in helping to prosecute Hate Crimes. There was also the anomaly of having to appear in court to answer charges, with the assumption of guilt until proven otherwise. This is scary shit. Allowing for such a third rate Green Party ( that attracts so little of the vote) in getting such a say over how Scotland is run just because the Nats can’t get a majority is also an insult to us voters. You guys and girls in England might think you’re being taken for a ride by Boris, but I can assure you there’s much more dangerous c”””” running Scotland.

My wife detests Ivy but I’m not too bothered. We have perhaps 1/2 an acre of Ivy ground cover under mature trees in the front garden which keeps other crap away and saves one area from too much maintenance. It doesn’t seem too keen on attaching itself to the remaining massive beech, limes or sycamores but does like the rowans. A good hassling with the strimmer seems to keep it at bay. We have an area within the patch where our dogs have a graveyard and an occasional once a year strim keeps that area Ivy free. In another area a horrendous concrete block wall is effectively covered by the stuff and I’d be sad if my wife had her way and found a way to destroy it.

[emoji1312]Multiple stems, many of which are under compression or tension makes for some careful cutting consideration…,

True, but they are at least built like tanks

Had the same issue with a less than year old Siemens dishwasher. A rat had gotten in and chewed some kitchen wiring and the dishwasher outflow/wastewater pipe. Because of the washers outer surface not being smooth enough to slip a large enough replacement pipe over it, it required a genuine replacement new part. Knew it couldn’t be covered under warranty so did the job myself. The original part was obviously a part of the early build as near enough the entire machine needed disassembled to fit the replacement part into its hidden compartment.