Baldbloke

Whenever I get a rattle can waved in my face I always ask what the representing CEO gets paid. As a result the Salvation Army, or local food banks are my usual go to. Both are largely run by volunteers or not paid excessively. Most people are clueless when it comes to 3rd world country charities. In the past I’ve been physically involved in aid to Africa and know exactly how funds and goods are wasted. You can guarantee that the organisers wages, and the governmental bribes and logistical costs and bribes of getting that aid into these countries uses up the best of the funds. Whenever I see TV adverts asking for donations my cynical side thinks of who the real beneficiaries are.

20kW turbine, but actually spikes at up to 25kW, although I have had it detuned slightly to save the thermistors regularly blowing and to hopefully allow the inverters and wind box to last for the 20 year subsidy contract. Produces below what was initially at point of sale promised (of course) @ around 50,000 kW annually. So although I’ve covered the initial investment, there’s annual servicing costs. @ around £1500, plus breakdown costs now that the warranty is out. Additionally I have just paid out a further 20k for a new front end and all new brushless motors which should hopefully give a few years service. After all, there’s another 13 years of potential subsidy at an increasing rate that is linked to RPI. I also took the company to arbitration early on for breach of contract and general dishonesty and eventually got paid a further 16k and had a rebuild of the turbine. So, stressful and costly, but can pay off.

Used to be nothing to stop you retaining either the log stoves or even a back up oil boiler. That is as long as you were adequately proficient in drawing a diagram to prove neither was naughtily bumping up the subsidy meter-age.

We used the correct MCS installer, followed his advice (in 2013 supposedly it wasn’t allowed to fit a RHI boiler unable to fully heat the property) and then applied only to be told the boiler was too big for domestic RHI……Complained to relevant overseeing body (think it was DECC) and eventually got back a tough shit letter explaining that domestic consumers didn’t need a boiler of that size to heat a seven bedroomed house, as they’d retrospectively decided on a 40 or 45kW limit. Ours was 60kW, and no, you couldn’t just get 2/3rds of the subsidy cap.Being a little pissed off at blowing 25k, without a chance of the promised incentive I invested a further £91k and installed a wind turbine as a domestic consumer in 2014. This gave me tax free income on all subsidy as well as a reduction in vat for the install (5%), all without giving the Inland Revenue a leg to stand on over tax after the DECC ruling. The biomass has actually now saved me 8 years of oil, except last year when I couldn’t be arsed cutting and oil was for buttons. It still works perfectly and the wind turbine has now already all but covered itself. Especially if you remember you can actually use all and any of the generated electric and still get the subsidy for what you use. I even have a multitude of electric immersions in my 4000 litre biomass accumulater/buffer tank, plus a hot tub all to make sure I get value. Would I ever get involved in other Green incentives, or knowingly install a biomass boiler without a subsidy back up? It worked for me because I’m bloody minded and don’t like being screwed over, but otherwise probably not.🤣 I should also add that I have access to timber (for the effort of dropping, dragging and logging - although I have in the past paid for 48 odd tons over the last eight years (when it was about £420 per wood lorry) through the former Forestry Commission.

Our biomass is about 20 metres from the house. An insulated hot feed and return (two pipes within one insulated casing) run underground to a room within the house where there’s a timer and splitters to run the radiators and then a feed off of that going through a coil within the hot water tank. Ours is slightly more involved as I retained the oil boiler in case heating oil prices makes cutting logs or feeding pellets not worth the effort. Such a year was last year when I fired up the biomass only twice. This year I’m going to have to get cutting[emoji2]

So very true. My wife works as a community midwife which nowadays includes writing reports on parental suitability and recommendations. She’s often writing up notes well into the evening and appearing at SW meetings on her days off. I’m more than a little aggrieved at her having to be involved in social work matters which I consider is not really a midwife’s job. However, good social workers are so thin on the ground, and drink, drug and abuse is so widespread that it appears that midwives are having to be multidisciplinary these days.

Tourette’s[emoji23]

Thank you for those pointers. I suspect that because they’re merely a woodland strip two deep that there’s too much in the way of knots for milling so will be best used for the biomass.

I suspected as much[emoji1303]

I wonder what weight is on some of these prospective drops? A small one that blew into the cemetery

Never realised you were local to me. There’s certainly enough clearing up work around here to keep you going for weeks.My wife is a community midwife and mentioned on her return home that there was a lot of hardwood trees down at Lintmill.

Good point. Yes, and they generally do a great job, but as it’s an ongoing job it’s normally limited to trimming rather than tree removal. Maybe I can suggest that the trees of most concern are those within striking distance of their spur line serving the neighbours house (as well as being the ones of most concern to me because they could also hit the neighbours house. Further along from that particular line of very mature spruces (perhaps 100+ years) one of the smaller trees did fall southwards in the direction of the house, but further up the road, and into the cemetery. Luckily a quick re-erection of a stone and tidy up sorted that out. I’d have liked to have posted pictures, but our internet is pathetic and times out before a download is possible.

True, but since you posted, I edited and added additional issues[emoji1] Plus the trees I mentioned border fields we own rather than within the gardens.

edited: Wonder if our Scottish property by being jointly owned by my wife and myself automatically means an allowance of dropping or cutting up 10 cubes a quarter (rather than my personal 5) before having to ask the authority?[emoji848] Following the recent storm and mature trees within striking distance of a neighbours house; I’m seriously considering having to drop the trees for my, their, and my unknowing insurers peace of mind. However, it’ll involve overhead power lines and a professional insured to do the job, - rather than me who’d be happy to tackle it but for the potential mentioned issues.

Having worked in quarries in the past I don’t think people realise how much diesel is used to power all the site traffic and plant. Come April when that requires white diesel to be used is going to heavily impact on construction costs.

I ran a bog standard 300TDI Defender 90 for work and then bought it from my work when they opted to renew it. For about 20 years It was forever doing towing jobs. The longest tow I did with it was about 1200 miles from the North of Scotland to Weymouth and back. I trailered down a light car down to my brother in Somerset before collecting an E class estate from Weymouth to return home. Used a twin axle Ifor Williams without the sides to scrape through the gross limit. It was possibly right on the limit for gross weight and to save the weave well over the tow bar weight limit. It sat comfortably at 60, but long motorway hills would see it down to 50. The tow bar weight limit is ridiculously low, although off hand I cannot remember exactly what it is.

Personally would be happier knowing that my short reach plug hole had a strong Helicoil in it to an original but limited depth of aluminium threads

I’ve never hunted foxes by being on a hay burner but have participated on dozens of days where a huntsman on foot tries to follow his pack of hounds pursuing foxes, while we try to figure out which cover the fox was heading for, so we can quietly line up and shoot him in passing. My speciality was at the end of a line with a rifle rather than with a shotgun within the line.What people don’t realise is that hounds mainly work through their noses rather than through sight. You often couldn’t risk a shot at a fox because in cover (not open ground) it was literally tiptoeing between the dogs. The dogs could be within a metre of the fox, be beside itself with the scent , and absolutely clueless how close it was. The fox meanwhile was totally aware of its surroundings, of every dog around it, and anyone with a gun that wasn’t well concealed. While my vote for efficiency goes to merely using dogs for driving foxes to guns, Commando is spot on in that the traditional hunt is the way to clean up all the old and infirm foxes in the area. While a traditional hunt might occasionally have killed the occasional infirm or unlucky fox, we’d be surprised at not getting half a dozen in a day. I can remember once after covering a lot of ground getting 15. Maybe townie foxes generally look so shit because they’re relying on those middle class anti blood sport vegan bin offerings[emoji848]

Guess I’ll be clearing this section this evening to allow an easier exit for tomorrow’s early start[emoji849]

We too lost a few trees on our ground, up in Moray.

After a bit of hibernation It got fired up recently to do some cross cutting I didn’t want the MS 260 to be burdened with. I’ll give it an ease off before using it again.[emoji1303]

Glad you got to the bottom of the issue. My 365 special has a reluctant decompression button that is reluctant to fully pop out after firing. I was initially wondering if your apparent loss of compression was due to something similar.

Very smart! I’ve only ever made raw Oak into 4 to 5” slabs for large durable outside benches and tables on riverbanks. Where I used nails to secure the pieces it stained the immediate surrounding area as if with iodine. Presumably this was because of the moisture content reacting with the iron/steel nails, and not something likely to happen with seasoned floor boards?

Totally agree. I’ve a friend that does flooring as well as giving trusted advice. We’ve recently had engineered oak put down over a 37 square metre floor and having a smaller room done in a couple of weeks. I could’ve bought oak planks without the seemingly tacky ply attached but was warned by him that it would likely warp slightly and require resanding on occasion. He also suggested that sanding doesn’t stop gaps appearing, I went with his advice and took the engineered oak,- inspite of it actually being dearer. In my previous house I bought maple planks from the demolished Cadbury Edinburgh factory to put into a sitting room floor. No issues there except for a weekends work with sander hire.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/225857120878492/permalink/2436895153108000/?sale_post_id=2436895153108000 The last artic load I bought about 3 years ago was around £420.00 plus delivery. Think I need to get cutting.