Baldbloke

[emoji1303] Having to respond to complaints through either Court or Ombudsman means your insurer will need to use suitable legal expertise. That expertise will cost more than a few saws and sundry equipment. The threat of utilising either protection may we’ll make them reconsider. Go for it.

As an aside, you can always request transcripts of your conversations with your insurer. Over 12 years of taking insurance with this company it would stand to reason that they’d have an understanding of your business and it’s requirement of business travel out with of your premises. A few transcripts backing up your argument will show a court you’re being screwed over by a company unwilling to honour its obligations. And if you haven’t the confidence to try a small claims court, I’ve personally twice had satisfaction through an Ombudsman ruling. That’s done remotely and they’ll insist that the insurer releases those historic transcripts.

Bit of a wake up call for any vehicle that’s occasionally used away from home but stated on policy “as kept in garage overnight”Sounds like my motorcycles wouldn’t be insured for theft unless taken from my locked garage.[emoji848] Sorry to hear of your predicament, but if no satisfaction would personally raise a claim against your insurer through the small claims court. A cheap enough lever to seek redress, and small beer if unsuccessful.[emoji1303] Edit: Raising a claim through that impartial third party, - along with the negativity, might just make them reconsider your genuine claim without having to actually appear and represent yourself.

I took advantage of grant insulation a number of years ago and the chap who came around to scrutinise what was ideally needed wanted to pull out all of our internal plaster walls and ornate coving to properly insulate our rather large home. Seemed like total vandalism to me, although the way things are going it might be a necessity shortly. I just took advantage of the doubling up of loft insulation.

Your point about river water gaining heat throughout the day is very valid. I was a fishing ghillie for about 20 years and took the water temperature every day of the season, and sometimes two or three times a day. Being an old fashioned fu**** and Eurosceptic, I used Imperial measures rather than Celsius. I managed about 8 miles of river in the upper reaches. The daily water temp during a summer’s day could vary as much as 12 degrees F after a cool night followed by a roaster of a day. Night fishing for Seatrout could be severely impacted by the water being too warm, or when air temp was so much cooler than water temp and resulted in a mist over the water. I’ve also heard that hot water is supposedly less able to retain oxygen levels.

I’m sure heat pump efficiency has improved vastly over the years, but my experience of them about 18 years ago was not good. A scout building was considered too expensive to heat for its limited use plus a grant was available at the time too. 10 k worth of equipment was installed and ran until the first quarterly bill came in at over £800.00. The heat pump was removed shortly after that.

A very good question to which I’d struggle to accurately answer due to the oil tank being partly full and still using oil for its all too easy usability through the spring. Probably a couple of grands worth being a tight arse.What additionally complicates things is an oil Aga running most, if not all of the year. Our elderly neighbours admit to an annual oil bill of 7k for their pile.

Issues included taking the manufacturer and service provider to arbitration and their subsequent appeal against my award by contesting it through the High Commercial Court in London. This because of total destruction of their product and their attempt to replace my new turbine with a knackered 2nd hand one. I did the arbitration myself but come the HC Appeal I utilised my house insurance legal cover for the HC Appeal. That cost my insurers 60 K. This as well as other downtime associated with the ongoing breakdowns. This in spite of me being an acknowledged domestic consumer through Government bodies and the company’s own Directors at contract inception to reduce VAT from 20% to the correct 5%. Multiple hassles and breakdowns and expensive repairs (14k this year). Not for the faint hearted. Yet my 91k cost has actually been returned through the subsidies and award since 2014. 13 years of increasing subsidy to go as long as the bastard continues to rotate🤣

30 cube a year is about what we use from October to March for our 7 bed lump of a house through a 60kw biomass log boiler. No subsidies on ours, and because oil was so cheap last year I didn’t bother busting my arse cutting, and just used the oil boiler. This year looks like I might need to get my act together though, but the 20Kw wind turbine does help, -when it works.

The previous owners of the house had 1/3 of the property repointed in cement during 1976. Over 40 years later that work still looks sound. That’s in spite of the hard winters it has experienced since the 70s. Had it been old brick work or porous stonework such as sandstone I would’ve used lime. However, this house is built with igneous rocks rather than soft porous sedimentary types or suspect brick, so it’s unlikely to get moisture within the joints to cause any possibility of spalling.

It’s all either dressed granite on one side, and a mix of granite and hard dressed stones on the other side and zero soft sandstone. There was up to 3 coats of cement harl to remove to begin with. The lime underneath was shot and crumbled too easily. I did consider lime but in the end felt it needed a deep pointing and quite a bit of structural work with some 3 hundred weight stones and cracked lintels being replaced. Cement provided a quicker bond.The other four sides had already been cement pointed prior to us buying so I wasn’t too bothered about being fanatical about lime. I’ll be doing the farm Steadings in lime when I get a chance. The sides previously pointed in cement have no apparent damp issues either, which was another reason to continue with the cement.

Have an imported Mercedes that apart from the import, taxation and registration hassle doesn’t appear to be much dearer to insure. Maybe cause I’m an old fart.[emoji848]

Correct, my mistake.

The other issue is that relatively inaccessible young unguarded trees (between those stock fences) could become swamped by the grass/weeds. Guards can also provide a micro-climate boosting their growth. But if you haven’t got rabbits it would be very tempting to leave out the netting and guards. A forward thinking local farmer who’d planted an 8 acre field with young hardwood whips buried in loads of dead thin 15 foot trunks for the local tawny owls to perch on. We’ve loads of shrews up here, plus regular snow cover, and yet he didn’t bother with guards, and his losses from shrews were minimal. He did however net the perimeter as at the time we had rabbits.

All good points here. Just goes to show that everything hasn’t improved in quality. I believe some tree guards can break down saving that scenario. Although I can’t remember the last source I Bought from twelve years ago, my hedgerows have only the occasional tree guard remnant showing. Even the remaining unused guards in my darkened shed are now unusable as they’ve started to break down.

I’m long out of that game so can’t help with any costings. However, as well as width between the fences to preclude deer interference, and the option of rabbit netting, you might need to consider shrew guards too. This especially if you see snow cover. If that was the case it’s worth costing whether taller individual tree guards (which would cover rabbit/shrew/mouse issues)might actually be cheaper than the rabbit netting and its installation which is always suspect to damage from stock anyway. This as well as the hassle of regularly having to check the nettings integrity.

I recently bought a Dewalt 3/8 impact driver set that came with two batteries. A fantastic bit of kit for removing engine/ smaller suspension components in restricted spaces.

Thank you. Our house and where the cheapest quote came in at £60 k at £84 a square metre. Total DIY cost excluding labour was for 9 tonnes of sand, three of cement and three impact hammer drills @ £130 each plus sundries such as plasticiser, SDS chisels, etc. 184 hours for that west side you have pictured, but that included replacing a window over lintel and other building work, that would’ve been in addition to the professional quotes. The other side took less time but also included replacing 2 lintels and some crappy infill of brick around services that the harl concealed. I also have an old wanked out cherry picker that saved on the 2k erection of scaffolding and weekly rental of it that the professionals required.

For the garage with impact tools and small grinders i prefer Dewalt, but also have Makita grinders too. Just completed a big job of removing 300 square metres of harl along with a repoint. Bought 2 110 V makita hammer drills and 1 Chinese monster. One of the Makitas went back twice within two months for repairs. No quibble and well impressed with the abuse I gave them

Nice walk around the gardens. Didn’t require 4 hours but appreciate that earlier in the season it would have had more of a wow factor and needed for us to have taken more time. Bit overpriced, both for the experience in the autumn, as well as being well overpriced for a filled bun + tin of juice from the shop.

Nice job! Did a poorer job at 16 that’s also still standing as part of my first job after being chucked out of school. Farmer was going to show me how to do a drystone dyke but got waylaid, but was later impressed enough to see what I’d achieved that he let me do the remaining 100 odd yards unsupervised. What I detested was the planting of trees within the area I had to do afterwards….. I managed to write in ‘**************** off’ in 20 yard blocks in the wetter areas with deciduous Willow and Alder in amongst a Spruce planting which was appreciated by an aerial photographer a few decades later.

We visited The Eden Project a few years ago and enjoyed what was on offer but looking forward to an autumn stroll around the gardens tomorrow. Anything to especially look out for tree wise?

Yes, got the Tornado type of kit and run it off a drill. I feel it’s good for a gentle loosening of loose soot from a narrower flue, but slightly ineffective on the 9” jobs. But there again, had a professional in to check on the liners this year and he uses a very similar piece of kit so am now more assured of its capabilities.