SteamyTea

I agree with that from a water saving perspective, but as the article says, from the plants point of view, it make no difference. It is probably of more importance to commercial horticulture, which is a bit of a environmental disaster in my opinion.

You can water when you like. Why watering your plants at midday won't damage their leaves It is a long-held idea that midday watering will scorch plants' foliage and damage their health – but this isn’t supported by the evidence, says James Wong By James Wong 10 May 2023 rbkomar/Getty Images AS A botanist, gardening has – unsurprisingly – fascinated me since I can remember. However, it isn’t only the mysteries of plants that I find so full of wonder, but also the colourful, and often puzzling, human behaviour we see in the world of horticulture. Steeped in centuries of received wisdom, gardening’s many “rules” have been repeated so often they can seem like incontrovertible truths. This is despite scientific trials demonstrating that many have little basis in fact, so following them may be unnecessary at best and could give you inferior results at worst. A classic example is the long-held idea that watering plants around noon on a sunny day should be avoided, since it might harm their leaves. The explanation is that tiny water droplets can act like lenses, focusing the sun’s rays onto sections of leaves just like a magnifying glass would, resulting in scorched foliage and reduced plant health. This belief has even been cited by professional foresters as the cause of wildfires. Given the devastating impact these can have, it is pretty astonishing that the first scientific article on the topic wasn’t published until 2010. Four researchers – most of whom were at Eötvös Loránd University in Hungary – set out to learn more, running experiments on living plants and carrying out computer modelling. They found that spreading small glass spheres over the surface of smooth-leaved plants could indeed have this “magnifying glass” effect, causing damage right across the leaf surface. But when this was repeated with actual water droplets, such damage didn’t occur. This is because water behaves rather differently to glass. Firstly, the shape of a water droplet on a leaf is more elliptical than spherical. The computer modelling showed that the maximum damage through a lens of this shape would occur when the sun was at a low angle in the sky, so in the morning or in the afternoon. However, the sun’s intensity at these times is too low to cause any harm. Even if the intense light of the midday sun did somehow come at the most potent angle, the heat at this time of day would invariably cause the water droplets to evaporate before they had an effect. The moral of the story? If your plants are in need of a good watering, give them some water. Not watering thirsty plants on a hot and sunny day for fear of leaf scorch will almost certainly lead to more damage from drought stress than could be caused by the magnifying glass effect. While it remains generally true that the ideal time to water a plant is in the morning or evening – to lessen the amount of water that evaporates before reaching the plant’s roots – the evidence doesn’t support the idea that watering at midday will cause burning.

Was there this morning. Yes, basically make a long, thin wedge out of some PU/PIR sheet. Sand/grind the old top coat off around the area that needs re-matting up. Pop the wedge in, then lay up as normal will polyester resin. Once hard, sand and apply the coloured top coat. I would suggest coming over tomorrow, but it is going to be raining.

I think the physics are against that. Higher Heating Value of natural gas is14.5 kWh/kg, the Lower Heating Value is 13.1 kWh/kg.

Should read GWH.

That is what we elect governments for though. Without government legislation, it becomes a free for all and when that happens, the shysters and con artists arrive. That has to be avoided. It is always better to tackle the big problems first, they have the highest number of low hanging fruit. The easy way around it is a CO2e tax. Then the only argument is how much a tonne.

is part of the problem with windows is that most people want them large, as large as possible?

CCGT produces around 490 CO2 tonnes/MWH. https://gridwatch.co.uk/co2-emissions So a heat pump at CoP 2.5 is in the region of 200g/kWh. A combi boiler is around 220g/kWh. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/POST-PN-0523/POST-PN-0523.pdf If all our marginal generation was via CCGT (which it is pretty close to at the moment), then the CoP figure of 2.5 is about right. Can they reach 110% reliably? then they will equal the 200gkWh. I am sure I heard on the radio during the week that hydrogen research has been dropped (in the UK) and it is all about CCS (again, again, again). The main thing is to reduce CO2e emission in all sectors of society. This is the 2020 government report about it. If we must pick one thing, it won't be personal transport or housing. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint/carbon-footprint-for-the-uk-and-england-to-2019

Where you to, may be easier to call around.

Yes. But nothing to stop a second layer going over the top. That is one of the beauties of GRP, you can hack it about and then stick more on.

Easy, make up a fall from PIR, then lay up with GRP.

What is a bit silly is that the energy suppliers know the actual usage, and they can share that data. That takes a lot of the guess work out of it all.

Would have to look at the underlying data and assumptions. Do people in old draughty houses have colder houses? If the assumption is that all houses have a mean internal temperature of 20⁰C, but F and G are in the real world 18⁰C. Then the assumption is right, but the data may be misleading.

Why not have a go yourself.

I think you can get automatic versions of those, @Nickfromwales fitted one if I remember rightly.

That does beg the question as to how much power do you want this, basically off grid system, to be able to deliver. Think you would need some sort of safely cut off to totally isolate the house when there is a power cut, and I think that regular inverters use the grid impedance for that, not the voltage and frequency, they are second line of defence.

cough

Almost. It is the stiffness. As 'sound' is really just a mass of air moving, it has kinetic energy. If it hits something that can easily bend, then some of that kinetic energy is absorbed, and ultimately converted to thermal energy, which is then radiated back out at a different frequency. You can, with a very stiff material, set up a room that would, for a fixed sound source and frequency, in such a manner that the reflected sound will interfere with the source and cancel itself out. The room will heat up though. One of the reasons that foams absorb sound so well is that they have unevenly sized and spaced voids in them, this sets up interference at the micro level. Some neoprenes, like wet suit material, can be very effective for very little added thickness. The other main reasons is that they are flexible, this allows the voids to change shape and size when compressed, absorbing a greater range of frequencies.

Ah, 'imprinting' how the racist in society control females in their own societies. Such an unfortunate term. Sorry, very off topic, just the way my wind works sometimes.

No. They trade in low carbon generation, not the same thing at all. Buying 1 MWh of low carbon generation, to be used sometime in the future, does not stop 1 MWh being generated elsewhere right now. Nor do I, but as I am on E7 I am having one fitted next month, if they turn up. As part of the EDF questioning and consent, if you are over 60 years old, they ask if you can be put on the preferential/vulnerable person register.

I don't think the images are doing it justice. Or is it like 'Spot the Ball'

There is the UK and then there is Cornwall. It is closer to France (192km) than London (411 km). I am told that there is an Ikea in Exeter (159 km) but as that is in Devon, one never stops if the flag of St. Piran is showing.

They make better stuff than Billy Bookshelves, god I wish were were still part of the EU.

Called hardboard.

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wood-beams-strength-d_1480.html Always look at engineering tool box, it has so much on it.