epsilonGreedy

I have discovered the utility value of bar clamps in recent weeks while fitting fascias, so I am going to buy a few more. The two Eurbauers I have been using came bundled with track saw and are budget models I assume. So off the Screwfix for a few extra clamps and I am confused that Irwin offer three models of a 6" clamp with a 3x price range. Apart from the larger jaws on the £20 model what else justifies the price difference? £6 https://www.screwfix.com/p/irwin-quick-grip-mini-bar-clamp-6/29139 £12 https://www.screwfix.com/p/irwin-quick-grip-bar-clamp-spreader-6/48687 £20 https://www.screwfix.com/p/irwin-quick-grip-xp-bar-clamp-6/99973#product_additional_details_container

11.5 GW of wind power right now as this cold front stirs up the North Sea with its wind farms.

And so did mini ice ages, at least we have eliminated that risk.

All the houses near me were done as I describe. If a cut slip is inserted either side of the plastic vent then we are only talking about 6" gap. By analogy would you expect a lintel in the outer wall to bridge over the top of the 8" wide plastic air brick? The floor team usually leave the vents loose in the 50mm gap so that the brickies can horizontally align the vent and air brick with the bond pattern of the facing bricks at DPC.

But that 7N is just a rough and ready indicator of compressive strength. You can buy a 7N fibolight, 7N hemlite and 19kg heavy and they will all tick the 7N category but are very differ beasts strength wise. I had to hack one hemlite out of my finished block & beam raft and discovered how strong such a block is. A 19kg heavy block is virtually a lintel without the steel rod.

That is a different footing wall make up with aircrete blocks and for some reason the vents are position very low on the inside. The plastic vents are sized to slip through the 50mm gap under a floor block between two beams. Those heavy blocks around you perimeter are incredibly strong. Don't worry, just ensure the 40mm slips are fitted all around. @PeterWwill be along shortly to provide a definitive remote inspection.

@MoonshineAre you talking about vents for the void under the block & beam floor? If so don't worry the plastic telescopic vents slide through the 50mm gap. The important stage of the job is to fit the 40mm mini coursing slips around the perimeter. Is your DPC unusually high relative to the block & beam floor? Edit: Looking at your photo the brickie has used stronger floor blocks around the perimeter. They look like 19kg heavies and the rest might be something like 14kg Hemlites or 8kg Fibolites, so no lintels required. @nodis talking about sleeper wall ventilation to allow air circulation between the sections of the under floor void. He put down a layer of concrete over the sub soil and his photo shows that before the floor beams were fitted, I think?

I have not heard of that version of history. In my comprehension of Soviet history khrushchev gave away The Crimea in an administrative event 60 years ago. In the heady Sputnik era khrushchev wanted to acknowledge The Ukraine's contribution to the Soviet success story and engaged in some devolution of regional power to the Ukraine and at the flick of a pen packed the Crimea into the devolution deal. At the time it was inconceivable the USSR would fall apart so chaotically and when it did Ukraine acquired The Crimea as an accidental by-product. Russia moved into the Crimea in the 1700's partly to control the Tartar's who had traded 2 million Slavs in a slave trade that had been running for 200 years prior to the Russian arrival. Well now you are getting silly by picking arbitrary dates from history. Should France as a winner in WWII hand back bits of Germany it acquired? What about Gibraltar or parts of the USA once owned by Mexico?

I assume this claim of expansion is confined to the Ukraine? If that is the case consider in a short period of time: Ukraine threatened to take back the Russian Black Sea naval base when some notional lease had expired. Some in the West started talking about admitting Ukraine to NATO. The EU started offering dosh to ferment anti Russian politics in the Ukraine. A popular uprising in Ukraine ousted the pro Russian national leader. An extreme Ukrainian MP was exposed having a conversation about exterminating Russians. Russia stopped supplying heavily subsidized gas to Ukraine and demanded payment at open market prices. Ukraine started stealing gas from the pipeline before it got to Europe. Russia decided to take back the Crimea which had been Russian since before the United Stated was created. Employees of a pro Russian organization in a southern Ukrainian city were surrounded and burnt to death or jumped to their deaths when their building was torched. While all of this was going on the West was engineering the fall of the pro Russian Government in Syria. putting at risk their last friendly naval port in the Med. Finally they moved on eastern Ukraine that had been ethnically Russian for 100's of years. The West decided to the crash the international value of the ruble. Would you want your pipeline running through such a country? Germany obviously concurred with Russia, no.

Nope still don't get it. Prevailing opinions currently being offered are: New pipeline to Europe = proof of bad Russia because it is trying to engineer a geo political advantage over NATO Non operating new pipeline caused by internal western politics = proof of bad Russia

Who? Nato? Again? Who are you now referring to Germany, Poland or Ukraine?

Not really, the concept contests basic thermodynamic physics. Compressing air causes that volume of air to shed heat energy and then on re-expansion extra energy input is required to stop the system frosting up. Imagine a battery that requires special cooling pipes operating when being charged and then needs a hotair gun directed at it when the battery is releasing energy as it discharges.

Has does not selling gas further Russia's territorial expansion towards the Indian Ocean? Since their withdrawal from Afghanistan and the breakup of the USSR progress towards the Indian Ocean has been negative. It seems to me that the pipeline would be delivering gas today had there not been 5 years of meddling internal western politics. Way back when Russia took control of the Crimea I remember the UK and the US were berating Germany for planning the new gas link. Ever since the US has been trying to delay and extract facing saving concessions from Russia and Germany before agreeing to drop opposition to the opening of the pipeline. Russia wants income from gas sales and Germany can afford to pay the price, it really should be that simple.

This reminds me of a West Wing episode where the White House invites all of America's green pressure groups to attend a day long symposium in order to boost the president's renewables reputation. What actually happens is the greens spend the day bickering with each other over whose green solution is the best. Is it April Fools Day already!

These just reflect the current situation where all additional wind capacity is welcome to reduce reliance on gas.

My translation = Not content with burning down Windsor Castle, stately homes and Her Majesty's warships, contractors have now turned their attention to vital national infrastructure.

I do not agree with this. Although equipment and installation costs might be falling the incentive to build a wind farm is largely governed by the load factor. When Nuclear + Wind + Solar output routinely exceeds UK demand then the prevailing load factors must begin to drop. Put more simply in the future wind farms will spend more time not selling power to the national grid during a decent breeze because there is an excess point-in-time capacity. Things will might move a few percentage points in a favourable direction but the underlying problem remains, we need a big excess multiple in headline wind capacity to keep the lights on during a period of slow weather. We will be building 10's of Gw of new wind capacity in the full knowledge such farms will spend more time idle due to no demand, consumers will have to pay for this. Take the last 6 week where wind power was mostly below 10% of headline capacity, now shift that weather experience to February 2025, then factor in a halving of our current nuclear capacity, then factor in the dismantling of our remaining coal capacity and we are very close to blackouts. Experts have worked the numbers, a few years ago they concluded we needed a x4 increase in interconnects across the whole of Europe to shift excess renewable output to regions of temporary weather related deficit and I think we needed a x3 capacity increase in wind to create a reasonable chance there was enough excess capacity somewhere to redistribute elsewhere across Europe..

I am on the British gas (electric supply only) variable rate of 20p kwh. They know my consumption and their quote page concedes the switch to their own fixed deal will add 20% to my annual electricity bill. What do they know that we don't ?

Let me see if I am reading your graph correctly, today the price for gas delivery in Winter22 has doubled to 80 something? If this is correct then I do not see much hope for better fixed kwh domestic prices in the near future. There are so many sub waves in that graph it is difficult to interpret with the global dash to wind and coal station closure, Covid recovery, declining north sea output to the UK, Russian gas pipe politics and the UK's poor gas storage capacity. In the medium term when wind+solar routinely to exceed total demand (today's weather in say 2026 is the type of example) the gas price will drop but the cost of installing new wind farms will increase because the operators will know they will supply the grid less often as they will be asked to feather their turbine blades. However we will eventually need a headline wind capacity of 3x winter demand to keep the lights on from CO2 free sources, so in effect the kwh price will be hiked to fund the building of the excess wind capacity.

Welcome to the countryside, nothing odd about it ? Relocating a family to a static without mains power just as winter approaches will be very stressful, be prepared to rig up outside lighting and lay down temporary gravel paths. Many find an extra home built porch helps. Offer the neighbour a no nonsense metered hook-up with a large margin of +£0.10 per kwh and you will be better off then spending money on your own offgrid generator/battery/low voltage setup. How long before the house is finished?

I doubt global gas price contracts swing up and down as each windy weather system approaches Scotland. The people pricing our domestic kwh rate will be taking a 6 to 18 month view on commodity prices based on annual averages of weather and wind power production. The overall contribution of wind power across Europe as I type this is 11.6%.

Doh this was meant to be an edit to my previous post. Where is the delete button?

Laundry needs a mention in this discussion. I physically burnt out a 13amp plug that supplied the shed housing a washing machine and tumble dryer.

Yes, it is far more effective at killing millions of birds.

I had one of those for years, the mast on my yacht would vibrate for hours in some wind directions.