scottishjohn

last year we hard serious attacks from ravens -to an extent where they were hurting themselves leaving traces of blood on the windows ,as well as pecked rubber seals one presumes they were fighting their reflections hoping they have got the message now that there are people living here and do not continue this year i tried to shoot the buggers ,but they know exactly the range of a shot gun and which tree to sit which is out of range and just craw at us when we appear

I take you are not electric only but have a fire or oil heating my grid voltage is very stable here all the time

I will take a referral --and see how it looks

then I am going to guess you do not have many wind farms close to you I can see 5 windfarms on the horizon from my front window -in the distance ,so its like watching kiddies windmills on a beach and another 2 big ones to be built within 20miles of me very soon --which i will also be able to see i will look into it though-providing it does not up set my current contract

I,ve heard of it and they will only take it when they want it and that will be from people where there is not an excess of wind energy for them to get so it will not happen for anyone in scotland --cos we export it every day

it shows there is plenty of wind or they would not have sited it there

can,t see that being a starter

at that price iwill be dead before its paid itself off going by what they say is the annual production looking at wind chart for my location it looks like a mean 6.5 mpersec over the year but some months are 8mpersec I know there are lots of days when you would not even attempt to open the bifold doors If you look at my blog you will see it is very exposed and lots of space to put it away and above the house the big 125kw turbine at the farm cost 640K 13 years ago but is returning him 125-150k a year so it paid for itself pretty quick

I am on the top of a hill and get lots of wind there is a 125kw big turbine on the farm just behind me so it is the right place was looking for any real world experience if anybody has any this winter i spent alot of time in cloud --so solar had no chance the original house was not built with a front door of any sort as it faces south west and the courtyard at the back had walls and doors to keep wind out

are there any reliable and sensibly priced wind turbines that are worth looking at I have solar but that don,t work in winter ,but i do get lots of wind as I am in exposed position about 350ft above the estuary Is it worth t considering something at 5-10kw any working examples would be good

stress over time on the fixings etc -so they dig it up and start again

only if i sold osme -wind men get money when the turbines are sitting doing nothing --thats the difference

wind power --who in their right mind would sign a contract that says they get paid if they turn them off I would love to have run a company where i got paid if I did not produce anything and if you work out how much pollution is caused making the things and the amount of c02 in the huge concrete bases and when they get replaced they need a new base --it just don,t stack up its about getting a quick return not what is best long term we have hydro scheme on the river Dee in s.w scotland -uses same water 3 times and was built in1937 still running now --that is the right way hydro and tidal barages but they do not get a [payback for a long time compared to wind or solar the desert in america is full of old wind turbine blades that they cannot recycle economically - so they just lie there --thats not net zero

I suspect the design life is to justify the high price they want per kilowatt as if they gave it a 50 year life the capitol rite off costs per year would be 50% CHEAPER

looking at it again I would go back up there when its raining the stain on ceiling will most likely caused by water -- not bee/wasp residue

the acorn thing would be an old wasp nest--some types do not make big nests -but lookd like they keep coming back they chew up wood or similar to make the nests

that will be because over time the back of the gabion could get cloggedwith silt -so he wants a drain at bottom to carry it away Isusepect any make of perforated land drai nwill do - make sure you surround it with pea gravel so it odes not clog a 3m retaing wall could hold a lot of water andturn into slurry which would take your wall away --that why he wants a seperate drain to stop this happening could also be the type of ground you are in do you have a concrete found for the gabion ? when i did mine ihad about 12" of rock rubble behind the gabion for the first m from the base to stop this happening Ialos have mine filledwith granite wste from the quarry -my ground is very free draining

are you in a hard water area ? with no softening treatment on the supply something else to consider -as it could scale up your boiler over time ask your heating engineer

I,m electric only heat pump and UFH Ishould aslo say the house is 400sqm floor area

put solar on the new house last year and now having had a winter can say that i didi it wrong i went for 13.6kw of panels--no problem but went for 17kw of batteries -iwa going to go for only 4 batteries in the stack --but when they found they could not fit 30 panels and had to fit only 26 the deal was i get another battery instead the bottom line is that when its all working on a sunny day then the batteries fill up quick but in winter get nothing with the intelligent octopus tariff they pay you same as they charge you for electic ,so once batteries are ful it goes back anyway at 27p a unit and the batteries then discharge between 16.00 and 20,00 hrs at 29p sounds good but it will never pay back the cost of to many batteries I am electric only so I am always importing in badmonths so better just to fill smaller batteries sooner and just take the 27p for the rest of it -the 3p extra form storage will never pay for the extra batteries the other thing that happens is it priorities filling batteries ,so like today I am paying out for import even though its charging batteries -yes iget 3p more when selling back -but not the point If doing it again yes all the panels the roof will hold .but do not go over the top on batteries ,unless you are dual fuel and then you would store and use it later

you sure you cannot change the design to reuse the muck on your site for landscaping etc ?

I had same problem and Ihave it claim it back for hmrc -with vat reclaim same as all the other stuff you will be buying zero rate will only apply if work being done by main contractor vat reclaim

I would not use CT! --just use the wate plugging cement even on damp surfaces

I had a similar but larger problem when trying to control the water leaks on my firepond there was pressure as well with my leaks in the 5 meter wall behind the pond and a constant flow it was a sika _plugging fast setting cement mix it up and you got 5mins to get it on -so small areas at a time and can be use under water if you press it hard onto the leak took me 2 days frigging about to gat all the leaks plugged but it worked mix it up till its like sloppy putty --then GO I even used it on my water course --old water supply made from stones just laid on each other problem was it was leaking too much from the stone culvert and coming outanywhere it like where it went through the wall and not where I wanted it contained in the stone work imagine a stone culvert coming to a dry stone dyke and trying to get all going where you wanted on the other side --then you will get the picture did not matter with original set up as all the leaks ended up in the open collector at other side of wall , but as i was piping it in 300m twin wall all the way down to firepond 8mm drop and 20m downhill to where it meets the wall above the firepond I did not want it to form another stream under the piping and end up with the wall collapsing as it had done in the past - not a problem then as it made its way into the stone culvert which heads off across my courtyard and down the 95m drop into the quarry that stone culvert I replaced with more 300mm twin wall problem sloved but alot of frigging about

so far from my searching I can find a few different products that would work however because granite is non porous it will sit on top if i do it all voer and permagaurd say it it will discolour with age if it is not absorbed so best idea so far is to just paint it on all the pointing joints I can see now where new stone work has been done that even though waterproofer was added to the mix it changes colour when its wet so first trial will be to coat those areas and see if it then does not change when it gets wet then we on a winner my real problem is it was pointed --80-100years+ ago with a mix using granite sand + cament and ground cockle shells -- not lime mortar being a quarry with a stone crusher it is obvious why they used free granite sand and probably some of the beach as well it also looks similar colour to the stone work which is why all my repairs to insdie walls were sone in nornmal cement mortar no point in going lime which gould take weeks to dry I wanted to get on and as there was always going to be a gap to the TF inside any water could evaporate up the gap to the cold roof the small area i have repointed with modern cement mortar , were an absoute nightmare to chip out the rock hard old motar although the actual walls of course were built with lime mortar they even used the cockle shells in the infilll mortar and small stones in the center of the walls I have solid walls . not the usual outer skin then rubble and an innner skin its been mortared up all the way through that could acount for why the walls were basically so solid after best part of 250 years and why the trees growing around it when i came did not manage to move anything -that and the stone work is built on solid rock for most of it I dug down 3ft outside the walls before i started and it was built to 3 ft below ground level in most places I got more water ingress last year and i am guessing the walls which were open at top for 60 years were still drying out only showing above the downstairs window reaveals so some special attention will be paid to make sure its not coming around them IF i was doing it again i would fit lead around all the window openings ,full depth of wall but that would have meant pulling out all the lintels to do it but If anyone is doing similar and making window openings larger i would strongly advise that is the way to do it since istarted asking questions and looking around ifound that was the 100% cure for old stone walls especialy with lime mortar I have another water problem with my garage which was built from blocks attached to the unrenvated part of the building -- If I ever get round to doing that then this wall will not be showing .so iwill try the cheaper silicone cream on there which has a shiny finish TEMU special at £40 for 4 kgs as opposed to £150 for premagaurd --worth a try and disclouration will not be a problem there