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richi

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Everything posted by richi

  1. richi
    tl;dr: it forces calcium ions to flocculate, thus forming a colloid. So it's similar in effect to phosphate dosing, but costs £700–£1,000.
  2. richi
    The many-levels of FAQs lead to test results done for some reason in Canada, 14 years ago. Two out of three tests show a <3% reduction in surface tension, the third test shows a <15% reduction at room temp—the results are described as "dramatically decreased." (As an aside, is it normal to use the archaic dyne scale to measure surface tension? Surely Canada used SI units in 2004?)
  3. richi
    From the patent, the claim is that it conditions the water so that salts don't precipitate out as hard scale, not that it softens. But it's still unclear to me how it achieves this—the patent describes turbulent flow through and around disks of dissimilar electronegativity as being the key, but if there's no catalytic effect, nor any sacrificing of the metals, of course it's going to sound like pseudoscience! "Polly" has been asked to explain this or give references that explain the effect, but all the replies appear to me to dodge the question.
  4. richi
    I was referring to Jack
  5. richi
    Let's review. New member revives months-old thread to say positive things about a product in which she has an interest (presumably as a result of Googling the product name) Genuine questions are asked Questions are politely dodged Questions are dodged again Questions are dodged a third time Mods rule it's popcorn time Aside from our own amusement-bordering-on-trolling, why are we continuing to engage here? I get that @lizzie likes her unit, and that's cool, but we need a 3-strikes rule or something.
  6. richi
    Good point. As Cistermiser put it in their website FAQ:
  7. richi
    Are you sure you need a true softener? I'm pretty happy with my Combimate. The sequestered calcium dries to dust, which simply rubs off taps, etc. (rather than sticking). See this earlier comment and a few below it...
  8. richi
    Google Earth and Street View. The Pareto principle applies.
  9. richi
    As requested in a thread about battery storage of renewable generation: DoD -- depth of discharge (essentially the opposite of state of charge) SoH -- state of health (a percentage of how much charge it can hold, compared with the as-new spec) Wh -- Watt-hour (a measure of energy) BMS -- battery management system LiFePO4 -- lithium iron phosphate (a rechargeable battery chemistry)
  10. richi
    Soz. DoD -- depth of discharge (essentially the opposite of state of charge) SoH -- state of health (a percentage of how much charge it can hold, compared with the as-new spec) Wh -- Watt-hour (a measure of energy; a thousand Wh is a kWh) BMS -- battery management system LiFePO4 -- lithium iron phosphate (a rechargeable battery chemistry)
  11. richi
    This pleasantly kooky lady claims 8,000 cycles at 80% DoD gets you to 80% SoH. Price seems to be about US$1 per usable Wh. BMS included in each 12V pack. LiFePO4. So, including tax and shipping, say about £1.50/day for 10 kWh over 20+ years (neglecting time value of money).
  12. richi
    While we're recommending LED downlights, we used Collingwood H2 Pro 700 in the garage conversion/extension. It's a single-point LED, which dims down to a star-like speck on a good dimmer (we use Zano remote dimmers).
  13. richi
    I figured I'd missed something obvious. Thanks, Jeremy!
  14. richi
    Wow, that's still a lot of cash, unless I'm missing something. A "leisure" 12V lead-acid specced at 110 Ah is £85 from the local leisure shed. So be generous and call it £100 per kWh. No idea how much the inverter and BMS would be, but surely not thousands? Even if the L-A batteries have half the useful life of the Li-ion cells, the Sofar and Tesla systems seem pricey. I bet I'm missing something important.
  15. richi
    If you're in a low speed area, getting four Openreach pairs is a great idea. You can spin up ADSL2+ on more than one pair and load-share your internet usage across them. It just requires a home router that supports round-robin routing (there are a few). Or you can do "true" bonding, but that's requires an expensive service, similar to a VPN. Or you can go full-on Ethernet over multiple pairs, which is a business-grade symmetric service (and even more expensive). In the near future, one way BT Wholesale and TalkTalk might address the upcoming 10 Mb/s minimum speed USO is by using native ADSL2+ bonding -- it's a feature that's already in their MSAN kit in the exchanges, but hasn't ever been offered to consumer users. So, for example, a property that only gets 7 Mb/s can bond two lines to get 14 (well, probably a little less).
  16. richi
    The "area" Vent-Axia I used in the garage reno uses what looks like a load of plastic straws bundled together (and, no, I didn't pay anything like £720 for it!)
  17. richi
    ...assuming your meter doesn't have a fraud flag that trips when it runs backwards
  18. richi
    @Coopers and I pay ~£70 for a safety cert at our rental properties.
  19. richi
    Hard to say. Here's part of my quote from a year ago. We negotiated it down from this by £200 plus some rather nice oak cutlery trays to replace the "silver" plastic ones.
  20. richi
    I found Howdens to be excellent value, but they have at least three price lists: The retail price list (which you can't buy from, because they only sell to trade) The fake trade price list, which they'll "accidentally" give you when you show enough interest in the showroom -- roughly 30% off retail for the cabinets The real trade price list -- roughly 60-70% off retail I guess the idea is that they expect the tradesperson to pay #3, but let you think you're paying #2, so they get a nice cut of the deal. My tradesman didn't play those games. My experience is just with the cabinets and fittings. I didn't buy appliances or worktops from Howdens. The fittings are mainly Häefler, but don't seem to be marked up from what I could get direct.
  21. richi
    I read about another idea, supposedly appropriate for climates where it's often cloudy: Just mount the panels horizontally. The energy generated when it's cloudy is maximised, supposedly. Is this so much horsefeathers, or could there be something in it?
  22. richi
    Pretty damn good for a 1500m D-side, @JSHarris. Especially that uplink.
  23. richi
    Yeah this issue of changing the spec is rife. EV owners using 10 Amp "granny" chargers are frequently horrified to find their name-brand outdoor 13 Amp sockets melting (because the factory changed the internals for something cheaper).
  24. richi
    ...through the window?
  25. richi
    I guess the three pipes that @JSHarris mentions -- 15mm? -- and power for the outside unit
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