ProDave

So they have PP. How are they going to get that past building control with no means of escape?

I must be either lucky or damned good at plasterboarding (you decide) I doubt the offcuts we had added up to much more than 3 or 4 sheets in total. They would all have gone in one run to the tip, but I got rid of them slowly for no effort by other means. Anything timber gets made into something or ends up on the WBS.

Shame they don't make a replacement bottom section that includes the steel plate already fixed to it.

This is the flue terminal for our WBS, an ordinary "China Man's Hat" type to stop rainwater coming down the flue. A few weeks back we were woken up by "a noise downstairs" It soon became clear a bird was in the flue, had gone all the way down and was on the baffle plate at the top of the stove. The easiest way to get it our was dismantle the flue pipe out of the stove that meant digging out the fire cement. On that occasion we got the bird, a starling, out alive. Because we are not using the stove I had not re sealed the flue with fire cement. Just back from holiday, SWMBO says "why is there soot on top of the stove around the (unsealed) flue pipe? This time we found a dead bird as we were obviously not around to get it out in time, So we need to stop this keep happening. All I can think is wrap the top of the terminal in chicken wire to reduce the size of opening?

The only niggle here is with a trailer, or a commercial vehicle, you have to sign a form and hand it in to declare the waste you are tipping is private waste not commercial. So my first visit with the trailer goes like this: Can I have your form please? What form? The council's form to declare that is it personal waste. Oh I didn't know about that. Give me a form please and I will fill it in. We don't keep the forms here. Where do I get the form? From the council office in town? So you want me to drive into town, find somewhere to park with the trailer, go and get the form, fill it in, then come back and you will allow me to tip it? Just go and tip your waste and bring a form next time...... An amusing one one from Oxfordshire, BIL had done some gardening. He had a 1 ton builders bag in the back of his Landrover full of garden waste. He pulls up outside the garden waste skip and starts dragging this bag out of the Landy. An operative approached at great speed "you can't tip that much". BIL points to sign that says "Garden waste, 1 car, 1 bag" How many cars have I got? How many bags have I got? Operative sulks off in a huff. BIL no longer welcome there.

Sometimes it seems these places are designed specifically to deter people from using them. And then they wonder why fly tipping happens.

The mower had other ideas. 1/4 of the way through the blade snapped in half. The post mortem reveals it has been cracked for some time (it has encountered a few obstructions / stones etc many times) Awaiting a new blade to continue.

They have been in about 4 years but the house has only been occupied for coming up to a year (and still a LONG way from finished)

Ours are painted wood inside (they had stopped doing "wood" finish when we bought ours. I assume they offer that again?) No problems at all. Never any condensation on the frames. Just normal maintenance, dusting and cleaning.

Yes. Don't want all that electricity getting all unwanted and exported now do we.

Our Bialetti is probably 25 years old. You can buy all the spares, e.g the O ring that seals the join lasts about 2 years, and once I dropped it and broke the handle, I bought a new replacement handle from someone on ebay. Do let us know if it works on an induction hob, I suspect being aluminium that it won't.

Shared freehold of flats works well in Scotland.

I can't stand all this fascination for frothed up milk in coffee. Time was you used the be able to ask for a "white coffee" (or as the Australians like to call it, a flat white) But if you ask for that now, you get something covered in froth. The only way now is ask for a black coffee, and then, when it arrives, ask if you can have some milk (or cream) to put in it.

Just had 2 weeks away leaving the house to look after itself. PV generation over that fortnight was a bit down on expectation. But not surprising, there has been a lot of rain here while we were away, it was on the news while away that the centre of Dingwall 12 miles from us flooded again (it last flooded in 2006 when they said that was a 1 in 100 year event) The PV panels kept the HW tank topped up, the ASHP used just 3KWh in addition to the solar PV power sent to the immersion heater. In that fortnight, we exported 24KWh which is roughly 4 times what we normally export. That will no doubt be when the immersion thermostat cut out and no more could be diverted to hot water.

I am just back from 2 weeks away. So 2 weeks with no cooking, no washing no tumble dryer etc. Just the usual stuff on standby, fridge etc. In that 2 weeks it used 39KWh per week or 5.6KWh per day. So that is as good a measure as I will get of our "base load"