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Everything posted by ProDave
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That's another statement I contest. I found almost by accident that dowsing works for me. I have done absolutely nothing to develop any skill.
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My point a few post above is it needs a massive movement of your hands to make the rods come together if you are just standing there. go on try it? When you are actually dowsing and you find something then the rods move together with no preceptible movement of your hands.
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Drivers, drivers everywhere - isn't there a better way?
ProDave replied to Benpointer's topic in Lighting
or mains powered lights? -
Advice on how water heating
ProDave replied to flanagaj's topic in General Self Build & DIY Discussion
Where are you mounting a cylinder with such limited height? -
I still want to know what makes the rods come together, as I am absolutely certain it is not movement of the holders hands. So rather than arguing does it find water or not? I would like to see any study into just WHAT makes the rods come together when they do? My example is my water connection. Scottish water sub contracted it. The subbies turned up, dug a hole where the plan said and found no water pipe. They dug deeper, no pipe. They dug further into the field, no pipe. They were about to pack up and go away so I went and got my rods. You could almost see them stifling laughter when I walked slowly into the field and "found" the pipe about a metre further than they had dug. They agreed to try a little further and there it was. I had no knowledge of where the pipe was and was as surprised as them that it was so far from where Scottish Waters plan said it was.
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The cost of extra materials for air tight is not much, for our TF house it was a few rolls of air tight membrane and a lot of air tight tape. The BIG thing is attention to detail at EVERY stage and by EVERY trade to avoid unnecessary holes of any size, anywhere. And then there are avoiding the planned holes. No individual extract fans (which most of the time are just an unwanted 100mm diameter hole in your building) No letter box, no cat flap, no open vented fire with a chimney or a flue, no trickle vents in windows. Instead you have MVHR that does all the ventilation with just one ballanced inlet and outlet and removes the need for all the other uncontrolled holes. And if you fit a stove, have one with ducted air inlet or otherwise known as room sealed. There are additional costs if you want good quality triple glazed windows etc. Our house has typical U values of 1.3 to 1.4 in the walls roof and floor, and even up here in the Highlands we don't have heating upstairs. If you are going to do it. seek detailed advice here, but it really means educating and supervising every trade. Don't just let the electrician and plumber drill holes where they feel like it. Plan it with them and keep an eye to make sure they stick to the plan.
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I found I can do dowsing. Don't ask me how, it just works. For the skeptics, I suggest you take two rods with bent ends and hold them in your hands. Now try and make them come together on purpose. You will find you have to twist your wrists quite a lot, certainly a very visible amount, to make the rods come together. Then watch someone dowsing and the rods come together without any visible movement of the hands of the person holding them. The comment above about them coming together about 1 metre past the target. I find that is more a time delay than an actual distance. Having got a rough location, pass by again walking very much slower and the point of action will be closer to the target.
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4 consumer units on a single supply
ProDave replied to JonChas's topic in Consumer Units, RCDs, MCBOs
Generator changeover switch https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/116460891458?_trksid=p2332490.c101875.m1851&itmprp=cksum%3A116460891458b79176b6849842dea54e82775ba14cf7|enc%3AAQAKAAABcAwqOHi2KCgf4%2F6SZSv1me4ebI%2FvqXEw%2FHB%2F8iWWqhXshqX5uohPx20BUGvMHd%2FNVdDC4KI%2FKTb49Rx8STjwMT6FumfvwgT%2BuVTaR3SZ3p348VRbA%2FTZNiAsQeTGoW59%2BW%2FUJrXmpr5hhWbI9yTw1RGQbyjxPcAqegqth%2FU5%2B%2FpivkqsLe%2FrQerAcD9BuwDR6wUgBHtodmc1uq7p424y098AjO5vgw8wt4m1TJ1TGXD1bx%2BesoaKZrYXrn8ohz0Zq%2BngYf8j2F7c0l%2FPPkplrlhzR6wh4mXIGCmmZTEPe9%2BgJDxTkiRBvaVvqTUncSj63wgzPU0TZoOAofoZPTDACotpFuElzYXKW9egCBQj9G3x4sHn0mRlYn32PuBoG0iAGQmiFYa7xpSC%2FZno%2FyP0Mk%2BklG4%2FB18cHBGP%2B%2B60N8XEu5fU9Z%2BJ51qUc3xqFNp%2BUa7iFTIZhtgCtiJhZFrMMOQUNqfkHU%2FCvH%2Bcd51h3nmn|ampid%3APLP_CLK|clp%3A2332490&itmmeta=01JTZ4RVZYWEQP5S31B8BNMH59 -
Ooooops - New windfarm cancelled.
ProDave replied to MikeSharp01's topic in Environmental Building Politics
^^^ Oh GOOD. In just 5 years, we are going to stop building ANY more wind farms. We just have to fight off the proposals until then. By which time the amount of renewables generated will flatten out. Planning to get roughly 1/4 of your electricity from "imports" in the long term seems a bad plan for energy security. -
Ooooops - New windfarm cancelled.
ProDave replied to MikeSharp01's topic in Environmental Building Politics
I have just submitted my objection to yet more wind farms close to here. My objection is on the basis we have enough already and there is no need for more power here. The planning system is disfunctional in that it only considers individual parts like "a wind farm" That planning application does not even consider HOW the power will get from the hill to the nearest substation. Let alone the high voltage grid additions or upgrades needed to transport the power hundreds of miles because they are building the damned things too far away from where the power is needed. -
Cost of reversing double garage conversion
ProDave replied to ignite-me's topic in Costing & Estimating
I think that door is one if the internal walls dividing the previous garage, so those will come down to make it back to one open space again. It is the door from the garage into the house that must be a fire door. It almost certainly was but we don't have a picture of that one. If not a fire door will need to be put back. -
Dumb question but surely these are copper pipes of a standard size, so can they not be joined with standard solder pipe fittings? Or does the pressure go too high when running?
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Specified ridge height. Relative to what though?
ProDave replied to flanagaj's topic in General Self Build & DIY Discussion
All our planning drawings were done with heights referenced to a temporary bench mark which was a row of nails driven into a fence post on the highest corner of the site. That is still there. Surely a ridge height is only important when it does not want to exceed that of neighbours. Nobody ever checked any of our heights. -
Blame Mrs T. It was under her watch we closed down the UKAEA and with that development of our home grown reactors which we used to build a lot quicker than that.
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It is the shape of the gravel that is important. You will regret getting round pebbles, whatever size, they don't interlock and will constantly move around when driving on them. Instead you want crushed or otherwise irregular shaped gravel that interlocks together better and so does not move around much as you drive over it.
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Insert an extra strong back, or equivalent through the web close to the bath to help ensure the load is spread
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As I keep saying. Scotland has enough wind generation for now. It is further south that needs more so time for them to have most of their hills covered in wind farms.
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U value Calculations for timber frame wall construction.
ProDave replied to Croccy's topic in Heat Insulation
Try SIG, Sheffield Insulation Group, there is probably a branch near you, they were way cheaper than anyone else and I got all my Frametherm from them. -
It is not normally that deep. There must be an extended neck for it to be that deep.
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As above, a basement under an existing building is NOT in any way a DIY job.
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If the level in the STP has got that high then there is something seriously wrong (blocked outlet) and the original VERY low inlet pipe would be completely swamped and blocked long before that. If that original low level pipe has never given trouble, then the new higher one is not in danger.
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Looking at gridwatch right now, Wind is supplying 9% of demand and solar 24% Clearly solar will drop to 0% when the sun goes down. Just where do they think we are going to get to 100% carbon neutral without many multiples of the wind farms we already have? And just what will we do when the wind does not blow (not uncommon)? Battery storage won't cover a week of winter anti cyclone. The "plan" is at best based on hope, not a proper plan.
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I went to a local information meeting for 2 more wind farm proposals near here. It was a bit of an eye opener. Yesterday was reasonably windy here (enough to need a reef in the sail) so you would expect wind generation to be reasonable. Yet in spite of that, wind was producing about 11% of our electricity while we were at that meeting. Lets think about that. Wind would need to get up to about 80% of our needs to ever stand a chance of net zero. So we would need 8 times as many wind farms as we have already to achieve that. Now go and stand on a Scottish mountain top. count the wind farms you can see. Imagine having 8 times that number of them. That is not going to be pretty. The wind farms we have are overloading the 2 high voltage pylons south from the Highlands already. If we have 8 times as many we will need at least an additional 10 similar high voltage pylon lines just to shift the power down to the south where it is needed. I am getting more and more angry at the sheep thinking we can build a few more wind farms up here because there is plenty of land and it's windy and it will solve all our problems. No it won't, not unless you completely trash the Scottish mountains so there is no unspoiled landscape left. Enough is enough. Build the bloody things down south where the power is needed. Cotswolds, Chilterns, Downs, etc don't have many do they, lets see them on all those hills before we get lumbered with any more. I am sure all those in favour of building them up here would object to them on the "nice" hills down south.
