mending things

I have been monitoring my electricity consumptions for a number of years on the basis that, in order to reduce it, i need to understand it first, i.e. where does it all go ? Initially I took a reading from the meter once a week , then subtracted the past reading from the current reading to get the weekly usage. I did this in a spreadsheet. Now I use The imeasure which is a web site run by Oxford University. It does this and many more things, including gas consumption and factoring in weather conditions. I also monitor my real  time using a current cost device, monitoring the whole house, plus a couple of individual appliance monitors (IAM) which provide me data about individual appliances. I can publish this data to the Internet via the current cost NetSmart unit. All these methods give me a better idea of what I'm using and where it's going. I should explain that my household uses gas central heating as the primary source of heat and hot water. My weekly electricity usage...

Some while ago we got a 4 slot Dualit toaster. They look great with their 1950's Italian styling but actually are made in East London. They are also substantial and the hope was that, while they are more expensive they would last. Other toasters have not faired so well. Well they are very well made, but eventually one of the heating elements failed. Toast was getting heated on one side. Time to replace the element. I went to the Dualit website and ordered a new element. You need to know the model of toaster that you have. You also need to choose the right element. Within a toaster you have single sided heating elements for the two end positions and do uble sided for the positions between. My toaster has 4 slots meaning that I have 3double sided elements and 2 single sided. It was one of the double sided elements that had failed. I searched on google and found this   brilliant illustrated   site  By Peter Eland, on how to change the element. The only differenc...