mending things

Things have moved on since my previous blog regarding GU10 halogen bulbs. To recap, 10 years ago we had our house extended and rewired. We had 40 recessed halogen light fittings installed, the type which runs from 240V main voltage (GU10) not the 12v system (MR16). While the light is good, and the reliability of the bulbs has improved, they still use a lot of electricity (50 or 35 watt types) and get very hot. In my previous blog I explored the options which were available including first generation LED bulbs and Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL) in the GU10 size. That was two years ago , and at that time LED bulbs were not up to the job and CFL's , typically Megaman variety seemed the best alternative. These consumed only 11 watts and give pretty good light from a few minutes after turn on. I posted a few follow-ups as I tried a few next generation LED bulbs and this post picks up at that point. In my utility room I had 4 of the Megaman brand CFL GU10 bulbs and these seemed to be t...

Pallets are all around. I see them as I drive about. In yards, loading bays and car parks. I have collected some, with the approval of the site owners, nay, with the enthusiastic approval of the site owners. There is a lot you can do with pallets. You can build compost enclosures. Here is one from my garden - 6 pallets and 12 cable ties and you have a really good compost bin. You can cut up pallets for firewood. Breaking them apart is hard, a circular saw is the best way I have found. Only use untreated or unpainted pallets for firewood as burning the other sort will give off various toxic substances . Pallets range in size and construction but most have rectangular blocks in the corners , middle and centre positions to take the weight. These burn especially well, though on some they are made from compressed wood chips and unsuitable for burning. the pallet plank wood is soft wood and burns very well but rather quickly. Sometimes it's worth taking 4 or 5 pieces and nailing the...

So sometimes I fail to fix things, and it is only fair to document those occasions too. I am very fond of the stories of Sherlock Holmes. In the short story "The Adventure of the Yellow Face", set at Norbury, Staffordshire. Holmes gets the case completely wrong. Later Holmes says: " Watson, if it should ever strike you that I am getting a little overconfident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper 'Norbury' in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you. " For me, that whisper goes ' nano ' A few weeks ago I opened the washing machine and out tumbled my sons iPod nano, with the recently washed clothes. It had been in his shirt pocket and not been noticed. So.... consulting the web the general consensus was that slow drying stood the best chance of resurrecting the device. Some advocated keeping the iPod in a bag of dry rice. I just placed it inside our airing cupboard and left it for a week. I then pl...

Well the trusty old Dell Dimension 2350 is still going strong. I decided to replace the power supply with a more efficient one. If you've read my earlier Dell post you will know that the original Dell PSU started to fail some years ago and was replaced with a gold Sweex Brand 400 watt supply, which has worked well. I decided to replace the Sweex with a 400Watt AKASA AK-P040FG8 which is 80plus rated . This means it is more energy efficient. The Sweex was fine, but I didn't really do much research when I bought it, and I had another project in need of the Sweex , so it seemed like a good idea to upgrade the one in the Dell to a more energy efficient design. My Son had also seen the occasional lock up of the PC while running games and iTunes simultaneously, and I thought this might be due to PSU demand. However before replacing it I wanted to do some tests of standing and peak power consumption of the PC with both the Sweex and Akasa power supplies. I plugged the PC into an en...

Having been interested in music and audio equipment since the late 70's, I hate to see old speakers go to waste, especially when they classic British vintage designs like Wharfedale, Leak, ,Mission,Celestion etc. I subscribe to freecycle and sometimes I see old speakers come up on there, usually because they are damaged in some way. I'm no expert on this, but have managed to cheaply get some pairs back to working and presentable state. It's actually not that hard. If certain collectable brands ever came up (i.e Tannoy, Lowther) I know enough not to attempt this kind of "get you home" repair and would consult the experts. The speakers described here are high quality models from the 70's/80's that were produced in large numbers, and while very good, they are not that valuable. The Leaks The first pair I got from freecycle were a pair of 70's vintage Leak 2020 sandwich speakers. The term sandwich refers to the technology that Harold Leak used...

I know more than I want to about these light bulbs. While the UK Government is waging war on the 100 watt incandescent light bulb, they have, typically, ignored the growing trend of using these bulbs. I guess they pay people to change bulbs for them. We had our house gutted and rebuilt in 2000, and as a consequence had around 40 recessed lights fitted, each of which take the GU10 mains voltage (240v) GU10 light bulbs. At first, the main issue was that the halogen bulbs had a very short life span and cost a lot to buy, around £5. I seemed to be changing a couple a week. Things have improved and now the bulbs are relatively cheap ( £1-£2) and have a fairly long life expectancy. So what is my gripe ? Well these bulbs are rated at a hefty 35 or 50 watts. The packaging even implies that they are energy saving in some way, but of course watts are watts. i If you have 5 * 50 watts halogen bulbs in your kitchen, then you are using a unit every 4 hours they are on. If I turn on all th...

I am on an Economy 7 electricity tariff. E7 , as it's abbreviated, offers lower cost electricity at night, but with slightly higher day rate and standing charge. The original reason for E7 was so the Electricity providers to reduce the peak demand. In very general terms, the electricity we are using now is being generated now. This means that the grid has to anticipate peak demand, fro example the ad break in the middle of "Coronation Street" , when millions of viewers get up and switch electric kettles on. By encouraging people to use electricity during off-peak times i.e at night, less generators have to be bought online. Also the mix of generators determines the amount of CO2. For live CO2 data from the grid see http://realtimecarbon.org/ You can see that the mount of CO2 released in grams per unit is at it's lowest at night. Also lowering peak demand means less power stations needing to be built The biggest household use of electricity is heating water and space ...