Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

sss555s

michaels wrote: »

How about in a viva if you got the handling right the ride was always very good?

Well the handling appeared to be right in the Mini allegedly

I remember a mate made out in his mini, i looked at the car and thought !!!!!! :cool:

LydiaJ

My garage is much too full of stuff to fit a car in - mostly late-nearly-ex's stuff, and the kids' stuff from his house, but a few boxes of my own stuff. Progress is slow, but there is some. The other day I found a whole lot of his clothes in there, so they've all gone in a black sack and today I delivered them to the "homeless and vulnerable" centre run by my church. That's one box less in there for me to deal with, and the clothes can go to people who need them.

Two landmarks recently on the solar panels. Yesterday I passed the £100 mark for money due from the feed-in-tariff (took 20 days), and today was our best day yet for yield: 18.8kWh, worth £8.43. Still haven't got peak power up to 4kW, though - best so far is 3.924kW, so not too far off. My neighbour's been over 4kW, he tells me, but then he did pay the extra £2k or so for more expensive panels, so it's not surprising.

michaels

I always go for a tank system rather than heat as you go because iy can supply more heat energy more quickly - for example heating the bath back up is not very well supported by a combi nor running a bath and shower simultaneously.

However both rely on having sufficient mains pressure and more importantly flow rate. Choose your cold best tap and see how long it takes to fill a bucket then work out litres per minute 30l/min is probably about minimum but in the 40s is better. You could also get a pressure gauge and see what your pressure is both with all taps closed and also with one tap open at 20l/minute.

I only have 2 bar at the street so unless the flow rate is ok when I have laid the new supply from there to the house it looks like a £500+ accumulator/expansion vessel taking up a chunk o9f my garage will be needed

sss555s wrote: »

On another point.

I had a look at megaflow systems today when they were being discussed on here and i think it may be the thing for me.

My combi is nearly 14 years old and is struggling with the extra demand for water on times since i added an extra 2 bathrooms.

They say they should run all the taps at the same pressure, does that work in reality?

sss555s

LydiaJ wrote: »

Two landmarks recently on the solar panels. Yesterday I passed the £100 mark for money due from the feed-in-tariff (took 20 days), and today was our best day yet for yield: 18.8kWh, worth £8.43.

You should be in for a good few days this week! :beer:

GDB2222

michaels wrote: »

I always go for a tank system rather than heat as you go because iy can supply more heat energy more quickly - for example heating the bath back up is not very well supported by a combi nor running a bath and shower simultaneously.

However both rely on having sufficient mains pressure and more importantly flow rate. Choose your cold best tap and see how long it takes to fill a bucket then work out litres per minute 30l/min is probably about minimum but in the 40s is better. You could also get a pressure gauge and see what your pressure is both with all taps closed and also with one tap open at 20l/minute.

I only have 2 bar at the street so unless the flow rate is ok when I have laid the new supply from there to the house it looks like a £500+ accumulator/expansion vessel taking up a chunk o9f my garage will be needed

That may not be such a bad idea anyway. The water companies are rumoured to be reducing the pressure, to reduce leaks. (It's so much easier to do than actually fixing the problem.)

What size supply are you fitting? Our original supply was 15mm, which worked fine as it turned out. We laid a new 22mm main before we moved in, and we noticed no difference when that was connected up instead some months after we moved in. We have more than 2 bars, except when everyone is watering their gardens.

michaels

Our first tap produces a trickle at 20l/minute - the builders dug up the front garden to lay a new pipe and when they found the old pipe it was not old at all but already a blue plastic polypipe so I have little confidence that the new supply will solve the problem. That probably puts me in needing to boost supply territory - if the pressure is 2 bar then that can be an accumulator, if it is less then a pumped tank is needed but there may be potability issues for that solution.

I agree with your point re future proofing - just cos I have enough water now doesn't mean I will have enough when everyone is watering their gardens

lostinrates

Bars...thats a pressure measurement I think.

re leaks, the one we'd had here had been here at least since we'd moved, and I'd approximate it was running at about equivalent to a tap 1/8 turned on.....so an almost constant trickle/just broken stream of water. It was like pulling teeth to get them to fix it. grrr.



re ''megaflow'' it sounds like a medicine for some sort of urinary problem and keeps making me grin.

I'd never thought of a different water system, but I guess I should be asking architect about that considering the number of taps we'll have at the end of this palava.

LydiaJ

lostinrates wrote: »

Bars...thats a pressure measurement I think.

Yes, the bar is a unit of pressure. The atmospheric pressure of the air is about 1 bar - usually given as around 1000 millibar but varying up and down as the weather changes.

I don't know what our water pressure is. It seems very odd. Turning the taps on produces a fairly disappointing looking trickle that made me worry that when the shower was eventually fitted it would be pathetic. But in fact the shower is great and the flow is strong enough that I wouldn't use it on maximum, but turn it down.

michaels

Did you ever sort out your +1 problem LIR? If only I was a bit nearer, spending an evening trying to get away with pretending to be FIR to the landed gentry sounds kind of fun!

lostinrates

oh, and re DH's situation: so far so good. He's settling in. Though ''the sadist'' is a threat in the background atm he's staying in the background. DH is enjoying sharing an office (no room for him to have his own) and meeting more of the team he usually works with only electronically. He says there are some really nice people there, and perhaps a better atmosphere in general than in London, though everyone is scared of this one guy, even non legal staff and legal staff who don't work with him. Apparantly you just aren't ''one of the team'' until you've cried in the office. DH's also met some Italians, which makes him feel MUCH more at home. He's started Dutch lessons. And....he has two interviews lined up now. This is new ground for him. We understood that firms only make you an an offer once....and this is a bind because both these other firms would be good to work for in the future, and are quite similar to each other...one has a partner dh has worked with, and really likes, so they are ''in the lead''. I guess the thing is to make a very cool evaluation of what is on the table...money, opportunities etc, and then try and guage the ''culture''. IMO they both close some doors, (DH has two main practise areas and the opportunities take him firmly down one of those not the other.) but we know one will pay more now. Not sure what happens to salaries down the line, and how you find out things about career progression and salaries ''at the top''.

Decisions are tough things, eh?