Daydream fund challenge part 4

ferretkeeper

Hello all!

Just taking a quick break from getting everything stowed away before this horrendous storm tonight :eek: I think it's going to get us bad!

I'll put extra straw in with everyone later and give the sheep, goats and alpacas a bit of dinner to keep them warm inside! I'm not feeding them daily yet, it hasn't been cold enough, and thanks to early shearing they have a good layer of wool on, well not the goats :rotfl: they do get hay though cos the grass isn't growing much.

Thankfully the price is right down this year, I can regularly buy it at £3 a bale, although our local feed store chap still wants £6. I realise none of it is grown locally and transport isn't cheap but I think that's taking the mick! I'm buying direct from the farmers and we've upgraded our shelters so we can store a good 60-80 bales.

One of the sheep got her head stuck under the heavy lid of the big hay rack last night, lucky I was there cos she collapsed when I pulled her away, still breathing but all limp. I put her in a pen, gave her a bit of homeopathic emergency remedy and half a hour later she was up and eating like nothing happened, thank god, she one of the friendliest, a fave. She's fine this morning, no lasting damage it seems, ready to go back with the others.

Rummer it's funny you mentioned walls and drilling, did you try what Dave and Alfie suggested? I have a tube of the same stuff waiting for when I hang a big heavy mirror on a dodgy wall.

we've got a mix of wall types, but a lot of lathe and plaster walls and ceilings. I want to put up a shelf on one such wall but I'm going to have to drill lots of test holes to find the timber studs and hope the shelf hides the filler cos I'm not repainting the whole wall :rotfl:

Well I'd better crack on, got half a tonne of feed to get out of the trailer and under cover and a quick run out to pick up some supplies.

Batten down the hatches everyone

Better_Days

Hope you feel better soon Dave, you do meet some funny people on ebay, have had a few bad buying experiences but no rude 'collectors'.

Agghhhhhh

As you may recall I purchased a super dooper wireless controller/thermostat for our heating and HW.

The electrician/plumber who is doing the work on our house had had the instructions to review for a week or so - I printed them off so he could look at them as he wasn't familiar it. This morning he cut the wire to the thermostat, took off the old controller, put the new one on the wall, then rang up Salus re the wiring. He was told that the controller wouldn't work on our gravity fed system.

I am furious. :mad::mad::mad::mad:

We now have a 'used' programmer which cost well over £100, no thermostat (which probably wont make any difference as it didn't work properly anyway) and only a manual switch to turn the boiler on and off.

Beam me up up up and away please.

Better_Days

FK, glad your sheep made it.

We lived next to a sheep farm for a while and the farmer had a little ditty about how many ways a sheep has to die, can't recall it but I can recall him asking us to rescue any sheep we found trying to 'end it all'!

The two cats we had at the time cleared his barn of rats, which kept him happy, and the cats entertained. Not so much us - the cats would decorate the garden with rat heads having eaten the rest - yuk

Davesnave

Better_Days wrote: »

I am furious. :mad::mad::mad::mad:

We now have a 'used' programmer which cost well over £100, no thermostat (which probably wont make any difference as it didn't work properly anyway) and only a manual switch to turn the boiler on and off.

Beam me up up up and away please.

Ouch!:doh::doh: This is the problem with bleeding edge technology; the people who install are often way back in the last century and not conversant with developments.

Similar story with our plasterer. I asked him what kind of options we might have, like whether K-Rend was worth the extra, and he looked at me as if I'd just uttered the last sentence in Serbo-Croat.:o

Good job I didn't mention Monocouche....he'd probably have thought I was making an improper suggestion... Y'know, "Voulez vous monocouche avec moi, ce soir? " :rotfl::rotfl:

Better_Days

Yes, that's exactly it Dave

Sooo frustrating. If I can get on t' information super highway and educate myself about bloomin' wireless thermostats/programmers then why can't the installer? Having done a bit more research I think the problem is that the programmer won't control the HW but will control the CH. I'd be happy with this as we can put a tank stat on the HW tank. We are going to get another installer in and see if we can get some more sense.

Or it may be deja vu, and it will be Serbo-Croat and, oooeeerrr, improper suggestions all the way :D:D

alfie_1

Better_Days wrote: »

Yes, that's exactly it Dave

Sooo frustrating. If I can get on t' information super highway and educate myself about bloomin' wireless thermostats/programmers then why can't the installer? Having done a bit more research I think the problem is that the programmer won't control the HW but will control the CH. I'd be happy with this as we can put a tank stat on the HW tank. We are going to get another installer in and see if we can get some more sense.

Or it may be deja vu, and it will be Serbo-Croat and, oooeeerrr, improper suggestions all the way :D:D

hi, if you had already bought the "thingy" then it still wouldnt have "worked" whoever tried to fit it.... ? did you buy it online ? in which case dare i ask if they asked/advised what system you had before selling it to you ?

Better_Days

alfie_1 wrote: »

hi, if you had already bought the "thingy" then it still wouldnt have "worked" whoever tried to fit it.... ? did you buy it online ? in which case dare i ask if they asked/advised what system you had before selling it to you ?

I bought it from Amazon alfie after reading load of reviews and the info on the manufacturer's website. Nothing to indicate it wouldn't work on our system. The new thingy should control the CH in the same way as the old programmer - simply switching it on and off at the programmed times and at a temp determined by the stat.

I think I'll ring the manufacturer up again tomorrow to see if they can clarify further.

The installer is turning out to be a passive/aggressive Luddite, so I want another opinion before I give up on my shiny new thingy

ferretkeeper

Better_Days wrote: »

FK, glad your sheep made it.

We lived next to a sheep farm for a while and the farmer had a little ditty about how many ways a sheep has to die, can't recall it but I can recall him asking us to rescue any sheep we found trying to 'end it all'!

Thanks BD sounds similar to something my vet once told me :rotfl:

How annoying about the plumber but I know exactly what you mean... An ex plumber friend was well clued up on solar systems, reed beds all that sort of thing, as well as being well versed in the basics and more advanced stuff too. he was the only person apart from me that seemed to accept the fact that we could combine our electric wet heating system with a solar back up option, and could actually see how to do it with the boiler we already have. No one else including the original installers thought we could. They really seem to want to stick to what they know, getting someone to fit the wet electric system was a challenge and a half in the first place, they aren't common here.

You really need people who can think outside the box and keep on top of new developments in their field, and they are as rare as hens teeth it seems but worth seeking out, good luck, hope you don't end up :wall::wall::wall:

Not sure this storm is going to be as bad as first thought, we'll def get something but looks worse further north...

I_have_spoken

As you may recall I purchased a super dooper wireless controller/thermostat for our heating and HW.

I've fitted a similar wireless programmable roomstat to an 'old skool' system and a modern combi. Wiring can be perplexing, but wireless receiver unit will still have a 'call for heat' output like the old thermostat did.

One possible explanation for not working with a gravity system is that these roomstats fire the boiler for varying durations to work out how quickly room comes up to temp but not overshoot the set temp. The rate a gravity system heats up may confuse this process.

I_have_spoken

Pretty gusty already With me. Just been unplugging all non essentials in case lines coming down put a voltage spike on the mains