Nice People Thread No. 14, all Nice and Proper

Generali

Spirit wrote: »

I was gifted an 8'x6' poly carbonate 2nd hand green house. .free green house I thought , how mse. We then need someone to lay foundations and build a brickbase for it to stand on and a concrete path up the middle. Not a job for OH as he is running on empty at present OH has bought black membrane and pea shingle to make the beds either side of the path. So far my MSE green house has cost about £350.Still a bargain though and I am really looking frward to using it. I am going to grow tomatoes, cucumber and peppers in it, and bring on some other veg, before planting out.

Nice. There is nothing like home grown veggies. Nom, nom, nom.

PasturesNew

Spirit wrote: »

... lay foundations and build a brickbase for it ...

This thing I found yesterday might be an easier/cheaper solution. Not necessarily this firm, I just found it and bookmarked it, so I'd know the terms to google for to find alternatives. This (badly formatted) page says "Log Cabin base - add pea gravel to the Flexipave panels to create a secure base" so it might be an easy/quick way for a greenhouse http://www.rubberco.co.uk/selectedsize/ExpressPave-Driveway-Reinforcement/1572

I also found something the other day (and didn't bookmark it) called stomp stones .... here we are, on the homebargains site http://www.homebargains.co.uk/products/10393-ecotrend-garden-stomp-stones-case-of-10.aspx - they look like you just lob them down and walk away .... or just titfer about with the edges if you're a purist.

Spirit_2

We feed the birds in our garden and get a lot visiting including a pair of spotted woodpeckers who come several times a day. Our neighbours also feed the birds. We have continued to feed the birds through the summer months as OH wants to ensure we maintain our position on chirpadvisor, which he says is how birds communicate best places to eat and he does not want 'our birds' to clear off elsewhere.

What do other NP bird feeders do in summer?

PasturesNew

Spirit wrote: »

What do other NP bird feeders do in summer?

My neighbour told me she'd spoken to another neighbour to ask her to stop feeding the birds because [a] we had the furries last year and they're sh*tting all over our gardens, patios, conservatories and cars ..... neighbour told her to "p155 off"

I'd actively encourage people to not feed birds after my furry experience last year .... and the bombardment from bird poo across my patio/garden/car this year has really made me pretty pee'd off.

silvercar

Idly wonders if michaels would be better off with free electricity in the extension and not having a car charger.

LydiaJ

Generali wrote: »

Mum had a shower put in and I noticed that the taps on the bath gave you a funny tingle when I turned them on and off with my toe. Turned out the plumber had attached the earth on the shower to the bath taps rather than getting in a sparky to do it properly.

Lucky we had a plastic bath!

Connecting the earth wire to a water pipe is exactly what the sparky would have done AFAIK. Water pipes are made of copper so they conduct really well, and they go deep underground, which is all you want an earth connector to do. In most buildings, connecting earth wires to water pipes is the best way to provide a good connection to the ground.

The problem is that the earth wire was connected to anything that made the taps live (even if presumably through a biggish resistance if all you got was a slight tingle). The earth wire shouldn't be connected to any electricity. It should be connected to things you might touch (ie the outside of the appliance) so that IF there is a fault and the bits you might touch become live, THEN the current will flow harmlessly through the earth wire rather than through you because it has a much lower resistance than you do.

LydiaJ

:mad:

Yesterday we had a bloke come to give a talk to us teachers after school about changes to the teachers' pension scheme that came in at the beginning of this month. It turns out that they have introduced some new flexibilities, one of which will allow me to put more money in now and mitigate the effect of only working part time for most of my career and therefore building up fewer FTE years in the scheme than I would like. I've done the sums and for somebody in my particular circumstances this particular option sounds like a good deal. However, the deadline for applying is the end of this month (ie next Thursday), otherwise I need to wait a whole year before I can start. So today I've just tried to apply for it, but the website is not working properly so I can't. The phone line said the office had already closed by the time I rang up about it, so it will have to wait until Monday, when I shall be v busy and it will be hard to squeeze in ringing them during their office hours.

lostinrates

LydiaJ wrote: »

Connecting the earth wire to a water pipe is exactly what the sparky would have done AFAIK. Water pipes are made of copper so they conduct really well, and they go deep underground, which is all you want an earth connector to do. In most buildings, connecting earth wires to water pipes is the best way to provide a good connection to the ground.
.

Aiui more and more pipes now are plastic. I wonder how they earth in these cases?

LydiaJ

lostinrates wrote: »

Aiui more and more pipes now are plastic. I wonder how they earth in these cases?

Good question!

PasturesNew

lostinrates wrote: »

Aiui more and more pipes now are plastic. I wonder how they earth in these cases?

LydiaJ wrote: »

Good question!

They probably shove the end in a hole in the floor, assuming nobody will notice.