Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

Pyxis

Generali wrote: »

The big cost is the pump/filter. Lifting that much water is expensive.

We have a 61,000 litre pool so that's about 9mx3m at a guess with a slope from one end to the other. It's a salt water pool so we put salt into it which is converted into chlorine using a catalyst in the filter/pump system. If it's really hot we 'shock' the pool by bunging in some extra chlorine.

The pump is used for about 14 hours a day in summer and about 8 hours a day in winter because we don't have a cover. If we had a cover you could probably drop each time by 30%.

You can't just fill with fresh water when you fancy a swim.

- You'd be creating a sex party venue for mosquitoes and that would make it impossible to live around here.
- I think (not sure though) that there would be a huge Legionnaire's disease risk
- Australia is drought prone - if you're being told to use your washing machine rinse water to wash your clothes then bunging 61kl into the pool each time you want to swim is not likely to impress the neighbours
- Your pool would stink, not just smell a bit but reek. Imagine a bath you hadn't emptied for a few days then scale up 100 fold

There are prolly a bunch of other reasons too that I haven't thought of.

We probably put in 30 25kg bags of salt a year into the pool at $5-10 a pop (I am very much a $5/bag man). Then during the summer or after a storm like at the weekend we bung in a load of chlorine so I probably go through something like 5-10 25l bottles of chlorine at perhaps $20a throw.

Then there's a bottle of algicide maybe once a year which is about $30. If you're having a party or something you might want to get one of the fancy water clarifiers for $25-40 but TBH if you look after the pool they're not necessary.

The big cost of a pool is the pump. The pool hadn't been used or cleaned for ages when we moved in so needed to have the pump on 24/7 at the start. We got an electricity bill for our first 2 weeks which was for just over $200 the majority of which would have been pump cost but cooking and air con would also be included.

If you're a home owner and have an ounce of sense you get solar panels and run the filter when the sun's out. Then the pool only costs you the cost of the chemicals.

Cripes!

I once, very, very briefly, toyed with the idea of a hot tub on the patio.
Luckily, my sensible side predominated, as I realised that once the novelty wore off, it would probably end up being a very expensive depository for garden implements! Plus all the scares about having to keep bacterial levels down etc., eventually put me right off. :eek:

I do really like the idea of those pools which are kept clean and aerated by plants and stuff. It's really two adjoining pools, the plants and stuff being in one, and you swim in the other. Obviously not as big as large pool, but big enough!

Don't know how that would work in Oz, though! You might end up with a colony of crocs! :eek:



Michaels,, what's PV heating and ashp?

michaels

air source heat pump, photo voltaic(solar panels)

NP advice please.

Our £260 indes(h)it dishwasher broke afer 22 months. Tesco have declared it a write-off and offered us an 'economic value' of £100 which on a straightline depreciaton suggests the machine has a life expectancy of 3 years.

From the error codes it looks like it requires a new heater element costing £43 plus fitting (about £60 call out fee?). So the options seem to be:
Buy the element and fit myself (hard work and risk it doesn't fix it. Cost 43
Get a man to fix it cost about 100
Buy a new dishwasher - anything from 150 upwards, same model is about 200 now plus potentially add on a warranty, 4 years is about 50 quid.

Thoughts?

Pyxis

michaels wrote: »

air source heat pump, photo voltaic(solar panels)

NP advice please.

Our £260 indes(h)it dishwasher broke afer 22 months. Tesco have declared it a write-off and offered us an 'economic value' of £100 which on a straightline depreciaton suggests the machine has a life expectancy of 3 years.

From the error codes it looks like it requires a new heater element costing £43 plus fitting (about £60 call out fee?). So the options seem to be:
Buy the element and fit myself (hard work and risk it doesn't fix it. Cost 43
Get a man to fix it cost about 100
Buy a new dishwasher - anything from 150 upwards, same model is about 200 now plus potentially add on a warranty, 4 years is about 50 quid.

Thoughts?

Consider.....
If the heater element has gone after 22months, what other parts might be on the verge of giving up the ghost?

On the other hand, has the dishwasher had heavy usage? If so, then you may have had more usage out of it than its young age implies.

Unless you are very sure you could do the work competently, it might not be worth the risk of doing it yourself, bearing in mind that a lot of household fires seem to be caused by dishwashers.

chris_m

Any of you nice people au fait with plants?
I "inherited" these in my garden but have no idea what they are. I don't want to just rip them out in case they might be something nice but, not knowing what they are, I don't know what they might do as regards flowering or not.
I've been poring through plant database websites (with photos) several evenings running with the only result being me eventually dozing off
Trouble is, I don't even know what classification they might come under - I've tried succulents, grasses and ferns but no joy so far.

These things seem to grow as clumps of long pointy leaves in what I can only describe as a flat array, growing directly out of a thick (up to 1½" thick), tough, brown root, or maybe subterranean stem, with no above ground stems at all.

The white strip in the pics is a 300mm rule, to give an idea of the size of them.

Two side views;




and one from above, showing what I mean by a flat array;


Any pointers as to what I should be looking for would be muchly appreciated.

If it's of any help, they are growing in sandy soil in an unshaded location and seem to be pretty hardy as they've been there since before I moved in so I think they overwintered fairly happily.

Doozergirl

I'm hardly a gardener but could it be an iris?

http://www.viewsfromthegarden.com/2012/07/bearded-iris-plant-and-care-guide.html?m=1

Doozergirl

My DD starts at a King Edvard VI school in September. Not Chris' one. It's still a grammar.

DS does go to a school that one of the NP attended.

chris_m

Doozergirl wrote: »

I'm hardly a gardener but could it be an iris?

http://www.viewsfromthegarden.com/2012/07/bearded-iris-plant-and-care-guide.html?m=1

Many thanks, Doozergirl, I reckon you've nailed it. The pics look very similar to what I have (apart from mine aren't flowering) and the description given is spot on. They are bigger than I'd imagined for Irises so I'd never thought of looking at those.

:T:T:T

Pyxis

chris_m wrote: »

Many thanks, Doozergirl, I reckon you've nailed it. The pics look very similar to what I have (apart from mine aren't flowering) and the description given is spot on. They are bigger than I'd imagined for Irises so I'd never thought of looking at those.

:T:T:T

Bigger than you'd imagined for Irises?
Irises can grow very tall!

But you can also get dwarf irises. I've got a few that are so small, I miss them every year! :rotfl:

Pyxis

PasturesNew wrote: »

That was a sneaky one, you thought I'd not read and miss the POSH ALERT!!

Pools in UK = posh
Pools in Aus = don't count unless they're exceptional.

TWO pool family ... definitely a posh alert.

Pastures, your PoshDar needs sharpening! :rotfl:

Pyxis

chris_m wrote: »

Many thanks, Doozergirl, I reckon you've nailed it. The pics look very similar to what I have (apart from mine aren't flowering) and the description given is spot on. They are bigger than I'd imagined for Irises so I'd never thought of looking at those.

:T:T:T

This might give you a clue......

http://faq.gardenweb.com/discussions/2766193/i-have-no-bloom-on-my-bearded-irises-why-are-they-not-blooming