The grumpy thread

[cobblers]

The fact that the voltage is dropping is actually a good sign. A shagged battery charges to high voltage very quickly.

Unless it's got a shorted cell but that's not especially common.

I'd persevere with it. How many amps is your charger? Leave it on for 40 hours divided by how many amps the charger is (20 hours for a 2 amp charger, etc)

[wuvvum]

Most scrappies these days are charging rather more than a tenner for a decent battery sadly.  The price of lead has gone up.

[Skizzer]

19 hours ago, Timewaster said:

I think the insurers are slowly starting to realise that they can't jack up the price and hope we don't notice. 

My last renewal was the same as all the compare sites. 

Yes, the Financial Conduct Authority has recently (finally) helped bring this to their attention.

[cort1977]

49 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Most scrappies these days are charging rather more than a tenner for a decent battery sadly.  The price of lead has gone up.

20 seems to be the going rate here.  

[Talbot]

18 hours ago, cobblers said:

The fact that the voltage is dropping is actually a good sign. A shagged battery charges to high voltage very quickly.

This.

If I get a slightly shagged battery, when I put my "stupid" charger on it, the voltage barrels up rather high, with sod-all current being drawn.  After about 6hrs, the voltage drops back as it starts to take current.  Often that can be true for 2 days, after which the voltage slowly ramps back up again and the current drops off, eventually getting to about 14.2v where it floats at minimal maintaining current.

Intelligent chargers are a load of crap.  All you really need is a power supply that supplies about 5A at 11v, ramping down to 0.05A at 14.2v and it will completely self-regulate.

[Timewaster]

1 hour ago, Talbot said:

Intelligent chargers are a load of crap. 

Amen!! 

 

The worst thing I ever bought was a £120 Sip "intelligent" charger. 

I had a battery that was totally flat, so it ignored it. 

I then dragged out my old charger to get it going a bit. 

Once it got to about 4 volts the sip would finally acknowledge that it was a battery and started to charge it. 

However it also decided that it must be a 6v battery and floated it at 7.2v for 2 days until I checked on it. 

Absolute crap. 

[goosey]

My mother in law WhatsApp video calling my wife 3 seconds after I arrive back from work every night of the week.

[Zelandeth]

Finally had a walk round and successfully found our abducted garden waste bin - tucked away on a driveway right at the opposite end of the street. 

It was retrieved and has now been plastered on reflective tape and had the house number and address marked on the lid plus the number on all sides.

Hopefully that will discourage the gits from trying that again.

Really sick of this sort of suburban nonsense.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

2 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Finally had a walk round and successfully found our abducted garden waste bin - tucked away on a driveway right at the opposite end of the street. 

It was retrieved and has now been plastered on reflective tape and had the house number and address marked on the lid plus the number on all sides.

Hopefully that will discourage the gits from trying that again.

Really sick of this sort of suburban nonsense.

Given that you've had exposed mains wiring near your plumbing recently, maybe you might want to connect the bin up to that as a security* measure....

[brownnova]

My commute is about 8 miles and takes 15 minutes ish under normal conditions.

About 8 weeks back a set of temporary traffic lights appeared on a section of the route which floods regularly as they put better drainage in. Ok fair enough it’s been a problem for years.  Then about 2 weeks ago a second set (a lovely three way control) appear where a normal set have been damaged by a van, and this week a third set have appeared in a village on the route! The last one is a 4 way control too... there’s another route through the back lanes... yep you guessed it temporary traffic lights there too!! 

Today a static caravan on a wagon got stuck at number one... 

So much for a quick commute! 

[New POD]

13 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Finally had a walk round and successfully found our abducted garden waste bin - tucked away on a driveway right at the opposite end of the street. 

It was retrieved and has now been plastered on reflective tape and had the house number and address marked on the lid plus the number on all sides.

Hopefully that will discourage the gits from trying that again.

Really sick of this sort of suburban nonsense.

Use of a soldering iron to put the address on, is quite effective. 

[sierraman]

Reading today about one of these nutcase Green campaign groups called the IEA are suggesting that we should be jettisoning the gas boiler and instead have a £10,000 heat pump instead. So instead of a £2000 bill you’ll have a £10,000 bill. Excellent. 

Where do we end with all this carbon neutral drive? What will they want to ban next? I’m hoping whoever thinks these things up doesn’t plan on travel abroad ever again, that’s incredibly polluting. Let’s ban that, let’s ban meat because the manure creates Co2 emissions, in fact let’s ban everything and we’ll all live to be a hundred or at least it’ll feel like it because the environmental impact of everything you do will be analysed.

[beko1987]

I'm sure my landlord would be mega happy to be forced to fit one of those in my house... Probably neccitating me not living here as he rips the existing fully working system out... Then jack's the rent up to get his 10k back

Another idea for those whom £10k is a drop in the ocean! 

[Saabnut]

After 11 years faithful service, my cheap Tesco kettle has started to leak from the sight panel. Of course, at the moment I am just ignoring it and mopping up after each brew, but as I see it I have 3 options.

1. Buy a new kettle

2. Use Tiger Seal to fix* the leak

3. Both of the above and have a new* workshop kettle.

 

Hmmmm........

[artdjones]

3 hours ago, sierraman said:

Reading today about one of these nutcase Green campaign groups called the IEA are suggesting that we should be jettisoning the gas boiler and instead have a £10,000 heat pump instead. So instead of a £2000 bill you’ll have a £10,000 bill. Excellent. 

Where do we end with all this carbon neutral drive? What will they want to ban next? I’m hoping whoever thinks these things up doesn’t plan on travel abroad ever again, that’s incredibly polluting. Let’s ban that, let’s ban meat because the manure creates Co2 emissions, in fact let’s ban everything and we’ll all live to be a hundred or at least it’ll feel like it because the environmental impact of everything you do will be analysed.

Most green ideas  are regressive, they bear most heavily on the poor. For example scrappage schemes for green cars. A nice bonus for a middle class person who was going to buy a new car anyway, but useless for the poorer person who will never afford a new car, but has also had part of the source of reasonable second hand cars cut off because of so many being scrapped with years of life left in them.

[Low Horatio gearbox]

Enquiring in a for sale thread on fsceache, agenuine enquiry for a shedly but decent car (some underside pics and is it running), just to have the seller delete the whole sales post. 🤷‍♂️

[Talbot]

3 hours ago, sierraman said:

£10,000 heat pump instead

How on earth can a heat pump cost £10k.  They're essentially an air conditioner in reverse, and there's no way an air conditioner costs that much.

Strikes me that's a price for "early adopters", as in "we'll fleece the living shit out of you for as long as possible"

[cort1977]

4 hours ago, sierraman said:

Reading today about one of these nutcase Green campaign groups called the IEA are suggesting that we should be jettisoning the gas boiler and instead have a £10,000 heat pump instead. So instead of a £2000 bill you’ll have a £10,000 bill. Excellent. 

Where do we end with all this carbon neutral drive? What will they want to ban next? I’m hoping whoever thinks these things up doesn’t plan on travel abroad ever again, that’s incredibly polluting. Let’s ban that, let’s ban meat because the manure creates Co2 emissions, in fact let’s ban everything and we’ll all live to be a hundred or at least it’ll feel like it because the environmental impact of everything you do will be analysed.

The IEA are the International Energy Agency, set up after the 1973 oil crisis to manage the oil supply, hardly a green campaign group.

Where we end up on this carbon neutral drive is ideally keeping the rise in global temperatures below 2 degrees.  Failing to do that will have significant consequences for our children and grandchildren such as droughts, fires and floods creating millions of climate refugees.  Arguably, that's already happening in Africa.

 

[andy18s]

1 hour ago, Low Horatio gearbox said:

Enquiring in a for sale thread on fsceache, agenuine enquiry for a shedly but decent car (some underside pics and is it running), just to have the seller delete the whole sales post. 🤷‍♂️

Probably already sold some time ago,and you just reminded him to take down the add

[cort1977]

1 hour ago, Talbot said:

How on earth can a heat pump cost £10k.  They're essentially an air conditioner in reverse, and there's no way an air conditioner costs that much.

That's true but does that £10k include the larger radiators required for the heat pump?  Either way economis of scale will hopefully bring that down.

[Low Horatio gearbox]

11 minutes ago, andy18s said:

Probably already sold some time ago,and you just reminded him to take down the add

Listed 45 minutes before I asked 🤷‍♂️.

 

My other possible purchase  has 2 people  offering over the asking price but neither commenting to viewing the car. 🤔🤦🏻‍♂️

[Talbot]

27 minutes ago, cort1977 said:

That's true but does that £10k include the larger radiators required for the heat pump?  Either way economis of scale will hopefully bring that down.

Good point.  I often forget the infrastructure required to cope with the lower temperatures generated by a heat pump system.

ideal for underfloor though.

[Chas4545]

Just sold my longest ever owned car. 

I feel a bit like the family pet has died.

[omegod]

23 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Finally had a walk round and successfully found our abducted garden waste bin - tucked away on a driveway right at the opposite end of the street. 

It was retrieved and has now been plastered on reflective tape and had the house number and address marked on the lid plus the number on all sides.

Hopefully that will discourage the gits from trying that again.

Really sick of this sort of suburban nonsense.

I reckon number 18 are going to have you right off 

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, omegod said:

I reckon number 18 are going to have you right off 

Tricky as there are only 8 houses on the street!

[320touring]

5 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Tricky as there are only 8 houses on the street!

2 bits of tape needed...

 

"8-1"

 

That's my bin for #7!

[High Jetter]

1 strip of green tape (per and it belongs to no.3

[R1152]

6 hours ago, cort1977 said:

The IEA are the International Energy Agency, set up after the 1973 oil crisis to manage the oil supply, hardly a green campaign group.

Where we end up on this carbon neutral drive is ideally keeping the rise in global temperatures below 2 degrees.  Failing to do that will have significant consequences for our children and grandchildren such as droughts, fires and floods creating millions of climate refugees.  Arguably, that's already happening in Africa.

 

I'd also add in the ever-worsening annual fires in Australia.

[Jerzy Woking]

On 5/16/2021 at 5:28 PM, tobyd said:

What I love more than anything is finding some loser has replaced something with the wrong part and in order to make it work* has also soldered on a connector for said wrong part.

Well done whoever you are.

Good work.

Please don't say it is the SV. If it is, it wasn't me!

[tobyd]

haha, no, thats still going ok I just need to sort the leaky carbs and balance them!