The grumpy thread

[comfortablynumb]

12 hours ago, dave j said:

Had a weekend away in the camper to the Volksworld show and the drive home took over 5 hours yesterday. Put the van away in the garage but went to get something out of it this afternoon and the windscreen has shattered! No idea how or why. At least it didn't shatter on the motorway though.  I wonder how good windscreen cover is on my insurance for a 1973 VW camper.

Had similar on a lwb Suzuki SJ, the rear window was on two posts with hand screws onto the tailgate for the removable roof.

I'd taken it off, and stood it carefully out of the way, but when I went back to it an hour or so later it had just exploded 🤔

Cue loads of arguments with glass companies and Suzuki who claimed it was an aftermarket part (it wasn't, just a Spanish built Santana)

Did get there in the end, but that was a stressful four months, hope you get sorted easier

[Metal Guru]

Got a box of chocolates from M&S last week for my birthday. Couldn’t find the description chart anywhere, (does anyone else call them The Instructions).

Finally found it on the bottom of the box. WTF? Who thought that was clever? Tip all the chocolates on the floor to see what flavour they are.

[reb]

Scottish power have been pestering me to book a smart meter fitting because my house has (actually had, but whatever) RTS controlled heating and they're switching that off.

Bloke arrives today, and within literally 20 seconds says it'll have to be rescheduled because he's not trained to replace RTS meters.

Why do utilities companies always have such fucking shit internal communications?

[Tickman]

4 hours ago, Metal Guru said:

Got a box of chocolates from M&S last week for my birthday. Couldn’t find the description chart anywhere, (does anyone else call them The Instructions).

Yes, they are the instructions as far as I am concerned

[Metal Guru]

4 hours ago, reb said:

Scottish power have been pestering me to book a smart meter fitting because my house has (actually had, but whatever) RTS controlled heating and they're switching that off.

Bloke arrives today, and within literally 20 seconds says it'll have to be rescheduled because he's not trained to replace RTS meters.

Why do utilities companies always have such fucking shit internal communications?

Scottish Power are shit but never admit it, never apologise and won’t give you any compensation for fucking everything up.

British Gas are just as bad but always apologise and usually give you something if you complain enough, normally half of what you tell them you want, so aim high.

[reb]

11 minutes ago, Metal Guru said:

Scottish Power are shit but never admit it, never apologise and won’t give you any compensation for fucking everything up.

British Gas are just as bad but always apologise and usually give you something if you complain enough, normally half of what you tell them you want, so aim high.

I've never forgiven them for sending a debt collector round on my birthday for money that I did not in fact owe them.

[Markeh]

4 hours ago, reb said:

Scottish power have been pestering me to book a smart meter fitting because my house has (actually had, but whatever) RTS controlled heating and they're switching that off.

Bloke arrives today, and within literally 20 seconds says it'll have to be rescheduled because he's not trained to replace RTS meters.

Why do utilities companies always have such fucking shit internal communications?

Scottish Power came to my house to fit a smart meter, discovered an issue with the electrics, proceeded to change the meter anyway and then cut me off because they shouldn't have changed the meter with the electrics issue, leaving me without power. Fortunately a family friend is an electrician and was over within an hour to fix the issue and I was back on within 90 minutes.

I changed suppliers almost immediately after that.

I'm not in a position to comment on the other patriotic energy supplier if I want to keep receiving a wage. Interestingly I work in the industry and the first I knew of the RTS shutdown was hearing an advert on Gold Radio!

[reb]

3 minutes ago, Markeh said:

Scottish Power came to my house to fit a smart meter, discovered an issue with the electrics, proceeded to change the meter anyway and then cut me off because they shouldn't have changed the meter with the electrics issue, leaving me without power. Fortunately a family friend is an electrician and was over within an hour to fix the issue and I was back on within 90 minutes.

I changed suppliers almost immediately after that.

I'm not in a position to comment on the other patriotic energy supplier if I want to keep receiving a wage. Interestingly I work in the industry and the first I knew of the RTS shutdown was hearing an advert on Gold Radio!

The most frustrating part about it is that the feed from the switched supply doesn't actually go anywhere anymore since I got a combi boiler fitted nearly 3 years ago now. I'm fairly sure they could just leave it as it is and there would be absolutely no change in the behaviour of my house! But no, I absolutely must have a smart meter.

Once the novelty of being able to see how much it just cost me to make a cup of coffee has worn off I will probably put the cursed display unit in the junk drawer and never look at it again.

[sheffcortinacentre]

14 hours ago, Remspoor said:

Selling some ceramic floor tiles. Gave the size of the tiles, gave the total quantity. Still asked how many square metres they will cover. Not once, but three times. Can no one do simple maths?

No

[sheffcortinacentre]

Few years ago having a thing on standby with a little red light on ment your were an uncaring Lecky wasting planet murderer.

Then we all needed a mini TV telling us how good we were!  Which isn't the meter, its were it's a always been & tells me how much I've used.

Progress!?

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

No

Yea, cos the tiles are in mm or cm, innit? Not square things.

[Metal Guru]

2 hours ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

Few years ago having a thing on standby with a little red light on ment your were an uncaring Lecky wasting planet murderer.

Then we all needed a mini TV telling us how good we were!  Which isn't the meter, its were it's a always been & tells me how much I've used.

Progress!?

Surely  the smart meter consumes as much leccy as the little red light on the telly?

[Zelandeth]

7 hours ago, reb said:

The most frustrating part about it is that the feed from the switched supply doesn't actually go anywhere anymore since I got a combi boiler fitted nearly 3 years ago now. I'm fairly sure they could just leave it as it is and there would be absolutely no change in the behaviour of my house! But no, I absolutely must have a smart meter.

Once the novelty of being able to see how much it just cost me to make a cup of coffee has worn off I will probably put the cursed display unit in the junk drawer and never look at it again.

It took our supplier - and I can't even remember who it is now - four years to finally actually install the smart meter that they kept endlessly hassling us about.  We couldn't give a damn either way, but they kept being absolutely flummoxed by the fact that we have a three phase supply to the meter board.  Only one is actually used, and indeed only one has a fuse in and a cable tail actually going to the meter - the other two have just been sitting unused since 1986.  Apparently this was a Major Issue (TM) for them.

We got really peeved after the fifth or sixth engineer arrived, turned everything off and then noticed it, closed the meter cabinet then buggered off without a word to us.  Eventually though they did send someone who was of the same opinion as us - that it doesn't make a bloody difference as we're only hooked up to a single phase supply.

We declined the smart gas meter though - on the installer's own advice.  Keep the mechanical meter until you absolutely have no choice, apparently they have nothing but problems with the ones they had been fitting since around 2022 (this was early 2024 I think), including the one in his house.

I got to keep the old Sangamo mechanical white meter time switch though.  Which we're not entirely sure why was even fitted given that storage heaters are one of relatively few heating types haven't ever been installed here - maybe it was used when there was a thermal store, but I couldn't see any signs of it ever being connected to anything aside from the supply... it's now a comedically over-specced timer for my fish tank lighting.

[High Jetter]

5 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

I got to keep the old Sangamo mechanical white meter time switch though. 

Brilliant things, you can still get them.

[MikeR]

finally binned the old ginormous pc speakers , was looking at my smart socket which switched power on and off to the speakers and chargers , off at night by the way

that a constant base line of 7watt was being drawn , chargers out , speakers switched off , it went when the speakers got unplugged ?????

over a year this added up to some 55kw ! , and so nothing buzzes now ..

so a nice tidy set of usb powered  Dell speakers replaced them ....

[bramz7]

Getting a bit fed up of running old bangers to work and back. 

Having impure thoughts of finance but the thought of having a car on tick makes me feel gross. I also am considering sinking £2500 into something better but everything looks a bit so-so and the sellers all seem to have personalities of people I'd actively avoid. 

Not even sure what cars are actually worth buying either. 

[beko1987]

4 hours ago, MikeR said:

finally binned the old ginormous pc speakers , was looking at my smart socket which switched power on and off to the speakers and chargers , off at night by the way

that a constant base line of 7watt was being drawn , chargers out , speakers switched off , it went when the speakers got unplugged ?????

over a year this added up to some 55kw ! , and so nothing buzzes now ..

so a nice tidy set of usb powered  Dell speakers replaced them ....

Your power bill will thank you but will your ears?

I have my desk and TV unit running from smart sockets. They both turn off at 11pm so nothing is on standby overnight, the desk turns back on at 7am, the TV unit for an hour so the robot vacuum plugged into there goes round, otherwise I turn it on if I want to watch TV.

My work laptop is very kind, the pc idles at 110w, 400+ when on a render/doing my Ai subtitles/the kids are gaming 😂

 

[MikeR]

2 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Your power bill will thank you but will your ears?

I have my desk and TV unit running from smart sockets. They both turn off at 11pm so nothing is on standby overnight, the desk turns back on at 7am, the TV unit for an hour so the robot vacuum plugged into there goes round, otherwise I turn it on if I want to watch TV.

My work laptop is very kind, the pc idles at 110w, 400+ when on a render/doing my Ai subtitles/the kids are gaming 😂

 

Same here off at 11 , on at 8 , main pc is a low power office desktop job and the server is a rasp pi , I think it's about 50 watts total .. 

[beko1987]

13 minutes ago, MikeR said:

Same here off at 11 , on at 8 , main pc is a low power office desktop job and the server is a rasp pi , I think it's about 50 watts total .. 

75% of what I use the pc for what I have is way too much. It's partly why I got myself a surface pro 3, with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse it's perfectly enough for quick browser based things. The 2 screens use a sip too

Which I rarely use it for, I just fire the pc up and do it, or do it during working hours on the work laptop 🙄

My server uses 85w on average. It's why I have a few things running off it to get the most use of the power as I can. I could rebuild it to be way more power efficient , but that cost would pay for alot of electricity at 45p per day it uses (it's got a power plug on it too, and there's an unraid widget that I type my leccy cost into and it works the cost out. I rounded it up so it's always worst case)

Its a shame I rent and can't go putting power monitoring stuff on my fuse board. My dashboard in home assistant is only a few devices

The oven, shower washing machine and fridge must use a ton of power as my bill is £90 a month and pretty much everything else I do runs from those plugs. Every cordless vac I charge is done via the vac charging one for example

[High Jetter]

8? Slackers 😀

[LightBulbFun]

3 hours ago, beko1987 said:

Its a shame I rent and can't go putting power monitoring stuff on my fuse board. My dashboard in home assistant is only a few devices

just put a magnetic current clamp around one of the meter tails Job jobbed

 voltage multiplied by current multiplied by power-factor = real power   you dont need to physically modify anything with your fuse boards to get those figures for the whole house if you want, for voltage you can either just assume is 240V, or take an actual reading, from any plug socket, and current going through the meter tails can measured with a magnetic current clamp

the only slightly tricky thing is measuring power factor, but that just means having a smart enough device that can measure that from the voltage and current it measures

 

see this video for a basic example of such a setup im describing  

 

[GrumpiusMaximus]

We had a three-year saga with British Gas sending us a random bill for somebody in our road.

Our house is a new build and we are the first occupants.  We moved here in 2018.  The house itself is on a spur with about 10 other houses but it shares its name with the main road.  Which never confuses anybody, obviously.  For ages, gas bills were turning up with other names on them (from people that lived on our spur) but for roughly the right amount.  We queried it with British Gas and they couldn't figure it out.  We gave them a reading on the phone, provided evidence, etc. and they still couldn't fathom it.  This went on for years until they eventually worked out that when our houses were built, they had been supplied with the serial numbers of all the meters - but the lazy sod that wrote them down and sent them had sent them the same serial for each meter.

Even when they figured it out, it took another 18 months for them to actually correct it because the first line operatives on the phone were so clueless and had no idea what to do.  I suspect in the end they had to do some kind of manual database edit after they'd got everybody's serial numbers.  It was a farce...

[comfortablynumb]

DPD couriers.

Each month my daughter has a delivery of specialist medical supplies. Varies occasionally, but a full order, which we rarely get, is 30+ boxes. We usually get around 12, syringes etc.

It's supposed to arrive on the first Wednesday of the month.

In their infinite wisdom, DPD can deliver this over up to 5 days, in multiple deliveries, sometimes of just one bag, when it all leaves the distribution warehouse together.

It's obviously supposed to be sterile, so there's instructions not to leave it if we're not in.

They take absolutely NO notice of this, and the record so far is 7 deliveries over 5 days, for 10 packages, dumped wherever they can leave it. 

I've even had to reject a delivery because it was covered in broken glass. They attempted to deliver this 4 times, fortunately I was in each time, and told them continuously to fuck off.

She's been having these deliveries for 15 years.

Supplier isn't interested.

And they wonder why the NHS is running out of money 🤦

[Pieman]

Minor compared to the above, but I keep getting emails from a distribution list for the Utilita Arena in Birmingham (or the NIA as I still call it).  When I hit the button to unsubscribe from them, it returns as undeliverable!

The most annoying bit of it is I've never booked tickets at said venue for anything and the only time I've been there a friend booked it and received the tickets, so I have no idea even how they got my email address in  the first place.

[Bren]

I decided to fit the secondhand powerlite starter I have had for nearly a year to the SD1.

I have put this off because it is a bit of a pig - it's a big unit shoehorned under the exhaust manifold. And held in with allen screws. And it's heavy.

No access from the top. All from below. Lots of 3/8" extensions. It was removed eventually.

The powerlite is quite a bit smaller. I hoped it would be easier to fit - not so. The lower hole is a slot- but due to the lack of space you have to wind the bolt in so far then slide the starter on. There was no room for allen keys / hex bits - it had to be wound in with a tiny pair of molegrips.

The 12v supply for the solenoid terminates in a spade connector - only after fitting did I realise the unit should have a special plug. So I need to order a plug. Bollocks.

[myglaren]

1 hour ago, Pieman said:

Minor compared to the above, but I keep getting emails from a distribution list for the Utilita Arena in Birmingham (or the NIA as I still call it).  When I hit the button to unsubscribe from them, it returns as undeliverable!

The most annoying bit of it is I've never booked tickets at said venue for anything and the only time I've been there a friend booked it and received the tickets, so I have no idea even how they got my email address in  the first place.

May not be quite what you want but can you mark them as spammer and block them.

[Sunny Jim]

18 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

or take an actual reading

UK went to a nominal 230V in 1993 as part of European harmonisation. In reality it's 230V +/- 10%, meaning the voltage could range from 207V to 253V. I thought you'd appreciate the geekery. 😄

 

[Remspoor]

On 25/03/2025 at 23:59, High Jetter said:

Yea, cos the tiles are in mm or cm, innit? Not square things.

Anyone with a simple education understands m2 and cm 2 I cannot change the measurement s as they are dictated by the website. So it is in cm x cm

(translation)

Width

Height

Depth

[sierraman]

Finding a car magazine to read on a journey. How hard could it possibly be…

What Car… would be fine if I needed to be sedated for four hours reading about BiK figures by people that find charging points for electric cars interesting. Four pages in to that and you could probably remove all my limbs without anaesthesia. So I browse what Car Mechanics has to offer, a £10.99 bag with a magazine in and a bloody diagnostics manual for a range of cars. What fucking use is that to anyone apart from a garage proprietor who probably knows all that anyway. So I looks at Craptical Plastics, £6.50 to fund some middle class folks write about chequebook restorations and speculative price indexes of how much you could make on your investments. No thanks…

I’ve gone home and rooted out an old copy of something readable from 20 years ago under the stairs and kept the money in my pocket. 

[andyberg]

3 minutes ago, sierraman said:

Finding a car magazine to read on a journey. How hard could it possibly be…

What Car… would be fine if I needed to be sedated for four hours reading about BiK figures by people that find charging points for electric cars interesting. Four pages in to that and you could probably remove all my limbs without anaesthesia. So I browse what Car Mechanics has to offer, a £10.99 bag with a magazine in and a bloody diagnostics manual for a range of cars. What fucking use is that to anyone apart from a garage proprietor who probably knows all that anyway. So I looks at Craptical Plastics, £6.50 to fund some middle class folks write about chequebook restorations and speculative price indexes of how much you could make on your investments. No thanks…

I’ve gone home and rooted out an old copy of something readable from 20 years ago under the stairs and kept the money in my pocket. 

Classic.Retro.Modern?