All your Homebase are belong to... you! / The House 'n' Home Thread.
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poprock wrote:Question for Sparkles (who I can’t tag because of the spaces-in-names thing). What the fuck’s going on here? This is an electricity meter for supply to one of our outbuildings. There appear to be bare wires next to it with no kind of termination or protection. Should I be concerned? They disappear underground so I’ve no idea where they go.
I mean, it clearly hasn’t caused any bother so far. I could wrap ’em in electrical tape, but should I just be calling in a sparky and not going near it? -
Oh that reminds me - thanks for the input before, Paul, on my under-sink socket. It was just a spur (one set of wires going in) so easily dismantled and safely wrapped up, nice, probably saved me an hour call out fee.
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Sorry, just seen this Poppo (why didn't you @ me?!) but I'm 99% certain that the cable is dead. Maybe it was originally supplying a small building that was demolished or something? Could even be an old off peak supply for storage heating. Whatever it was, the positioning of it means it would be pretty incredible to leave something like that live and flapping about the place.
If it is a live incoming supply cable there's not an awful lot a regular spark can do I'm afraid, it'll be down to whoever your supplier is -
Flick it with your finger mayber. Hey I had my first belt in over 10 years last week, got sloppy while sorting out a pendant the plasterer took down. Invigorating!
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I couldn't do it so fair play to you.
I'm so paranoid about getting a shock I'm probably more likely to get one by being a fanny. -
When I was an apprentice there was an old guy who had so much dry calloused skin on his bell ringers that he had to concentrate to tell if he was getting a shock or not. Was mental
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I once accidently brushed the terminals on a dc transformer with the back of my hand. The deep gutteral moan that forced it's way out my lungs was alarming.
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Cheers Paul. All good, even if it does feel bizarre to have random wires flapping about in the house. I’m just gonna tape them up for my own sanity.
Turns out that isn’t even an actual electricity meter, which is why it has no serial number. It’s just a counter tracking how much electricity from our main supply is used by an outbuilding. The previous owner here was such a tightarse that he counted how much electricity was used for lighting the car park at night and charged the other neighbours for it. -
What would be a good drill for various things such as wood, brick, aluminium etc? No serious hard drilling, just stuff about the house, putting up shelves and the like. I have a cheapo drill I bought years ago but it won't go into anything tougher than wood. -
I’m no expert, but I’ve always used a cheap hammer drill for making holes in brick, concrete, etc. Something with the word ‘hammer’ in the name and a second handle for you to hold it steady. A measuring stick on the side is useful too, to know how deep you’ve drilled. Something like this:
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Cheers. Hammer drill, ok.
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Pops pic is a SDS drill as far as i can tell. Normal drill bits wont fit onto it. A hammer drill will fit the normal drill bits. I have both and i use my normal bosch cordless hammer drill for 99% of my jobs. Drilling into all sorts of stuff. When you need to make a very large hole or a very long drill bit then the SDS is the way to go.
Also SDS are quite large in comparison to hammer drills so can be awkward to use in the house in some places. -
Funkstain wrote:Must…resist…Scottish joke…..
I appreciated this, by the way.
The more we talk to the neighbours, the more stories we hear about this old guy being a dick.
He’s been particularly bad with the woman who lives next-door to him. Sending people round to cut down trees in her garden without permission (because he claimed they blocked his Sky reception!) Turning up with furniture he wanted rid of and saying ‘I thought you might like this, I was going to throw it away’, then demanding hundreds of pounds for it (after carrying it into her house and setting it up!) Etc etc. -
Dinostar77 wrote:Pops pic is a SDS drill as far as i can tell. Normal drill bits wont fit onto it.
Fair enough. I just Googled ‘hammer drill’ and grabbed a random pic. -
poprock wrote:Funkstain wrote:Must…resist…Scottish joke…..
I appreciated this, by the way.
The more we talk to the neighbours, the more stories we hear about this old guy being a dick.
He’s been particularly bad with the woman who lives next-door to him. Sending people round to cut down trees in her garden without permission (because he claimed they blocked his Sky reception!) Turning up with furniture he wanted rid of and saying ‘I thought you might like this, I was going to throw it away’, then demanding hundreds of pounds for it (after carrying it into her house and setting it up!) Etc etc.
Did he just let himself into her house? -
No, she keeps trying to be a friendly neighbour and it keeps blowing up in her face.
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Ah. I can't believe how terrible he is. Glad you stood your ground on things as he seems the type to take the piss if you give him the chance.
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Definitely. The other neighbours have let him get away with it for far too long. We’ve stood up to him and so now he’s moving out. Everyone’s thrilled.
Yesterday he called round to say that he’s finished clearing out our shed/barn and I should go take a look. So I wandered in and let him proudly show me the two internal rooms he has now cleared out all his stuff from. I said great, but what about all your belongings in the main space there - pointing out his firewood stacks, trailer, ride-on lawnmower, shelves full of gardening supplies, spare bits of roofing, piles of coal, and so on. “Oh, I thought I’d just keep all those bits and bobs here until after I’ve moved.”
I reminded him that the letter from our solicitor was very clear that he is to remove all belongings and vacate the premises by 31st March. To which he says “But what will I do with it all? I’d have to pay for storage!”
I reminded him that we paid him almost half a million pounds less than four months ago and that yes, he can pay for storage.
Fucking chancer. -
Our Poppo, absolutely bossing it.
Come with g if you want to live... -
What a nob.iosGameCentre:T3hDaddy;
XBL: MistaTeaTime -
Not pops, the other guy.iosGameCentre:T3hDaddy;
XBL: MistaTeaTime -
Gman?
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We had some seriously stormy weather overnight and it caused a leaky roof. Ironically this has turned out to be a good thing.
Called out an emergency roofer on our insurance. He had a poke around and declared the roof excellent, saying the problem is with some of the leading around our solar collector panels. He wouldn’t touch those, not his speciality.
But this makes a lot of sense. We’ve got mice, or at least probably mice (could be birds) scrabbling around in the ceiling at exactly that point. They’re only active when the sun’s beating down really hot.
I reckon whatever is living up there has nibbled it’s way in for shelter, made a hole that’s now letting rainwater in, and gets freaked out by the mega-heat when it’s sunny.
So I’ve been digging around in the controller cabinets and have found the original installer’s name and phone number. Google says he’s still working. So this is ace. We can get him out to service the system, clear out the critters, and seal up the roof, all in one go.
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