Member postings for Samsaranda

It’s worth checking for any loose unions, at our previous house we had a new boiler fitted and the heating engineer asked if we had smelt any fumes from the old boiler he had removed, we had always complained of a smell of gas and he said not surprising as the gas inlet pipe Union was only finger tight, the system was serviced annually by British Gas, needless to say we don’t use them anymore.
Dave W

I keep Koi and on my big pond I have an automatic filtration system, you can set the time period between filter purges, which then dumps accumulated crud to waste. I currently have a problem where the cleaning cycle initiates and functions but the final operation, the opening and closing of the waste valve, will not operate. By logically analysing the components and the electronics box I have worked out that it is a relay that isn’t functioning, inside the electronics box there are 5 relays of three different types, 2 types have built in adjustable timers just to complicate the issue; unfortunately I am unable to pin down which relay is the culprit, the electronics are really tightly packed in. I am now in the same situation as you CT, I need a replacement relay but didn’t know where to get it from. I found a makers name and reference number on each type of relay so I resorted to the good old internet and managed to track down the manufacturer, who is in China, what a surprise, I decided that as the relays only cost 10 US dollars each I decided to buy one of each of the 3 types fitted in my equipment so that I could substitute until I found the one that wasn’t working. The 2 spare relays will be kept for spares, you never know when you will need replacements. CT have you tried inputting the relay make and part number into the internet to see what comes up, that way you can bypass the manufacturer of your unit and get replacement from the original manufacturer. One thing to note my relays come as either 230volt or 12/24 volt, after ordering I received an email from the supplier to check which voltage I required, at least I know they are probably on their way, although who knows how long they will take to get here from China with the current pandemic situation.
Dave W

Had similar problem with a pair of Clark’s shoes kept for best, out to lunch in a good restaurant and sole parted company with the upper on one shoe, rescued by a stout elastic band which looked very odd when I hobbled out to the car park. Glad to see it’s not a unique problem.
Dave W

Having the prospect that we will be isolating for 12 weeks or more I purchased a decent battery charger because at some stage the car battery will sink below a reasonable charge level because the alarm system works all the time even when the car is garaged. I do run the engine once a week, if I remember, but the battery is 5 years old and the car is an automatic so uses a heavy capacity battery, I reckon that I will need to charge it after about 8 weeks, at least I am prepared for that scenario.
Dave W

They used to guarantee no leaks from them but the guarantee is no longer given, I presume cheaper manufacturing has compromised the integrity that the batteries used to have.
Dave W

And the Duke of Westminster can only manage £12.5 million out of his £10 billion fortune. Well done Tom Moore.

Dave W

We had an Ideal condensing combi boiler fitted back in 2000, it lasted just 14 days before it broke down, a circuit board fault, replaced under warranty. During the next 12 years it managed to eat 8 boards in total, cost of a board then was £180 plus, but due to my continued insistence that it was crap manufacturing Ideal covered all the costs. We decided it was time to fit a new boiler we could rely on, the heating engineer recommended a new model of Ideal boiler, we were very reluctant to have another after the problems we had with the first one, we went with it and in the 8 years to date only problem has been a leaking diverter valve which was replaced under warranty, a bought in component not manufactured by Ideal. Most manufacturers give a suitable length of warranty, ranging from 5 to 12 years, I think initially condensing boilers had bad press because they were relatively new technology and manufacturers had problems with supply of the circuit boards, they are complex compared to what went before and it took time for manufacturers to get to grips with the balance between quality and cost. You need to find an installer that you trust, a sensible estimate is usually the first step.
Dave W

Dave (SOD), if I read your posting right the conclusion that can be drawn is that regimes that are open and liberal, e.g. USA and UK have fared relatively badly in preparing and managing the situation but regimes that are more authoritarian e.g. China, South Korea have controlled the situation much more quickly. The more “liberal” western regimes have always stayed as far away as possible from State Control, hence they relied on private organisations and the free market to step in when needed. Unfortunately in this era of globalisation we were caught without sufficient manufacturing capacity to meet our immediate needs, hence the shortages of PPE which mostly comes from the other side of the world. We in the UK could in future be more prepared but would require the State to control the stockpiling of resources needed; this has been done in the past during the post Second World War / Cold War era, the State had large stockpiles stored around the country but I suppose as this nowadays means a huge financial commitment the risk was taken with “it may never happen”, unfortunately it did.
Dave W

Yesterday received our letter from Boris with the UK government leaflet about Coronavirus, in which it clearly states “if you cannot work from home then you can still travel to work” as long as you can observe social separation, it couldn’t be clearer and absolutely no mention of work having to be essential. If anyone has a confrontation with police over this issue then they have a cast iron reason to work as directed by the government leaflet. Any fines levied should be quashed on appeal. It is not easy with a whole raft of legislation descending on the police so I sympathise with them but it appears that some Chief Constables are reading into the legislation issues that are not there.
Dave W

Danny M, the government in Oz has a completely different plan for the virus than our UK government who plan on herd immunity, in other words the majority of the population will experience the virus at some time in order to build a society with resistance to future waves of the virus. With that plan in operation then we here can look forward to many, many more deaths, albeit spread over a much longer period.
Dave W

I agree that our country appeared to be woefully unprepared for a pandemic and I hope those who neglected preparations are taken to task and learn from this situation. As regards the absence of total lockdown of the country it is the governments declared objective to achieve “herd immunity “ and the process by which this will be achieved will be with 80% of the population experiencing the virus, this may be not what the majority expect but the process of slowing the spread to ease the load on the NHS is part of the management that will achieve the objective.
Dave W

PGK, as you are no doubt aware cats have been victims of “corona virus”,not the Covid 19 variety, for many years, Feline infectious peritonitis to name but one, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that tigers in New York Zoo have contracted covid 19, it came from animals to humans so not surprising that it has transmitted to another animal species. It is all getting very scary and now just seen on Sky news that Boris is now in Intensive Care, hope things go ok for him. Wife and I have been isolated now for more than 3 weeks, the longer this goes on the more reluctant I will be to venture back into civilisation.
Dave W

PGK, I think Bordeaux Mixture is now banned in all European countries, I think eventually we will only be able to use plain water, it’s health and safety gone mad, I blame the EU they have been responsible for “sanitising” all our treatments. A pet issue of mine is the treatments that are now allowed on timber, if you buy fence posts now you are lucky if they last more than two years once in the ground, they just rot away; I have a fence that I put up 25 years ago and it is still solid, no rot at all. Sorry to side track the posting.
Dave W

Danny M, I don’t think you are too paranoid, I do the same with mail and parcels but I wait till the delivery person/postman is out of sight before donning the gloves and handling the items, that way I feel that I am sensitive to how they feel. I think in the bigger scale of things we will all probably suffer the virus, some not even knowing that they have had it due to the range of effects that it can have. The reality is that just one virus particle is enough to infect a person and the virus particles are approximately 20 nanometres in size, very difficult to dodge. Anyway the gov. at the start of this crisis we’re talking about the population gaining “herd immunity” that means by its definition, everyone being exposed to the virus. I think it’s becoming apparent that the various agencies only paid lip service to forward planning for an inevitable pandemic, not just related to the U.K. the USA is beginning to suffer shortages of materiel and equipment, on the news this morning Russia has delivered a consignment of aid to the USA, this included ventilators, bet Donald will not mention that in his daily ramblings. Anyway hope you all stay safe.
Dave W

Might just cost you your life ! ! !

Dave W

I think as time passes more people will have family members who are diagnosed, some really poorly and others with only slight symptoms. Our daughter was confirmed as a virus sufferer yesterday, she had been quite unwell for a few days, she had been isolating, her status was confirmed by telephone consultation with our GP and registered with 111. She lives with her family in the village and not far from us; she had been our lifeline for shopping as we are isolating due to age and medical conditions, we have enough provisions to last for a week or so, anyway today she is beginning to feel better so hopefully she is recovering. We think she may have contracted it from her daughter who is airline cabin crew and has been flying recently, bringing passengers home from Spain, Italy and South Africa. We live in a truly global society and living, as we do, in a small rural village is no protection from infections on the other side of the world.
Dave W

Some models of motors in Dyson Vacs were made by Panasonic, I would think other contractors also made motors at varying times. I could never understand the slogan bandied around by Dyson that their Vacs suffered no loss of suction because they were bagless, it doesn’t take long for the filters to clog and reduce suction which means that their slogan was at best misleading if not a total lie. It might seem that I am slagging off the brand but we currently have two Dyson Vacs because they are better at performing than others we tried. Anyway good on Dyson for getting on with manufacturing respirators and for James intending giving away such a large amount for free.
Dave W

Wife and I both isolating because of health conditions, having to rely, at the moment, on online shopping; trawling through the internet today to find a supplier of gluten free cereals and came across the following on Amazon UK:

Nestles Gluten free Honey Corn Flakes £22.89 plus £11.99 delivery (albeit shipped from Greece) usual price in the region of £2.00

This is blatant profiteering and Amazon should be ashamed at being a party to this practice, but on the other hand the owner of Amazon is probably the richest person on the planet and he didn’t get there by being benevolent and not forgetting his Organization is reluctant at best to pay any taxes in countries where they operate. I would bet that the emergency legislation that Parliament has recently passed didn’t provide any measures to tackle profiteering.
Dave W

Bob, I believe that Dettol is poisonous to cats and dogs so I would switch to using just soapy water on the dogs paws. Soap is apparently the most effective agent to use against the virus, it breaks down the outer coating of the virus and renders it unable to penetrate cells.
Dave W

I got some of EBay, yet to try it but have seen it demonstrated at shows and it works well.
Dave W