Electric Bill - Is this Eccessive?

[Andy Hall]

Curious....

[Mary Fisher]

Nor do we. Except that I use wooden boards which some believe have a natural disinfectant. We have different ones for different purposes but the vegetable one is the meat one on its other side.

I do it when it needs it, it could be several times a day if I'm baking.

We use one of several cotton dishcloths, they're thrown out when the holes outstrip the fabric.

Or even lower.

Until you get as far back as rubbing with sand :-)

Don't know what that last bit is about but we've survived. We never get any (what I call minor) illnesses, we prefer the dramatic when people bring chocolates and champagne with their sympathy. Over the last 25 years we've had a heart attack, a brain tumour and one each of cancer. That's all. Well, except for dental decay, poorer hearing, an ingrowing toenail and needing specs. I don't think any of those would have been caused by poor hygiene.

Indeed.

And you'll have ingested the food which was on the plates, cutlery or other items.

I don't know of any bacteria which can feed on glazed or even unglazed pottery. Before anyone says that bacteria get into the pores of unglazed pottery I'll add that we often cook in it and eat and drink from it. Our ancestors did too and weren't affected.

Mary

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 14 Jan 2007 10:59:17 -0000 someone who may be "Mary Fisher" wrote this:-

I chop vegetables and meat (cooked and uncooked) on the same boards, with the same knives and am still alive. However, I do wash them between such uses and wash my hands regularly while cooking.

Indeed, though they do get a trip in the washing machine every once in a while.

I am told it is a television programme. If it is I have never been bored enough to watch it.

[Mary Fisher]

When they're grey - they're used for other things too - wiping up spills mostly.

Ah, thanks, we don't have a box.

Mary

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 14 Jan 2007 10:37:01 +0000 someone who may be Andy Hall wrote this:-

You are curious about the concept of doing what the customer wants?

[Derek Geldard]

But to fit an existing fitting the choice can be very restricted.

Yes

The devil is in the detail.

That is not my experience with the lamps I have by a very long chalk.

This morning before we switched the lighs on I brought my Luxmeter in from the car and made some measurements with the lamps starting from cold (20c).

I checked 3 types of lamp we had installed, all in good condition about 1 year old except the Genura (But that is supposed to last 18 (?) years !). Starting from cold I made measurements at 5 seconds, 3 minutes, and when fully warmed up 15 minutes later. I expressed the reults as a percentage of this ultimate maximum reached.

IKEA 11W "Bulb" Feit 13W Spiral GE Genura

5 Sec. 16.6% 47.5% 20.0% 3 Mins. 80.5% 95.8% 80.0%

In general the light output appeared to increase linearly with time from the 5 second point when all lamps had actually started to the 80% output point and then approached the maximum asymptotically.

It's not the time to start that concerns me it's the time taken to reach say 80% of full output. One can surmount this problem to some extent by oversizing the lamps if they'll go in the fitting, but ISTM about 50% of max output can still take about a minute to reach.

But they take a long time to warm up. The Feit Spiral was better than the others (But very ugly in an exposed fitting) but would still involve a tiresome wait to each say 80% output, very noticeable on returning to a house in darkness and switching on hall, landing, living room and kitchen lights.

ICBW, but I have a feeling that the amount of mercury in the lamps has been reduced recently for environmental reasons, full output is not achieved 'till all the mercury has been vapourised and distributed around the tube.

Like all green initiatives there are two sides to the coin, viz it can lead to users fitting bigger higher consumption lamps using more energy, and disposing of lamps sooner thereby wasting raw materials (including mercury !) and energy.

Le Chatelier's Principle in action.

I'll make some light output comparisons sometime soon between CF's and GLS tungsten lamps, and post the results here. Trouble is I'll have to remember to buy one, we don't have a single GLS tungsten lamp in the house.

DG

[Owain]

T' problem with that is when you turn the board over, you contaminate the worktop underneath, which recontaminates the board's other side when you turn it over again.

Baking's very good for cleaning things, dough picks up a lot of muck :-)

I'm a firm believer in chucking a kettle of boiling water over anything dubious-looking.

Owain

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 14 Jan 2007 13:20:33 +0000 someone who may be Derek Geldard wrote this:-

I have been using such lamps in places like toilets for a decade, without any problems. I have just decided to use them on the stairs, as they now start quickly enough and reach enough output quickly enough to be used there. I use the slower starting bulbs in other locations, where the slow starting is not a problem.

Though still less energy than the GLS lamp they replace.

No need to dispose of lamps that are unsuitable for a particular application, just use them somewhere else.

It is simply a matter of experience. While everyone has experience of GLS lamps that is not true of energy saving lamps.

[Andy Hall]

Certainly not - I always do what the customer wants. However, sometimes it is curious.

It's curious to be offered what amounts to a free loan and to turn it down.

[<me9]

Probably the fester is penicillin, which (well, it used to) kills all sorts of germs.

[Dave Liquorice]

You haven't missed much other than perhaps having ones eyes opened as to the state some people will let their home get into. I don't mean a bit of dust under side boards, I mean pizza boxes with half a what was a pizza under the sideboard along with a mugs of now multi shaded mould.

One thing they always do thouigh is take swabs from the washing up cloth/sponge or the and then go on about how many bacteria (no mention of which bacteria) are on it.

[Dave Liquorice]

Well I like to pay what I owe rather than a low estimate but with big companies I have better things to do with my time than argue. When I switched to Scottish the DD amount was way low (like 50% low) who am I to argue? Of course by then end of the year I owed then rather a lot and the next years DD was *much* higher to pay off their loan to me. It's now settled down and the amount of credit seems stable, indicating the DD is the right amount I must remember to ask for that credit to be sent to me.

[Dave Liquorice]

You've got me worried now. With all the price increases in the last year my spread sheet might be out of date but I don't think it is. Checks Scottish bill online and the Southern paper one (for EBICO) and those are the rates on the most recent bills.

or 26 units/day, which is rather a lot.

They have most and the tarrifs. What you can't do with some is the online transfer, you have to write letters etc... There are other switching sites but look carefully at the information and the way it is presented. There are only two possibly three actual databases out there but many sites offering different front ends to the same data.

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 14 Jan 2007 15:57:04 +0000 (GMT) someone who may be "Dave Liquorice" wrote this:-

It hasn't taken a great deal of time to argue the point, which is just part of their incompetence which I'm dealing with.

[Mary Fisher]

...

What did you do with all the interest on their loan to you?

Mary

>

[Mary Fisher]

So I really haven't missed anything of value.

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

Eh? It isn't used again but the garlic aroma wouldn't be absorbed on the counter. And anyway, that board is warped so the vegetable side touches the counter only at two edges. Both sides are hollow because of all the cutting done on them. I'd like to think that I'll live long enough to wear a hole right through :-)

For interest (mine) I looked at the number of boards on the shelf, they're stored vertically by the way. There's the veg/meat preparation one, the cheese board and bread board, both of which are used at the table so can't be combined. The roasting/carving board (oak and nicely blackened!), a very thick one - solid beech - made for me by a cabinet making daughter for butchery, a very large one for working pastry and bread dough and two others which aren't dedicated to anything but can be used as spares or to hold very hot items from the oven when necessary.That's eight, I think. There's a smaller carving board which is kept somewhere else. Oh, and a round one which is also used as a pan stand but I can never find it, it can't go on the shelf or it would roll off.

This could turn into another 'piston score' thread :-)

It does, and it gets your hands very clean, but I prefer working on wood to a pretend granite plastic surface.

You mean like Jehova's Witnesses?

Mary

[Derek Geldard]

My experiences with a modern gas oven were such that I fear of taking on a hybrid such as gas tumbler dryer.

Following anecdote relates to experiences with a Stoves gas oven with electronic controls.

High voltage wiring (Apparently about 20 gauge tinned copper wire) to the ignition electrode unsupported except by the crimp terminal at the electrode itself. After 3 or so years wire oxidises at that point and drops off. Falls against oven housing bottom, still generates sparks but not near pilot light jet, so ignition delayed until oven bottom filled with explosive gas /air mixture, so takes several minutes to light. After weeks of behaving like this the loose end of HV wire gets displaced by the explosions away from earthed oven bottom metalwork. Still continues to work but delay as described above is now longer.

But increased distance from earthed metalwork means greater voltage needed to strike spark. Eventually spark generator dies from over voltage.

Replacement is 50 quid + 2 weeks delay.

Replacement lasts 2 days.

Stoves agree to replace it FOC.

Dealer sceptical, but plays along. Neither admits to seeing such a problem (due entirely to poor design / build quality) ever before.

Fit replacement spark generator, examine and fettle wire to electrode, oven works. *Alleluiah*, *Alleluiah*, *Alleluiah*, *A-llay-ee-luiah* .

3 Days later notice that oven ignites OK and heats up but pilot flame not detected and sparking continues. Check electrode, check wire - all "satis", continue using oven.

5 days later spark generator dies. It is December 21st. Christmas is coming and "The Goose" is getting thinner every day.

Go to local dealer of "B" graded domestic appliances, find an electric Creda oven available to take away for 250 quid, strange model odd colour not seen/advertised before in UK, but OK.

*Sorted*.

3 years later get trouble with Creda oven. Haul it out, open it up and find the wiring and controls have been burnt, browned and crispened to a hopeless extent by ordinary normal usage, can't do anything with it, it drops apart, it's crumbly.

Order a replacement from Smeg.

Smeg oven has two replacement oven elements within warranty, but

*THANK GOD* still works. It's 2,007 now, it is 28 years since Niel Armstrong got out of his spaceship on the moon.

One would have thought that the technology of the gas oven, and the electric oven had been mastered by now.

Life is too short to take onboard a gas fired tumbler dryer. It's short enough, I don't want it shortening any further 8-(

DG

[Derek Geldard]

If it was the same prog I thought testing a WC for cleanliness by running a fingertip around the rim of the bowl feeling for crystals of urea (I think, she called it Pee -Pee) was a bit "Under the arm".

DG

[David Hansen]

On Sun, 14 Jan 2007 13:52:41 +0000 someone who may be David Hansen wrote this:-

99p each from John Lewis for the bulbs I have used on the stairs. I haven't stumbled in the sort of darkness the anti-CFL lobby claimed I would experience for five minutes before they put out any useful light.