Happy Christmas

[Adrian Caspersz]

Merry Christmas everyone!

May your drillings into plasterboard walls go into studs ...

[Tim Watts]

Merry Xmas everyone :)

Off to the pub for lunch this year, in an hour - (yay no cooking).

[Bob Eager]

Our tame chef did all the prep last night and things are well in hand.

[Huge]

Sat sipping 12 y/o Bunnahabhain, wearing my new jumper, listening to Roy Orbison (bite me) on my new speakers while SWMBO preps the lunch. What could be better?

[Chris Hogg]

'Old Acquaintance of course. Or do you reserve that for Hogmanay?

[Andrew]

Anyone needed the emergency drain rods yet ?.

[John Rumm]

Not this year... yet!

[RJH]

Just the minor kitchen flood this year :-)

Happy xmas everyone, and thanks for your advice over the year.

[RJH]

I was given an entire family xmas food consignment due to a change in their plans. I don't eat much meat so I was a bit reluctant, but hey, couldn't bear to see it go to waste. Chucked the 6kg turkey in the oven, rounded up a few mates after a lunchtime drink, and it went amazingly well. So far :-)

[Andy Burns]

Mum had asked me to "bring stuff" to fix their landing light, a BC22 incandescent had exploded violently and prevented the remnants of the bulb from being released.

While standing on a stool at the top of the stairs, trying to release the bulb, Dad realised he wasn't steady enough on his feet to be doing that.

It was a metal fixture with screws torn from the plasterboard, the earth wire ripped off, there were multiple nicks in the single insulated wires to the three lampholders where it passed through the metalwork and they looked worse the wear for overheating and going brittle, one of the spring loaded pins had welded itself in place.

Quite scary.

So I scavenged some double-insulated twin flex and a piece of earth wire from old appliances in the garage, completely rewired it and fixed it back to the ceiling with expanding plasterboard fixings ...

They've only just been persuaded to fit 8 LEDs and a v-pro dimmer in the lounge and dining room, where they had been finding it more and more inconvenient to keep replacing failed BC22 halogens. So now getting them to fit LEDs everywhere so no more precarious balancing at the top of the stairs by an octogenarian who's had an operation on one of his knees, and waiting for operations to fuse all his toes.

[tabbypurr]

fittings out of reach over stairs are a fundamentally bad design, even when not using incandescents.

NT

[Andy Burns]

They have a decent 2-high pair of steps, with a handrail, and the light is above a landing rather the stairs, no problem for me, but my feet don't give me much grief ...

[tabbypurr]

Really any fitting that oldsters can't change bulbs in is fundamentally dumb to retain in old age.

NT