My week

[GB]

My week so far:

I took 4 work gloves out of the boot of the car. All of them turned out to be left hand. Sigh.

The boiler broke down. That reminded me that the immersion heater needed replacing. Sigh.

It's hot. The water is cold, and we are pretty stinky! The new immersion heater arrived in the post two hours after the boiler was repaired at great expense. (The boiler is 20 years old and looks pristine, but parts are a problem. We need a new boiler, despite spending lots on the old one.) Sigh.

We have a disabled visitor in a wheel chair coming at the weekend. 6 steps up to our front door, so I built a ramp. The ramp worked fine, but I thought the plywood was a bit slippery. So, I varnished it, and poured sand on the varnish. Only it's hot so some of the varnish had dried before the sand hit it. Plus, the only sand I had lying around is builders sand. Trip tomorrow to buy sharp sand, then do the varnish again and sand it as I go along. Sigh.

I resisted my son's saying that the ramp was *probably* strong enough to take the weight of the car. We did not experiment. We did not break either the new ramp or the car. Hurrah!

Big tidy up. I had a lot of shredding to do. Sigh, big sigh. I have filled two wheely bins with shreddings, plus the remains of two shredders. I bagged up the rest of the stuff that still needs shredding and shoved it in a cupboard. Big sigh, but at least it's time for a G&T.

[tim...]

would a few strips of anti-slip tape not been a better idea?

tim

[Old Codger]

You are lucky, I daren't even have a G & T

[Tim Streater]

There are places that do small to medium amounts of shredding. Place near here, you buy a bag off them for £5 and then fill it with up to

17kg of paper to be shredded, seal the bag and return it to them. They will then securely shred it within 2 hours.

[Brian Gaff]

Hmm, Shredders are very flaky. You seldom get more than 30 mins before they turn off and smell of burnt varnish. You can sometimes over ride the thermal sensor, then they tend to either go bang or just stop.

Brian

[Andy Burns]

Some of the home models have a pretty low duty cycle e.g. 5 minutes shredding followed by 10 minutes rest

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Must admit to wondering what people have at home that needs shredding? Or rather for more than 5 minutes at a time?

[tabbypurr]

and they can't do anything like the number of sheets they claim - or at least not do so and make it to the guarantee period. 30 minutes would be wild optimism for a home shredder.

NT

[tabbypurr]

Nearly all paper makes moderately good cat litter.

NT

[charles]

Credit card and bank statements which have all my personal details on them, to start with.

[Andy Burns]

Running a business from home. I've had a wheelie bin full of shreddings before when getting rid of several years full of stuff (I try to be paperless as much as possible now)

[Tim Streater]

I told you: for a few quid you can get that shredded securely for you. That takes care of the bulk if you are getting rid of years of this sort of paperwork. For ongoing stuff a home shredder can handle that.

[whisky-dave]

I tend to rip the address section and any other ID off any post I get it;s usually just a corner or two, I manually shred that amd mix in with the cat litter or other rubbish, the rest of the papper just gets ripped up a bit more them in the recycle bin. I use a cig lighter to reomve the chips on my CC cards, I keep the cards as they are usful for prising things apart especaily LCD iMacs.

[Pamela]

That is a very serious amount of shredding.

My Lidl cross cut shredder struggles with more than half a dozen pages at a time and needs annoyingly frequent oiling. How did you manage to shred such a huge amount?

[Max Demian]

I'm still using my Woolies cross-cut shredder bought in '06. Did a sesh today - it only does one sheet at a time now (instead of five), and I have to give it a rest every five minutes.

I don't know whether oiling does any good or makes a sticky mess. I never oil mine. You can buy special shredder oil for an exorbitant amount which is really just rapeseed oil you probably have in the kitchen.

[ARW]

I guess he did not help you build it.

If you can take your own car Upon the ramp you built Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more- you'll be a Man my son.

[Pamela]

I think a spray oil (perhaps lithium or graphite rather than WD40) would do the job but the solvents are combustible making it potentially dangerous.

A kitchen oil is too viscous and prone to rancidity. I just bought the exorbitantly priced oil. The shredder seems to need it or I get a burning smell after a while.

My old strip shredder never needed any of this.

[GB]

He did help, actually. We had 5 people on it, as a safety test, but I thought it was a bit bouncy and reinforced it in the middle. It now feels solid.

[Bill]

In message , Tim Streater writes

What do people think about putting old paperwork in a garden incinerator (the sort like a dustbin with a chimney in the lid) and burning rather than paying to have it shredded?

My guess is that, with the amount here after we closed our business, I'd fill at least 5, 16kg sacks at ?12 per sack.

[GB]

I tried that, and it does not work very well. Paper is surprisingly hard to burn.