for November...
First snow in E Sussex today, though it was light and didn't stay.
Tried a few new "coals" on the room stove - quite impressed with MaxiBrite and Phurnacite - both seem easier to light than pure anthracite and slumber better - and a finer ash without big lumps of white crap that block the grate.
Now I'll have to see if our coalman can get either for a sensible price. So far he's tried to sell me Pureheat which turns out to be a Petro-coke product and is explicitly banned in the instruction book so I'll have to cancel that.
On a random aside - had it swept a week back. "it" is an Aga Little Wenlock Classic (4.7kW,) with SS flue liner. I had been mooting DIYing that. Glad I didn't - at least this time. Quite a few bits to take out which weren't obvious to me.
And - oh, the liner. Only a deposit of ash, no tar - but he had a bugger of a job to get past the first joint. The liner makes a slight turn right after the top stove pipe and I guess the liner mates with this at a slight angle, as it was cutting into his rods something rotten. And he had mole grips on them to turn them. Said he's lost rods up such liners before when they got cut in half (became an insurance job on his libility ins. to have the liner removed and refitted).
He said it's not the installer's fault - just sometimes the liner juts out to one side due to entry angle and presents a bastard sharp lip to the rods. If it's not that, it's often the self tappers that get him, so he said.
sometimes it's better not to have a go...