Morning folks! How's everyone doing?
Mornin
I'm fed up
I'm sick of having diary full of things to do for other people
Servicing grand daughters car today, think I got Thurs Fri free, just got a parcel to wrap and post for a friend
I'm going to have to start saying no to people
AND it's dull as dishwater this morning, come on weather, cheer me up :rolleyes:
 
Mornin
I'm fed up
I'm sick of having diary full of things to do for other people
Servicing grand daughters car today, think I got Thurs Fri free, just got a parcel to wrap and post for a friend
I'm going to have to start saying no to people
AND it's dull as dishwater this morning, come on weather, cheer me up :rolleyes:
Sympathies mate!
Miserable too.
Front wheel just literally came off my combo brushcutter/ mulcher having got up especially early to do the work before it gets so hot you can't breathe. In Frogland you can only use machinery that makes a noise between certain hours, and that includes NOT between 12 and 2 p.m.
Couldn't find the parts list for it, which I have known to be missing for a while now.
Internet no flicking use.
So took the office desk apart lifting piles of paperwork out of drawers and going through it all to no avail.
Then shone a torch down under the bottom drawer, THERE the barstaff was, hiding on the floor.
Ordered the bits needed, at least they were available and cheapish.

Hope you find a better work/life balance.

And when you do so please tell me the secret!!
:):):)
 
There are some strong opinions about using copper pipe in 'direct burial' applications - a lot of people don't seem to like it! Whilst everything is dug up, I'd be tempted to fit MDPE instead.
I am considering it. But --- the copper pipe is the earth route for all the earths in the house. In anticipation of a future change to plastics, I will do a repair for now and enable a route into the house. Changing now would be a big job involving taking up a tarmac over concrete slab driveway and trenching across a public footpath to the water meter. The public footpath bit would have to be done by a council licensed contractor. And would need a separate earth rod and mega-testing for the leccy earths.
 
I am considering it. But --- the copper pipe is the earth route for all the earths in the house. In anticipation of a future change to plastics, I will do a repair for now and enable a route into the house. Changing now would be a big job involving taking up a tarmac over concrete slab driveway and trenching across a public footpath to the water meter. The public footpath bit would have to be done by a council licensed contractor. And would need a separate earth rod and mega-testing for the leccy earths.
I thought copper in any screed/cementitious layer was frowned upon because the chemicals in the cement eat into the copper.
I remember my builder cladding the copper pipe gas-line to the corner of the kitchen before screeding the floor for that reason.
But if it was in there donkeys years with no trouble, maybe best let sleeping dogs lie. :)
 
But if it was in there donkeys years with no trouble, maybe best let sleeping dogs lie. :)
I'll salute that. I suspect the only part of the pipe in concrete in this case, is the bit I have found. There is evidence of previous drain alterations where I am making more alterations, and I think the copper just happened to get wrapped in the concrete during the last alterations. The pipe must be sixty or seventy years old, same as the one at Wimblowdriver Towers, and still working. Old copper, decent quality unlike the oriental sh!t available today which is far less malleable and won't bend like the old stuff.
 
Guid afternoon
Jam making morning
9 jars poured another 10 to go and not a dangle berry in sight !
IMG_20230823_131114312_HDR.jpg
 
Guid afternoon
Jam making morning
9 jars poured another 10 to go and not a dangle berry in sight !View attachment 295919
Can I be so bold as to give you a litle hint?
As soon as the jam is poured, close the lid. Like would happen in a factory, it creates a vacuum and there is much less chance of dodgy growth on the top.

(We've been jam, marmalade and jelly making for years.)

Looks very neat, very clean and new jars, or maybe just new seals. Enjoy them!!
 
Yes, my own experience is that copper pipe lasts pretty well underground, even if it's passing through cement. I'm just saying that many professionals, and utility companies, consider it poor practice, and at the very least it is supposed to be sleeved.

If it's very old it might be a weird size. I was working on a friend's house some years ago and came across some copper piping that was very thick walled and even had a thread cut in it to screw into the fittings. It was a very fine thread, that neither I nor the several plumbers' merchants I took a sample to could match. Fortunately there was enough meat on the pipe to cut a 1/2" BSP so I was able to graft it onto more modern connectors.

The old imperial 1/2" and modern 15mm copper seem to be more or less interchangeable but 3/4" and 22mm, as well as 1" and 28mm need an adaptor. I'm sure you know this anyway, but I'm just thinking about the frustration involved in cutting the pipe and then discovering you've got nothing to fit it!
 
I'll salute that. I suspect the only part of the pipe in concrete in this case, is the bit I have found. There is evidence of previous drain alterations where I am making more alterations, and I think the copper just happened to get wrapped in the concrete during the last alterations. The pipe must be sixty or seventy years old, same as the one at Wimblowdriver Towers, and still working. Old copper, decent quality unlike the oriental sh!t available today which is far less malleable and won't bend like the old stuff.
It's doing its "earthing" job as soon as it touches the ground so I wouldn't be worried about continuing in plastic or whatever takes your fancy. There must be still some touching the gound.

Our house in the UK is crossbonded as per and whenever I change a sink or anything I do the same.
But where the mains comes through the slab it is in a big, thick, black, plastic-looking pipe. (timber frame house on a full slab). So wtf is the point of the cross bonding? Or are they actually trying to rely on the water IN the pipe to do the earthing?

I have often wondered.

didn't they used to earth to a big metal peg rammed into the earth?
 
I am considering it. But --- the copper pipe is the earth route for all the earths in the house. In anticipation of a future change to plastics, I will do a repair for now and enable a route into the house. Changing now would be a big job involving taking up a tarmac over concrete slab driveway and trenching across a public footpath to the water meter. The public footpath bit would have to be done by a council licensed contractor. And would need a separate earth rod and mega-testing for the leccy earths.

Let me first say that my ignorance of these matters is tip top BUT what I don't understand is what you have said about the 'earthing' work that would be necessary when the changeover to plastc piping becomes the only option.

My bungalow was built in 1985 had a water supply with copper pipes coming up my drive from the lane outside. This piping was used as the 'earthing' for my property - BUT- in 2003, a completely new water main was installed coming across the farmland which is at the rear of my property and going on towards a village about 7 miles away. For some reason ( before I owned the property) it was decided that my property would be disconnected from the old supply that everyone else uses in the hamlet and supplied by this new plastic main. They tee-ed a supply from this main down through the field adjacent to me and then tee-ed off that into my rear garden where they installed a new stopcock just for this property. Their main then continued down to the lane where a PRV was installed before to turned left and went AWAY from the hamlet and journeyed on to ???????

If you are still with me you will now understand that my water is supplied at a pressure of 8???'s through a plastic pipe until it gets to my new stopcock. From there I do not know what the pipe is but what I do know is that all my interior pipework is under the floors and is made of ... plastic! It does come in on copper before disappearing and coming up where required as plastic and an earth 'warning' is attached to that stoptap.

Another mystery is that I have a second interior stop tap which comes up at the other end of the bungalow, also copper, but that is attached to above-ground copper piping which supplies a utility room and a shower room. I can only assume that this was a later modification, but this stoptap also has an obvious 'earth' warning attached to it. I can understand this 'cos it does seem to be all copper - very unlike the first one.

You can wake up now as I have finished. :D :D :D
 
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