Stanleysteamer said:
This may be a really dumb question, but wouldn't some strategically placed lightning conductors help you with all this?
Cannot believe the expense you must have been put to with all that damage. Unless the insurance covered it.
Considering what you have to unplug whenever a storm is in the offing, just having to unplug the Hub/router seems like child's play in comparison.
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We have considered lightning conductors but the real problem is spikes coming down the electricity lines rather than buildings getting struck. We never know which pylon is going to get struck! The last time it was the sixth one away from us, probably half a kilometre away.

The insurance has covered most expenses - they won't cover light bulbs or the circuit breakers and other small things, the modems were replaced by the provider, but the insurance has covered repairs and replacement of appliances. The well pump motors are €500 a shot to replace so we would rather not go there again in case they decline a third time. I found out the hard way that turning it off is not enough, hence the spike jumped the contacts, so now I pull the cables and keep a screwdriver in the cabinet for just this.
 
Stanleysteamer said:
It is a bit difficult to say how much rainwater we collect as once it has filled the underground tank any more simply goes down the overflow. And of course we only use it when we are here which is to say April to September. I think the tank holds 3000 litres, so not huge, and we have had to drop the pump down a bit to get it to pump since we first put it in, but it still isn't on the bottom, but we do only use it to water the polytunnel and the raised beds outside plus a very few other pots of plants.

Geologically our area is interesting. To the north of us is a region called the "Sidobre" which is massively granite, the huge local business is quarrying it and turning it into monumental masonry as it isn't much cop for anything else as it is basically just a grey colour, although one town decided to use it to pave the pavements with. But it does have a big lot of tourist attractions with huge rocks balanced on others, waterfalls, lakes with rocks in that look like the backs of whales etc. Donkeys' years ago some volcano somewhere nearby must have bust a gut and chucked thousands of tons of lava etc up in the air which landed simply all over the place.

But on a geological map of our little local area, around our hamlet, there are a bunch of circles of which our place is at the centre. Which accounts for why we and our neighbours are constantly coming across lumps of granite on our land varying in size from nearly that of a house to smaller than a golf ball. We had to be very careful where we picked to dig to put the house up. One of our neighbours' builders discovered a massive granite block just inches below the level of his basement floor, if it had been any higher they would have had to have had a massive rethink. We have two blocks like that in two different places on our land.

So for some reason the ground possesses a lot of underground springs, But not all houses' land is the same. The neighbour just mentioned has as much land as us, i.e. 6000 sq metres and he has no springs at all, although he is only half a mile from us, as he is a very keen gardener he is dead jealous.

Funny stuff water.
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Sounds like fascinating geology, you can imagine a massive eruption flinging material everywhere as you suggest. I suppose that might influence where springs appear and who has them, much to some people's chagrin!
 
Morning all, or is it lunchtime?

got up early to do another 3 hours apple picking before brunch.
Hot here now.
Having an argy-bargy with the leather clothing shop in toon.
We have bought lots of things from them in the past, all very good quality though, despite it being a factory shop, not cheap.
But last September W picked up a coat she had ordered at the beginning of August, (Yep, I know totally daft time to order anything over here.) From the beginning of Sep we kept on going in, "Is it ready yet? No come back next week."
So we only picked it up just before we left. W tried it on, it seemed OK.
Anyways. Once she got it home she noticed that the lining was badly fitted and drooping in places, including one sleeve. Also it was fitted with a hood where the lining, because it was only attached at the edges, every time she put it on it just slipped off and sat there with the lining hanging out. Also the panels of leather do not match in quality of finish some are rough compared to others.

She's been putting off going in to complain as she hates doing it, although of course it is my voice doing the complaining.
They took it away overnight, we went to see it. They had done flip all to it except mend one corner.
They refuse to reline it unless we pay €200 :mad: The stitching is so bad it puckers the (very thin) leather. ("cuir ciré" a form of thin waxed leather). W has only worn it twice, for flip's sake.
After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing the assistant told us it'd be best if we sent in a long email with pictures to make a formal claim.

This will be hilarious as W has with her two other garments bought from them, one lovely leather coat she has had for about 8 years.
We'll be able to contrast the fab lining and stitching on the one with exactly the same things in the same places on the other. Dunno if it'll do any good, but honestly if you pay €750 for a garment you expect it to be up to snuff. Maybe they'll give us a bit of dosh so she can get it relined back in Blighty.

Better news on the cottage rental front.
W finally managed to find an email (she has been contacting her most of the time through some messaging thing) where she was quoted much less than they are now demanding, so that ought to bear fruit!
 
Our long range, apple picking tool managed to break, sort of, today, early on in the picking session.
It is made from a combination of plastic and a metal ring of some sort. It split the plastic in two places, one completely.

So I used neighbour's plastic mending tool with the heating up thing and the stainless wiggly pins. That I told you about before. Easy to use and worked a treat!
It isn't sightly but it is workmanlike. I will deffo be getting one with a range of different types of pins. I could have done with some different ones to the ones he gave me, but it's OK. It heats up very fast and it cools down quick too so you don't burn yourself when inserting the next pin.

Heck of a lot cheaper, and quicker, than going all the way doon the toon to buy a new one! :banana::banana::banana:
 
6pot said:
Wow that's some impressive growth although its a fair few years. Rolling a reply to several of your posts into one to save filling the whole thread with long missives - seeing how high up you are it seems surprising you have so many springs etc, I suppose there is a lot more rain/water in France generally than down in southern Iberia. They certainly have done your trees etc a lot of good. You're higher up than us, the first place was about 720m but we're at only 420m now.

I have heard about the wild weather you sometimes get there, seen that massive hail you mentioned, on the news especially in SW France. Fortunately that is a bit rarer here although I have seen a car which had clearly been subjected to it - with replacement glass but everything else as-is.

Do you have any idea how much saved rainwater you are getting through? 40 cubic metres of water from the main doesn't seem too bad considering I can see we've used about 37 cubic metres so far this year, all delivered by lorry of course!
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I don't know if this makes much sense to you, but if you look at the image and the key:
1723292913782.png


You'll see that our nearest town is in the middle of a region which is "granites, eruptive rocks and orthogneiss vein rocks. Dacite from Puech del Fau"
So we can find andesite, basalt, dacite, obsidian, pumice, rhyolite, scoria, and tuff. As well as granite. But by far the most common is granite.
And if you look under the words MAZAMET N0 1012 you can faintly make out "Labrespy" which is our hamlet. So we really are smack in it.
The reason for the towns amazing prosperity back 200 years or so, and since. up until the late 60s was the quantity and quality of the water which made it ideal for separating wool from (dead!) sheepskins, a process known as "délainage". Basically it is very acid and has other minerals in it. Sheepskins came from all over the world hence Rue Bradford, Rue Australie, etc. Factories were built up and down all the neigbouring valleys whereever there was a stream or a river.

Since then the world discovered chemistry and found out how to do it themselves!

So maybe this has a bit to do with our springs and stuff.
 
6pot said:
We have considered lightning conductors but the real problem is spikes coming down the electricity lines rather than buildings getting struck. We never know which pylon is going to get struck! The last time it was the sixth one away from us, probably half a kilometre away.

The insurance has covered most expenses - they won't cover light bulbs or the circuit breakers and other small things, the modems were replaced by the provider, but the insurance has covered repairs and replacement of appliances. The well pump motors are €500 a shot to replace so we would rather not go there again in case they decline a third time. I found out the hard way that turning it off is not enough, hence the spike jumped the contacts, so now I pull the cables and keep a screwdriver in the cabinet for just this.
Click to expand...
Having to disconnect with a screwdriver etc must be a right pain.
Especially if the forecasted storm doesn't materialise. :(
 
Stone56 said:
When I fitted a new Demand ss 2yrs a go the old one was still in good order no rust 12yrs old don't no why I changed it mental moment I think 😨😨
Click to expand...
I have found that the need to change a silencer or indeed any part of an exhaust correlates to the amount of use but especially to the length of road driven each time. So living out in the sticks may help you there.
I used to drive 8 miles to work, and then back so every time my exhaust got hot enough to be able to boil off any condensation that formed inside it so no rust, whereas my neighbour who, despite being a mechanic working from the garage behind his house, only did a few hundred miles a year in his car. (Bizarrely he hated driving). Most of the time he just used it to drive 1/2 a mile to the Con club for his lunch every day! And he had to change his every year.

I haven't had to touch the exhausts on any of my Discos but W has had to change bits of hers most years as she only uses it to go to Bournemuff or even more locally in the winter. We use it all summer long out here where it is warm anyway. So I think it is short runs in the cool/cold that do the harm.
 
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