The Good News / Bad News Thread

[robgul]

GN: The new boiler continues to work and not leak.
BN: We got the inevitable letter from the agency putting the rent up this morning.

. . . presumably with the usual assured tenancy required notice period?

[Kim]

GN: The new boiler continues to work and not leak.
BN: We got the inevitable letter from the agency putting the rent up this morning.

. . . presumably with the usual assured tenancy required notice period?

Of course.  The agency themselves are competent, and actually quite nice as parasites go.  The landlord's a grumpy old man with too much money and nothing better to do than watch daytime TV and occasionally inflict the lessons learned therein on his tenants.

Rent increases happen sporadically whenever something happens to remind him what houses he owns.

(If you're reading this post and happen to work in programme commissioning for ITV2 or whatever, we badly need a programme about the importance of high-quality routine maintenance.  You know it makes sense.)

[barakta]

Good news - I was booked in at the local hospital for an ultra sound scan of my leg next monday. The hospital have just rung and asked if I can make it for tomorrow.

Bad news I'll have to walk through the picket line. Where can I get one of those full cover hoodies the perps wear for going in and out of court?

The picket line is for staff not patients or service users. If you go and say hi to the picket, show solidarity, take some leaflets and so on, that will be appreciated.

[Polar Bear]

Good news - I was booked in at the local hospital for an ultra sound scan of my leg next monday. The hospital have just rung and asked if I can make it for tomorrow.

Bad news I'll have to walk through the picket line. Where can I get one of those full cover hoodies the perps wear for going in and out of court?

The picket line is for staff not patients or service users. If you go and say hi to the picket, show solidarity, take some leaflets and so on, that will be appreciated.

Quite so.

The staff don't want people to suffer and are for the most part the most considerate and caring of people.  They will appreciate positive support and wish you well.

[rafletcher]

GN: I managed to book a test drive in a car I’m interested in for a convenient time tomorrow.
BN: On my way home this evening my car informed me of a loss of pressure in the front left tyre.
GN: I got home ok without major drama
BN: A brief inspection showed a screw through the tread.
GN: It was in a repairable position
MGN: My neighbour was just arriving home, so I asked for the details of his mobile tyre bloke.
EMGN: I called the guy at 5pm, he arrived at 6pm, and was all done by 6:15pm

Excellent service from PMK Tyres of Aylesbury (Connor is the guy’s name).

[CAMRAMan]

GN: My Kieslowski Three Colours poster tube arrived from Hungary where it's sat for at least 15 years.
MGN: The posters inside are in perfect condition.
BN: Blue isn't in there. But it must be somewhere in the flat in Budapest.
GN: My daughter's going to have another look.
BN: Replacements now cost a fortune.

[Wowbagger]

We were some years ago. Can't remember - 4 perhaps? I probably mentioned it on here somewhere.

The problem with this house is that when we had the granny annexe built in 2000, the builder tagged on an extra 5 radiators in a loop. It means that it's a right pain in the arse whenever we get anything done that involves draining the system.

I feel your pain with the draining . . . .  our house has ground floor radiators that are fed from a commom circuit that goes around the house at first-floor skirting board level . . . so each raditator on the ground floor has a flow and return down/up the wall to/from the rad valves forming a loop . . .  BUT there are no drain cocks on the bottom of the radiators!!  WTF, that's mad.    We wanted to make an alteration to one rad (actually add another in the circuit) and had to drain the whole system by cracking the valve on a rad and taking out the water bucket by bucketful.   One of the jobs on the list is to drain the whole lot and retro-fit a drain cock to all ground floor rads - that may get done this summer when I want to retro-fit electric elements to the bathroom towel rails for summer use.

We've got Our Man coming on Tuesday to sort out the rest of the house/remove the airlock.

This is such a persistent problem whenever we drain the system that it would be worth putting a small loop in a pipe down the far end of the extension and add a pump to that. it wouldn't have to be very powerful but it would suck all the water where we wanted it and - presumably - move the airlock on so that it would eventually get trapped in a radiator and we'd bleed it in the normal way. You wouldn't need the pump on all the time - just to remove airlocks after you'd drained it.

Sadly, Mr. C's suggestion of connection a hose up to the lowest point to flush the airlock upwards would be fraught with difficulty in our case, because of the idiosyncratic manual-fill header tank, which of course has no overflow option. If you can see the water level when you are filling it up, then you're not going to put too much water in. I don't know how far back that system goes. When we moved here in 1994, we inherited a Servowarm boiler, and a lot of the radiator thermostatic valves are Servowarm, so I reckon it's original. We needed a new boiler when the granny annexe was built (2000) and I think we replaced that around 2012 or 2013. It was around the time that Peli & Woolly were staying with us for a month or two before they "Scratched their Itch" because I recall Peli being amused at the frequent problems we had with the old boiler.

[mrcharly-YHT]

We were some years ago. Can't remember - 4 perhaps? I probably mentioned it on here somewhere.

The problem with this house is that when we had the granny annexe built in 2000, the builder tagged on an extra 5 radiators in a loop. It means that it's a right pain in the arse whenever we get anything done that involves draining the system.

I feel your pain with the draining . . . .  our house has ground floor radiators that are fed from a commom circuit that goes around the house at first-floor skirting board level . . . so each raditator on the ground floor has a flow and return down/up the wall to/from the rad valves forming a loop . . .  BUT there are no drain cocks on the bottom of the radiators!!  WTF, that's mad.    We wanted to make an alteration to one rad (actually add another in the circuit) and had to drain the whole system by cracking the valve on a rad and taking out the water bucket by bucketful.   One of the jobs on the list is to drain the whole lot and retro-fit a drain cock to all ground floor rads - that may get done this summer when I want to retro-fit electric elements to the bathroom towel rails for summer use.

We've got Our Man coming on Tuesday to sort out the rest of the house/remove the airlock.

This is such a persistent problem whenever we drain the system that it would be worth putting a small loop in a pipe down the far end of the extension and add a pump to that. it wouldn't have to be very powerful but it would suck all the water where we wanted it and - presumably - move the airlock on so that it would eventually get trapped in a radiator and we'd bleed it in the normal way. You wouldn't need the pump on all the time - just to remove airlocks after you'd drained it.

Sadly, Mr. C's suggestion of connection a hose up to the lowest point to flush the airlock upwards would be fraught with difficulty in our case, because of the idiosyncratic manual-fill header tank, which of course has no overflow option. If you can see the water level when you are filling it up, then you're not going to put too much water in. I don't know how far back that system goes. When we moved here in 1994, we inherited a Servowarm boiler, and a lot of the radiator thermostatic valves are Servowarm, so I reckon it's original. We needed a new boiler when the granny annexe was built (2000) and I think we replaced that around 2012 or 2013. It was around the time that Peli & Woolly were staying with us for a month or two before they "Scratched their Itch" because I recall Peli being amused at the frequent problems we had with the old boiler.

There must be a drain point - it might even be below floorboards.

Even my crappy system, installed in the 70s, has a drain (it is external to the house, so conveniently freezes in cold weather).

[Wowbagger]

Oh, there are two drain points, one on the old part of the system, the other on the new. But if I understood you correctly (and I may well not have done) I thought you were suggesting connection a hose to one of these drain points and back-flushing the system from the mains so that the surplus water escaped via the header tank's overflow. The header tank doesn't have an overflow, so that would be messy.

Edit: also, our mains pipes have nowhere convenient to attach a hose. Even the taps are all the wrong shape - although I'm no expert in tap connectors. It may be that someone has designed something for mixer taps etc.

[Bledlow]

A couple of weeks ago I went to the GP because my right hand was borked. A little graze hadn't healed for ages, then I got a local infection & was prescribed antibiotics, but although it was no longer hot, I still had stiff, swollen fingers, with red blotches turning scabby, itching like mad & sore bits.

She said infection over, or nearly so. I have Raynaud's. My fingers were in trouble because their blood supply was. Fuck!

I've always had a tendency to cold hands & feet, & need gloves when many others don't, but never anything remotely like this before.

Good news: doing what she said to has resulted in a big improvement. Looks as if she was right. At least I know now.

[Canardly]

Oh, there are two drain points, one on the old part of the system, the other on the new. But if I understood you correctly (and I may well not have done) I thought you were suggesting connection a hose to one of these drain points and back-flushing the system from the mains so that the surplus water escaped via the header tank's overflow. The header tank doesn't have an overflow, so that would be messy.

Edit: also, our mains pipes have nowhere convenient to attach a hose. Even the taps are all the wrong shape - although I'm no expert in tap connectors. It may be that someone has designed something for mixer taps etc.

Did no one suggest you install a system boiler with a pressurised installation which would do away with the need for an F and E tank altogether but retain a HW cylinder?

[Kim]

Edit: also, our mains pipes have nowhere convenient to attach a hose. Even the taps are all the wrong shape - although I'm no expert in tap connectors. It may be that someone has designed something for mixer taps etc.

I've had experience of various creative hose attachments for wrong-shaped taps over the years, and can assure you that they're all crap.

[chrisbainbridge]

A couple of weeks ago I went to the GP because my right hand was borked. A little graze hadn't healed for ages, then I got a local infection & was prescribed antibiotics, but although it was no longer hot, I still had stiff, swollen fingers, with red blotches turning scabby, itching like mad & sore bits.

She said infection over, or nearly so. I have Raynaud's. My fingers were in trouble because their blood supply was. Fuck!

I've always had a tendency to cold hands & feet, & need gloves when many others don't, but never anything remotely like this before.

Good news: doing what she said to has resulted in a big improvement. Looks as if she was right. At least I know now.

If you have Raynaud's then in this cold weather remember to keep your hands really well moisturised.  As the humidity drops in the cold the skin becomes more likely to cricket the keratin outer layer leading to the painful small non-healing wounds we all know about.
Secondly If you truly have Raynaud's (most people don't) then Viagra may well be useful.  I tend to prescribe it a bit like smarties in this weather.

When I say most people do not have raynauds, they may have been told by a GP or even a rheumatologist that they have but when I see photographs about 50% of people simply have a slightly more severe reaction to cold than normal. 

[Wowbagger]

Edit: also, our mains pipes have nowhere convenient to attach a hose. Even the taps are all the wrong shape - although I'm no expert in tap connectors. It may be that someone has designed something for mixer taps etc.

I've had experience of various creative hose attachments for wrong-shaped taps over the years, and can assure you that they're all crap.

I suspected that that was the case.

[Wowbagger]

Oh, there are two drain points, one on the old part of the system, the other on the new. But if I understood you correctly (and I may well not have done) I thought you were suggesting connection a hose to one of these drain points and back-flushing the system from the mains so that the surplus water escaped via the header tank's overflow. The header tank doesn't have an overflow, so that would be messy.

Edit: also, our mains pipes have nowhere convenient to attach a hose. Even the taps are all the wrong shape - although I'm no expert in tap connectors. It may be that someone has designed something for mixer taps etc.

Did no one suggest you install a system boiler with a pressurised installation which would do away with the need for an F and E tank altogether but retain a HW cylinder?

No.

[chrisbainbridge]

Oh, there are two drain points, one on the old part of the system, the other on the new. But if I understood you correctly (and I may well not have done) I thought you were suggesting connection a hose to one of these drain points and back-flushing the system from the mains so that the surplus water escaped via the header tank's overflow. The header tank doesn't have an overflow, so that would be messy.

Edit: also, our mains pipes have nowhere convenient to attach a hose. Even the taps are all the wrong shape - although I'm no expert in tap connectors. It may be that someone has designed something for mixer taps etc.

Did no one suggest you install a system boiler with a pressurised installation which would do away with the need for an F and E tank altogether but retain a HW cylinder?

Central heating unless you get a good installer seems to be very much hit and miss.  My son and family are looking at replacing their boiler in the next couple of years and he's is very much working the costs and implications of the various systems including ASHP.  They tend to run their house a lot cooler than us by probably an average of 3degC so I reckon they could make AHSP work for them.
No.

[Kim]

GN:  As part of the pipe-tidying endeavour, the washing machine hot fill tap has been removed, creating enough space for the washing machine.  I'm optimistic that the fridge may now fit without being chocked up on breeze blocks.

GN: The fridge now fits without being chocked up on breeze blocks.  You can open the washing machine door, and the freezer door opens just barely enough to pull the drawers out.

BN: The fridge door bashes the wanky program-select rotary encoder knob thingy^[1] on the front of the washing machine if flung open with gay abandon.  The likely consequences would be expensive.

I have taped a random lump of acoustic foam to the edge of the fridge door by way of a temporary shock absorber, while I devise a less nasty means of protecting it.

BN:  The new boiler has its own proprietary wireless thermostat/timer.  There isn't anywhere convenient to wire my Shelly for internet-of-shit control.

GN: Through the magic of buying two of them, I now have a h4xx0r3d proprietary wireless thermostat which thinks the room temperature is whatever my ESP32 tells it.  I've modified my heating controller code to output an analogue value rather than cycle a relay on and off, which appears to be working nicely.

BN: I'm going to have to get the dremel out and build some kind of enclosure for the associated circuitry, which is currently flapping about in the breeze.  Sigh.


_{[1] Seriously, all the other controls are by capacitive touch sensors.  Power on: Capacitive touch.  Select a program: Twiddle the wanky knob.  Want to adjust the temperature?  Tap the temperature capacitive touch sensor repeatedly.  Spin speed?  Likewise.  How about the delay timer, shirley a rotary encoder would be a convenient and intuitive way to set that?  Nope, that's a dozen taps on yet another capacitive touch sensor too.  Might as well use capacitive touch sensors for selecting programs (which already have individual light-up bits of display), and then at least the whole panel would be both wipe-clean and reasonably fridge-proof.  Stupid.}

[Pingu]

TTIUWP, as they say 

[Mike Ayling]

Good news - I was booked in at the local hospital for an ultra sound scan of my leg next monday. The hospital have just rung and asked if I can make it for tomorrow.

Bad news I'll have to walk through the picket line. Where can I get one of those full cover hoodies the perps wear for going in and out of court?

What country are you in? IMHO the person in the hoodie should be referred to as "the accused" and only if convicted could become a "perp"

[SoreTween]

Edit: also, our mains pipes have nowhere convenient to attach a hose. Even the taps are all the wrong shape - although I'm no expert in tap connectors. It may be that someone has designed something for mixer taps etc.

I've had experience of various creative hose attachments for wrong-shaped taps over the years, and can assure you that they're all crap.

I just ran a hose in from the outside tap.

[Kim]

Edit: also, our mains pipes have nowhere convenient to attach a hose. Even the taps are all the wrong shape - although I'm no expert in tap connectors. It may be that someone has designed something for mixer taps etc.

I've had experience of various creative hose attachments for wrong-shaped taps over the years, and can assure you that they're all crap.

I just ran a hose in from the outside tap.

You'll never guess why I have experience of creative hose attachments for wrong-shaped taps...

[SoreTween]

 

[L CC]

GN: I go for knee replacement surgery on Saturday and we're all on track
BN: Mr Smith has broken his arm. Multiple fractures and displacement of the proximal humerus.
MBN: The right of a right handed fella
EMBN: He did it Saturday and he still doesn't know what or when treatment, he's home waiting for a call from the virtual fracture clinic.
YMBN: Durham hospital has a very poor reputation locally

The next couple of months will be hell, for both of us.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

I like the good news, not so much the bad. Good luck to both of you!

[Mrs Pingu]

Oh dear. How did he manage that? Hope you both heal well.