Home DIY

Possible, and we've had builders in for the two weeks we've been away, but why the fuck would they have been inside the boiler?!

Could they of fucked around with the three-way valve wiring?

Anything is possible, I can think of absolutely no reason why they would do so though.

As Nest is a Modern Thing the Mrs is currently turning off/on and resetting all the constituent parts, we'll see if that does magic.

There is no existing thermostat... I need to run a new 'control' wire from the heatlink to the boiler...

I recollect there's been some double glazing, and full rewiring chat a few months back but can't find anything via search. I'm looking for some very rough estimates for how much it'll cost to double glaze, and rewire, a 3 bed house. Anyone had this fine and able to share how many ££££?

So I was cleaning hob, with vinegar and baking soda and managed to get all the shit off but I guess in the process of wiping it all up I discoloured the counter (this has happened to some degree in various areas of the kitchen but not to this extreme.

Anyone know of a fix for this???

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Hate to say it but if that's vinyl the only remedy will be to finish the rest of the surface so it matches.

It's laminate or formica, I think.

If you scrub hard enough you'll get it all down to the base coat.

I would guess you have thoroughly de-greased it.
Pour a drop of vegetable oil onto a paper towel and wipe a thin smear over it.
(P.S. If you do not achieve success, there is a method to remove grease from a laminate worktop). ;)

I have 3 experiments going:
1) GT85
2) Olive oil
3) Car wax

edit: car wax is crap.

T-cut?

How large and expensive would a solar panel be in order that it could run a trickle charger?

It would make more sense to ask how much current you need to effectively trickle charge the battery in question and then look at a panel that can generate that sort of current. When I looked into it for a motorbike it got confusing because of the electronics needed to monitor the charging.

I've gone over to a lithium battery and the combined weight loss and high starting amperage is noticeable on a big cylinder boxer. So far I've had no drop in battery condition with very minimal use. I've not had it on there long but so far I'm pleased with it. Main downside is the damage caused by fully discharging but you can get a battery condition monitor to connect with your phone to keep you on top of that.

I assumed you were interested in car batteries because of the other thread.

Yes, correct. I've got a CTEK charger arriving tomorrow, so easiest thing for me is to feed that with standard domestic current- if there is a panel that can output that of course.

I don't think you'll find a working solution like that. Output from solar panels requires careful handling if it's 240v AC, bear in mind that the output from a solar panel would be dc natively. The important figure is still the amperage, a trickle charge requires very little, fractions of an amp. The fact that you essentially only need 12-14v dc at tiny amperage would mean a solar panel large enough to deliver 240v with the associated translation to AC would be a terrible and unwieldy solution.

I thought there might be a solution that fits on the dashboard and plugs into the lighter socket but I've not looked for one.

Maplin used to do simple cheapish solar trickle charge systems about A4 size.
Main drawback; just the one inverter, so any shade or physical overlap of any single solar cell meant zero output.
Maplin might have better systems now,
or,
try the obvious online suppliers.
Certain you have no unscheduled current draws? Light in glove box permanently on?

No glovebox!

Is it a new install, How does the boiler know when it is up to temperature?

.

We run it off the internal clock, inefficiently, hence wanting to sort a new thermostat. It's about 3 or 4 years old but never installed along with a thermostat

As Nest is a Modern Thing the Mrs is currently turning off/on and resetting all the constituent parts, we'll see if that does magic.

This is the first thing I'd try with a Nest. Did it work?

Our two have proved extremely reliable, but twice they got mixed up and the Nest in the living room started controlling the kitchen and vica versa. Easy to fix though.

Ok in that case look at the set up instructions for the boiler, there will be a row of connectors with two being for the thermostat.

I'm wondering if you could make a nest system using a galileo board.

You're welcome to borrow mine if you like. I don't use it since I moved to a place with power in the garage.