A Frustrating Day

I tackled the installation of the new tap for the van yesterday. I expected the job to take no more than about an hour, if that. After removing the old tap, I started off by screwing the feed tails into the new monoblock, but the fact there's a recess meant there wasn't enough space to get a spanner in to nip up the nuts. It took me about half an hour of Google searching to discover that they're not meant to be nipped up and finger tight is enough.

Then it was a case of putting the whole lot together before realising the collar that holds the tap to the work surface was upside down. The whole lot had to be assembled and then dismantled about 3 times in total - there were no instructions with the tap. Even if there had been, they'd have been in Chinglish. 

Then I found out the hole in the work surface was about 1mm too small and I had to file it out to get the retaining collar to go through the hole.

I cut the piping to the correct length to join it to the new tails, removing the existing Fastfix couplings, one of which had to be hacksawed off. Then I discovered that the tail pipe nuts weren't in fact the standard 1/2" BSP, but some Chinese standard. Went out to Screwfix to get some new tails, but they didn't have the exact ones I needed. Went to B"&"Q, where they did have the right tails, but there was a delay because there was no barcode on them.

On the way back to the van, the 1/2" female to 10mm coupling had dropped out of my pocket and it took me half an hour of frantic searching to finally find it on the path.

Tried to dismantle one of the old Fastfix couplings in order to reuse it, but managed to stab myself in the hand with a screwdriver in the process. Back to Screwfix for a bag of 10mm Fastfix couplings.

Finally had everything ready to assemble for the last time before finding out that the new tails weren't quite as long as the supplied Chinese ones, meaning there wasn't enough plastic pipe to complete the connection. Salvaged some copper piping from the old tap to make a couple of inserts a few inches long to bridge the gap, but was delayed while my brother-in-law found his copper pipe cutter.

Was then interrupted by No.1 Son, who wanted me to pick up the car he'd bought earlier in the day - a bit of a shed, but I'd negotiated the dealer down from £995 to £600, so I was quite pleased with myself. It needs another £500 - £800 spending on it to get it roadworthy (although it's MoTed till March), but it was the car No.1 Son wanted and he has the budget - it's a 2003 BMW 2.0 diesel with some interesting rust around the wheel arches; not something I would have purchased myself, but he was insistent, as only someone who knows nothing about cars can be. The insurance alone is going to cost him a couple of grand a year.

It never ceases to surprise me how little the younger generation knows about how cars work. That said, they were much simpler machines in my youth.

I then discovered that the plastic piping wouldn't fit into the 10mm Fastfix couplings, despite me having measured the pipe with a micrometer, meaning I had to salvage the old couplings, which took me another half hour of looking for the bits among all the detritus I'd managed to collect.

After having started at 9am, I finally had the tap installed and working by 4pm.

However, the water pressure wasn't enough to activate the aerator, which was one of the reasons for choosing that particular monoblock. Never mind - Hay was pleased with the result and expressed a desire to have a similar tap in the kitchen, but I certainly won't be buying one from China next time.

I then thought I'd tackle the pressure switch. Opened up the water tank compartment and inspected the piping, only to discover an item that looked suspiciously like the new pressure switch I was about to install. I obviously hadn't looked too closely previously and had made unwarranted assumptions.

Now, as it didn't work, it was either broken or hadn't been calibrated correctly. The latter was the case - the control had been screwed in completely. I unscrewed it about half a dozen times and it kicked into action by cutting out the power to the water pump. Job done, but I now had an extra, £29 Whale pressure sensor spare. I was all for keeping it as a spare, but Hay was insistent on me returning it - it's a foible of hers, just like having a spare of everything is a foible of mine.

Earlier in the day I'd taken delivery of my new, Chinese, propane weed burner and so I took out my frustrations on the weeds in our parking area - and very effective it was too. It's a veritable flamethrower. 

Hacking the Hackers

I've always preached the emptying of your email service's contents each and every day, paying particular attention to the deleted folder. If hackers get into your mailbox, there's no end of personal, if not financial information, they can access.

I use Gmail to collect my inbound mail, using a local version of Outlook to download them to my computer and Aqua Mail Pro to download them to my smartphone. At the start of every day, I delete the entire contents of my on-line Gmail account - there's no point in having my emails there, as I already have local copies on my phone and laptop. In fact, I have all my emails going back to at least 2006 on my laptop.

I use my personal URL's mail server for outbound mail, which I cc to myself on Gmail, so there are never any sent emails in my Gmail account - they're all in my inbound folder so that outbound messages and replies are in the same place.

It struck me yesterday that a tasty form of retribution against hackers is to leave a single email in your on-line Gmail account in a folder called 'Passwords', attaching a pernicious virus or Trojan to that email, again called passwords. A hacker simply couldn't resist opening it and getting his or her comeupance.

Triffid

A good friend of mine is moving house in a couple if weeks and wondered whether we'd be interested in a potted plant he had outside his front door.

We decided to offer it a new home, so No.1 Son and I went to collect it. It's massive and required the trailer to shift it.

Water, Water Everywhere

The place Hay is staying at Morwellham Quay has suffered some flooding from the River Tamar. Our friends had to move their van, but Hay was in an OK location - just. She's back today.

The final piece of the van's water supply jigsaw arrived yesterday - the in-line pressure switch for the pump.

Seems we've started a trend in the family. Hay's sister has also bought a motorhome. I spotted it over the road at Chipping Sodbury Caravans - a Peugeot Autosleeper that I could have got for £9k trade, else it was to be retailed at £14k.

If she hadn't bought it we were up for buying it, doing it up and selling it on to meet the growing demand for staycations. Very similar layout to ours, if a couple of feet shorter, 3 years younger (2004), a smaller 2.0 motor and in need of  nothing more than a good pressure wash and only minimal outlay. We'll all be going on holiday in convoy before much longer.

Tick Tock Tap

Just what exactly is the problem Trump has with Tick Tock?

I'm at a total loss as to the reason for his fixation with it.

The new monoblock tap for the van and the necessary connectors arrived yesterday, but I have to wait for Hay to get back from Devon.

Can't wait to fit it. All I need now is the in-line pressure switch for the pump.

I was toying with the idea of buying an electric heat gun for weeds that Lidl will be selling from tomorrow, but I decided in the end to get a propane one and use the very cheap AutoGas LPG I use for the van to fuel it. The weeds in our top car park are a nuisance, but we're not that keen on using commercial weedkillers. A heat gun will be perfect.

Railway Kitty

There's a feral cat living in the neighbourhood - he lives somewhere along the railway and so we've nicknamed him Railway Kitty. He's been in the area for about a year.

As you can see from his photo, he's a very scarred bruiser. He's very timid toward humans but doesn't hesitate to pick a fight with our and other local cats. For the last few weeks I've been trying to habituate him to me by feeding him whenever he turns up. 

He used to crouch under a neighbour's car while waiting for me to put food out for him but, of late, he's taken to sitting on the patio table outside our living room doors and staring at me. He still won't come near me, but the distance is slowly decreasing and I can approach to within 5 metres when he's eating before he scarpers.

The New Normal

No.1 Son, who is an IT programmer, was made redundant back in May. He has managed to find a new position with a company in Newport in Wales and starts today (and on a considerably higher salary) - but he's not going in. His on-boarding is being performed remotely over the internet.

Even when things get back to normal, he will only have to go into the office one day a week, as the company has taken the decision that it doesn't need all its employees in an office all at once. This will be the new normal for many IT companies. Those companies that don't move to remote working and saving on office space will find themselves with higher overheads and may lose business because of that.

Plumbing the Depths

Hay decided yesterday that, if I'm going to play with the van's water supply, then she would like a new tap in the sink, so I investigated the lie of the land (or lay of the land if you're American). Removed the drawers to get access to the water pipes and discovered this.

The red, plastic pipe is the hot water supply, but it has been connected with two Speedfit connectors to two sections of copper pipe, showing evidence of a bodge. Why on earth would anyone use two separate sections of copper pipe, unless either the plastic pipe or the final stretch of copper pipe to the mixer tap had been cut too short? In any case, why not use flexi-hoses? 

There was also evidence of wiring for what used to be a microswitched tap. Someone had replaced what was there with a new tap at some time in the past, but badly.

Now I'm no expert on pipe sizes and connectors, but I managed to conclude that motorhome and caravan piping is 10mm - which is not the size used in houses (I knew that micromerter would come in useful one day). 

Domestic, monoblock mixer taps come with flexible hoses that screw into the bottom of the tap and end in a 1/2" nut, so the exercise was to find an adaptor with a brass, 1/2" male end and a 10mm Speedfit end. Not the easiest of things to find, but I did, at the exorbitant price of £14 for a pair.

Once Hay has been on her road trip next week, I'll effect the new mixer installation at the same time as installing the in-line pressure switch to automate the pump.

 

The monoblock we chose has an aerator in the flexible nozzle, which gives the impression of better flow while not using more water - it just uses the water more efficiently by bulking it out with air. A clever idea and very useful in a motorhome or caravan, where water is in short supply.

A Badger Shower for Trump

I've moved the Banksy Bad Badger decal from the doors of the van to further aft, under the writing. Having them on the doors makes it look like it's a badger roadkill tally.

I've also taken delivery of the bespoke, branded hoodie to go with it....

Hay thinks I've reverted to being a teenager - she's right. She's taking the van on Monday for a 3 day jaunt to the south coast to meet up with some friends of ours, but unfortunately I have to stay home and work so I can't join her. I will, however, have to ensure she's familiar with all the checklist steps before she goes.

What with water being the key resource in a motorhome, I've been doing some experimentation over the last 3 days. I wanted to see how short I could make my morning shower and still be clean - we do seem to spend an inordinate amount of time wallowing in water unnecessarily. On day one I started a count as soon as the shower faucet was opened - 46 seconds. On day two I manged to reduce this to 39 seconds. Yesterday I set the record of 30 seconds.

The secret is to have your shower gel or shampoo mixed with water to thin it out, as most of the time under a shower is spent trying to wash off the soap. Water the soap down and it flows quicker, enabling a faster lathering, and also uses less water to get it off you. Thick shampoo isn't actually more concentrated - it's just loaded with thickening agents. The other secret is to get under the flow immediately, rather than waiting for the water to go warm - that saved about 3 or 4 seconds.

Kitchen taps have a flow rate of between 4 and 6 litres per minute. Thus my 30 second shower uses no more than 2 or 3 litres, but the flow rate of a domestic tap is far higher than the trickle the van's water pump generates. I'll have to repeat the experiment in the van itself and accurately measure the water used per minute.

One annoying thing about the van's water supply is that the water flow is not controlled by micro-switches in the taps, as it is in most caravans and motorhomes. You have to switch on the water pump manually and then open the tap. Nor does closing the taps doesn't switch off the pump. That's something I need to change, but will involve a lot of fiddling with wires if micro-switches on taps are used, so they won't. There's a simpler way to achieve the same result by merely having an in-line pressure sensor at the pump end, which switches on the pump when there's a drop in pressure as a tap is opened. A more powerful pump wouldn't go amiss either, but without the risk of blowing the water lines. Also, perhaps, a small, diaphragm  pressure tank to buffer the supply and ensure no lag in water delivery - something around the size of a rugby ball.

I note Trump is complaining about the limits set on American shower heads, which limit the flow so as to aid the conservation of water. He wants the current limit of 9.5 litres of water per minute increased to 9.5 litres per nozzle, rather than the entire fixture, so he can do his hair. The man is a total tosser.

I've also been rethinking the diesel heater. Self-installing it can apparently lead to the habitation certificate becoming invalid, with knock-on consequences for the insurance; getting it professionally installed by a certified installer is prohibitively expensive. So I'm considering installing it in a small, separate box that sits outside the van, with the insulated, heated air outlet being connected to the van through a vent that can be closed when not in use. The box would be stowed in the bathroom when not being used. The controller isn't thermostatically controlled, so that also would be in, or on, the external box.

Power might be a problem - these things take 100W on the start cycle and then settle down to 22-90W, depending on setting. Let's say an average of 50W, then that means 4.16Ah, which would require a 100Ah battery for 24 hours of operation. I'm obviously going to have to fabricate an external, 12V  power socket on the van next to where the heater would be sited, or have a lead entering the cab to a cigar lighter type supply connected to the leisure batteries. Needs a bit of thinking so as to make it elegant and not a bodge.

QI Haircut

Overheard while Hay was cutting my hair yesterday:

Hay: "How can hairdressers justify the exorbitant prices they charge?"

Chairman: "I'll tell you once I have a look at your effort and decide whether I have to visit Franklin's on the High street and pay them £10 to sort out any mess."

That image isn't my bonce, by the way. Hay actually did a good job and I won't be going to the barber's anymore. I always say you can tell when someone is getting old - it's when they don't give a toss how their haircut looks, as long as it's functional.

When we were away last weekend I was using the UK TopoMaps app to track our progress while walking up Fan-y-Big and back. TopoMaps is very power hungry and so I took my power bank with me to ensue I could charge my phone on-the-go. I ended up with the power bank in my haversack and the charging lead snaked over my back to my pocket, where I kept the phone. Rather cumbersome to say the least.

It struck me that it would be a good idea to have a power bank, sufficient for a couple of complete charges (so nothing too hefty), that could simply be clipped to my phone and charge it wirelessly. All the power bank QI chargers that I can find rely on you putting your phone on the wireless charging pad of the power bank and leaving it there - there are none that physically clip to the phone so you can keep it in your pocket and effortlessly use it on-the-go. Doubtless someone has developed one, but I can't find it.