Messages

[Also are those devices not for the owner to put on their dog (collar?)]

Don't mean to hijack the thread but have a similar problem, neighbours either side each have a dog, neither of which stop barking. I also think there is grounds for cruelty with one of the dogs, a huskey type, only 2 year old but is completely hyper, hasn't been neutered, constantly barks and howls and never gets walked. Anytime I see it its just walking around its pen in circles.

Also are those devices not for the owner to put on their dog (collar?)

Fitz, I'm led to believe that there are ones available that you attach to a post/wall etc & they will work within a 20-30 metre range without the need to attach anything to the animal, one of the neighbours beside me has 4 dogs in an area approx 5 metres x 5 metres & they seldom get walked.
Started the thread in the hope someone has bought one of these that worked for them & can recommend it before I go spending money on an electronic garden ornament.

Just wondering if anyone can recommend one of these high pitched devices, we have 6 dogs in close proximity to our place & they are driving me nuts to say the least, have already had a word with the dogs owners but it hasn't worked, so i'm going to try one of these gadgets to try.

http://gaaboard.com/board/index.php?topic=18185.0

[The main stumbling block for me is that I live in the North but can only pick up O2 Ire in the house.]

I am looking to splash out on wan of them fancy android phones. The Samsung Galaxy S is the one cleaning up on the reviews. What's this sound like for a deal?

Phone: Free.
300 minutes.
Unlimited texts.
500mb mobile internet.
Unlimited WiFi acces.
£85 cash back.

The main stumbling block for me is that I live in the North but can only pick up O2 Ire in the house. Therefore I'd need to negotiate a deal that negates that cost.

http://www.dialaphone.co.uk/phone/Samsung_Galaxy_S_Black/&cid=ppcyah/search.aspx?product=Samsung_Galaxy_S_Black&intcid=&cid=ppcyah

Move house, problem solved 

[Does the owner care? No chance, they aren't paying for it]

I've been reading this with great interest over the past few days and thought I'd throw my thoughts down.

The basic problem is, and always will be money. The Water Service or whatever you want to call them now are run by and for people whose main motivation is cash. Same in Scotland, same in England (haven't worked in Wales so can't comment). As someone has said previously, there is a chronic lack of investment in infrastructure and to put the cherry on the cake the capital maintenance is poor to nonexistent.

IMHO the main issues are:

*Leakage (strictly speaking the wrong term but it'll do the job), basically unaccounted for water. The main problem with this is that there are a phenomenal number of illegal connections in NI. We have cattle troughs (for one example) overflowing 365 days that are connected to the mains and if they aren't overflowing they have invariably pipes above ground that go bang as soon as the thaw hits. Does the owner care? No chance, they aren't paying for it*Metering. As a rule (bar a few private companies in England), the metering UK wide and beyond is woeful. Once authorities start transferring water and supplementing between reservoirs the meters are useless, which as a result means you can't strategically target leaks. Again there is big money spent on Framework Suppliers (the biggest waste of money in history), meters are installed by private companies, who commission them, get handed back to Water Company, get a 1hour presentation, water company pay no money on maintenance, meters stop working, no one knows how to use them, investigation awarded to private company, private company suggest new meters, and the charade starts all over again
*Water Quality. The price we pay for getting the water quality we do, is to increase flow rates to get the water from treatment to tap quickly. Water is better as a result, but pipes are smaller. When something happens, network can't cope and the only location that gets fed water is the burst.
*Accountability. KPI's etc have been tried before, and can help to an extent but its like anything in that people find a way around it very quickly, and work the system. If I say a leak has to be sorted within 24hours, the powers that be soon figure that if we shut the water down that will stop the leak and then it is classed as "in repair".
I have worked on a job where a competitor came in at 33% less. The authority asked us to match the price, we couldn't and warned them that other party could not deliver for that price either. Competitor done it, ends up costing both parties over 120% of our original cost. 6months later I am sitting across the desk from the idiot who awarded the job, preaching about how our costs are again 33% too high. When we pointed out the final cost, yer man hadn't even heard about it going over budget cause too many people were covering their ass

I could go on and on with all the things that are wrong with the system but the main one is, and always will be money.

Also this such and such has to go, his position is untenable cr*p is part of the problem. No one wants to make a decision in case they get the blame, and so no proper decisions get made. People are employed in high positions that have absolutely no clue how water networks, demand, pressure etc works and laughably they are deciding how money is spent. When in reality they shouldn't be allowed to lift their head from their own spreadsheet.

Rant finished

Agricultural land owners, publicans & some commercial properties have been paying for water for a long time now, so that part of your rant doesnt add up imo.

Read it again. Its those who have made illegal unknown and unmetered connections to the network that wanderer is referring to. I see this every working day where we are laying replacement mains and you get all sorts of approaches from farmers and landowners.

Point taken, judgement somewhat clouded by the devils buttermilk 

[Does the owner care? No chance, they aren't paying for it]

I've been reading this with great interest over the past few days and thought I'd throw my thoughts down.

The basic problem is, and always will be money. The Water Service or whatever you want to call them now are run by and for people whose main motivation is cash. Same in Scotland, same in England (haven't worked in Wales so can't comment). As someone has said previously, there is a chronic lack of investment in infrastructure and to put the cherry on the cake the capital maintenance is poor to nonexistent.

IMHO the main issues are:

*Leakage (strictly speaking the wrong term but it'll do the job), basically unaccounted for water. The main problem with this is that there are a phenomenal number of illegal connections in NI. We have cattle troughs (for one example) overflowing 365 days that are connected to the mains and if they aren't overflowing they have invariably pipes above ground that go bang as soon as the thaw hits. Does the owner care? No chance, they aren't paying for it*Metering. As a rule (bar a few private companies in England), the metering UK wide and beyond is woeful. Once authorities start transferring water and supplementing between reservoirs the meters are useless, which as a result means you can't strategically target leaks. Again there is big money spent on Framework Suppliers (the biggest waste of money in history), meters are installed by private companies, who commission them, get handed back to Water Company, get a 1hour presentation, water company pay no money on maintenance, meters stop working, no one knows how to use them, investigation awarded to private company, private company suggest new meters, and the charade starts all over again
*Water Quality. The price we pay for getting the water quality we do, is to increase flow rates to get the water from treatment to tap quickly. Water is better as a result, but pipes are smaller. When something happens, network can't cope and the only location that gets fed water is the burst.
*Accountability. KPI's etc have been tried before, and can help to an extent but its like anything in that people find a way around it very quickly, and work the system. If I say a leak has to be sorted within 24hours, the powers that be soon figure that if we shut the water down that will stop the leak and then it is classed as "in repair".
I have worked on a job where a competitor came in at 33% less. The authority asked us to match the price, we couldn't and warned them that other party could not deliver for that price either. Competitor done it, ends up costing both parties over 120% of our original cost. 6months later I am sitting across the desk from the idiot who awarded the job, preaching about how our costs are again 33% too high. When we pointed out the final cost, yer man hadn't even heard about it going over budget cause too many people were covering their ass

I could go on and on with all the things that are wrong with the system but the main one is, and always will be money.

Also this such and such has to go, his position is untenable cr*p is part of the problem. No one wants to make a decision in case they get the blame, and so no proper decisions get made. People are employed in high positions that have absolutely no clue how water networks, demand, pressure etc works and laughably they are deciding how money is spent. When in reality they shouldn't be allowed to lift their head from their own spreadsheet.

Rant finished

Agricultural land owners, publicans & some commercial properties have been paying for water for a long time now, so that part of your rant doesnt add up imo.

[Bought a Garmin Nuvi Sat Nav there, have it charged up and set my location at the start but now it isn't finding any satellites.]

Bumping this old thread.

Bought a Garmin Nuvi Sat Nav there, have it charged up and set my location at the start but now it isn't finding any satellites.
Any ideas on what to do with it?? Buck it in the bin? It is doing my head in, says "Please wait while your unit establishes an initial position" and that it will take a few minutes, well I have left it searching a few times now for up to twenty minutes at a time, surely that isn't normal?

If there is a fold down antenna on the back of the unit, make sure that this isn't folded down in the closed position, this happened to me when i first got mine, dopey me 

Should be worth watching.

Not lookin to defend NIW, but surely a lot of problems with frozen mains pipes wouldn't become evident until the thaw kicked in I'd also bet that a very loarge % of the calls that NIW  are fielding should really be to a local plumber

It costs money to call a plumber out, NIW come out FOC, ther's your answer I would think.

[i'm hearing that a little bit of red diesel mixed in with the home heating oil can improve things all round...ie. flow in the pipes, heat and also makes it last a bit longer]

i'm hearing that a little bit of red diesel mixed in with the home heating oil can improve things all round...
ie. flow in the pipes, heat and also makes it last a bit longer
any truth in this from anyone in the know ?

Bullshit of the highest order, the oil in your tank does not go into the pipes that are connected to the radiators, the oil goes into the burner to create a source of heat when the burner fires, so many people for some reason think that the oil goes into the rads which isn't the case, the other point on the red diesel making it last longer isn't true either imo as gas oil has a higher viscosity than kerosene & would therefore block the nozzle which is designed to burn kerosene.

[Are those condensing boilers good yokes?]

Are those condensing boilers good yokes? My existing one is over 20 yrs old and is a rent on fuel - just wondering is it worth replacing with a condenser unit?

An old oil boiler could be as little as 60-70% efficient, a modern HE (condensing) oil boiler would be about 85% efficient & a gas HE could be as high as 92% efficient, in laymans terms this means that for every €100 you spend on fuel you are getting €92 returned as heat, so you could possibly save €30 per €100, new HE boilers don't come cheap though but as a long term investment it should pay for its self no bother.

[(wife has been sent to bed )]

Wife took plug out of the Sky Box and now it wont come on!!

The red light is on but wont start. eventually started and i tried to record something and a error message came up and asked me to hit the select button. It turned off again

What can i do to fix it? (wife has been sent to bed )

porn channels must start early on christmas night 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11989617

Just heard on the news of the recievers being called into McNamara Construction, where will this mess all end?

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1112/mcnamara.html

I don't ever remember it being announced, Plan A is always the Plan that they intend using & if things go to shit they then put "Plan B" onto the big screens afaik.