Karcher look to have gone downhill over the years. I bought one absolutely ages ago, at least 20 years, and has had a fair amount of use but still works ok. Guess they don’t make ’em like they used to.

I remember mate from school doing a paper round, and making (what seemed) a fortune at Christmas from all the tips. He was one of the first to have a Casio calculator watch, bought with the proceeds.

I’ve had a go spraying a panel on the car with a rattle can. The result was better than what was there, but it was way short of a body shop repair.

I think one thing to consider is the paint and lacquer you’re using. From what I’ve read, 2k paint gives a better result. It is harder to get hold of (prob need to get a body shop to make up, rather than just buying from Halfords), and you also need to get a proper mask and work in a ventilated space, as the fumes are more noxious.

I’ve got a 5 draw and 3 draw of the Halfords Professional chests. They seem pretty rugged. The 5 draw I bought off eBay from a small engineering co that was closing; it’s a bit dented and scratched, but the draws still run smoothly and can take a heavy load of tools. For a home user I reckon they’d last a lifetime.

The B&S carbs can warp, especially if hot water has been used to clean them with an ultrasonic cleaner.

One way to get round this is to use two gaskets (with one diaphragm). The other thing is use genuine a B&S gasket and diaphragm. The cheaper pattern kits seem to be of inferior quality, and will either not work at all, or fail very soon.

Make sure too the fuel pick up pipe isn’t blocked (there’s a small mesh at the bottom) and
check the recessed part of the tank where the carb fits into is clean.

Thanks for the replies. I phoned Halfords this morning, and the manager from the bike department agreed to match the previous price. He did warn that prices often change.

Out of interest, I’ll keep a eye on the web site and see if/when the price next changes. Knowing my luck, next weekend it will have dropped by £100!

Cheers guys.

The Dulaco is available from Evans – if you have any Tesco’s clubcard vouchers, remember that you can cash them in for discounted Evan’s vouchers

Another vote for the electric traps. We bought one a good few years ago that was very effective.

Rats are very cunning though – the advice I had was to leave the trap in place for a few days so it gets used it before bating and activating the trap. Also, rats prefer to not run across open areas, so the trap is best placed along a fence/side of shed/in undergrowth etc. rather than an open area.

The only problem we had with the electronic trap was the one we had wasn’t water proof, so I leaving it outside (not in rain, just general damp weather) seems to have stopped it working.

As an aside, speaking with a neighbour who’s a retired pest controller – he mentioned that the rats feast off all the bits dropped from the bird feeders. He advised not feeding the birds if we wanted to remain rat-free. This was a real shame as we used to get loads of fairly uncommon birds in the garden, but he’s right – since removing the feeder, no more sightings of rats.

Thanks for the advise – will leave them well alone, and hope they extend the same courtesy to me!

KFC for me – went for the first time last year with my Nephew who loves it. He took charge of the ordering, and we ended up with a bucket of unbelievably greasy chicken and a big bag of under cooked chips.

Not to be repeated!

I heard a story from a mate who had a work colleague who had bought a new car.

His girlfriend took it to a DIY store and purchased a tub of emulsion. On lifting the tub in to the boot of the car, the lid came off depositing 5 litres of emulsion all over the inside of the boot.

Panicking, she returned to the store to seek some advice as to how to clear it up. They suggested that the paint needed to be absorbed, and advised soil would be a good thing to use. So they then helpfully assisted her in dumping the entire contents of the bag of soil in to the boot.

So when she got home, and fessed up to her boyfriend, he opened the boot to be met by a boot load of soil, covering a layer of emulsion. Nice!

Thanks for replies. I’ll try and post some pics later, but the disc hub is branded Dunlop (you can see this is a high value build!)

It looks like this:

Cheers

We had a next last near the roof of the house. They were only a problem when it was windy, and they were blown off track into any open windows.

I could see them they were coming in and out through a small gap in the facia under the guttering, so one evening went they were in bed, I went up and sprayed some powder in. Next day, looked up and not a sign.

Later that day though I could hear them through the loft hatch, all buzzing angrily around in the attic.

My wife suggested that I go up to the attic and deal with them, but there was absolutely no way I was doing that.

Luckily, it was getting towards the end of the wasp season though and so they naturally died off a few weeks after.

If the nest isn’t somewhere where you can spray it and then quickly beat a hasty retreat, I would leave it to a pest control professional!

I used to work with a bloke who would regularly have half a packet of (normal sized) crisps with his sandwiches at lunch time. He’d open up a new pack, consume half, and then put a clothes peg on the bag and put in his desk until the next day.

Oh to have the self-control!

I had a mobile aircon guy come out and regass my car the other week.

Having watched him do it, I’d say it was definitely worth the £50. He looked over the system prior to hooking up his machine which vacuumed out the old gas, checked for leaks and then added new refrigerant and oil.

He also had a gauge that (I think) tested the compressor. All done in less than an hour.

The machine added the exact amount of gas for the system, not sure how you would do that with the Halfords kit.

Hope you’re ok.

I drove over a dead one (was pitch black and on the apex of bend). Was a big old thing, and there was a hell of a bang going over it.

Had it been stood, I would have definitely hit it and I hate to think of the consequences of hitting it full on.

Homemade – thin base and not overloaded with toppings. For me, chicken pieces, sweetcorn or peppers and mushrooms. Then mozzarella cheese. As stated above, the sliced seems to work better than the grated.

Top tip (think may have read it on here) is invest in one of these cast iron skillets. While pizza is in oven, heat the skillet up on the hob until it’s seriously hot. Then finish the pizza off by placing it on the skillet just for a minute or so when out the oven. It really crisps the base up nicely.

The skillet also works really well for cooking homemade nan bread.

While I like building a fire as much as the next man, I find it hard to see how to justify a wood-fired pizza oven. They’re a lot of money and I can’t believe the pizza would be that much better than the skillet method. And realistically, once the novelty wears off, how many times a month are you going to use it?

If a garage is so un-trustworthy you have to remove all valuables from the car, would you really want to give them any repeat business, or trust them/be wanting to work on your car?

Bit off topic, but I don’t get tipping taxi drivers either – the ones round here turn up on time only if you’re lucky, and then charge £7 for the 3 mile trip in to town. Unless you make the guy hang around waiting for you, or they go above and beyond to get you to the airport on time, why tip?

Someone in the office said he’d read recently in Which? that you need to be careful to get a generation 2 smart meter – apparantly the gen 2 meters can be migrated to a new provider, where as this isn’t possible with the gen 1 meters (which some providers are still installing).

Not sure if this is true, but would be worth checking.

In number 69 there lives a transvestite
He’s a man by day, but he’s a woman at night
There’s a man in number 4 who swears he’s Saddam Hussein
Says he’s on a chore to start the third world war

[Chorus 1]
Oh, if you find the time, please come and stay a while
In my beautiful neighbourhood

[Verse 2]
In 110 they haven’t paid the rent
So there goes the TV with the repo men
In 999 they make a living from crime
The house is always empty cuz they’re all doing time

[Chorus 2]
Oh, if you find the time, please come and stay a while
In my beautiful neighbourhood
My neighbourhood, my, my, my beautiful neighbourhood
My neighbourhood, my, my, my beautiful neighbourhood

[Verse 3]
In number 18 there lives a big butch queen
He’s bigger than Tyson and he’s twice as mean
In 666 there lives a Mr Miller
He’s our local vicar and a serial killer

[Chorus 2]

[Hook]

[Verse 4]
Oh they want to knock us down, cuz they think we’re scum
But we will all be waiting when the bulldozers come
In a neighbourhood like this you know it’s hard to survive
So you better come prepared cuz they won’t take us alive

I’ve watched most of the GT episodes, and am pretty indifferent towards it. Certainly wouldn’t get Amazon Prime just for watch it.

I stumbled last night across some old Top Gear challenges episodes. In comparision to GT, the three of them look to be genuinely having a lot more fun, and the whole thing felt a lot less scripted. They all seemed a lot younger and less jaded.

Just goes to show that all of Amazon’s millions doesn’t necessarily beat the three of them buying £1500 bangers.

I’d be interested to hear any first hand experiences of upgrading radiators.

Most of the radiators in my house are pretty old (am guessing installed in the 70s), and don’t have fins. The one in the hallway is pretty small too – so I’m thinking a double radiator might be more appropriate.

As part of a planned renovation project, I am weighing up replacing them –in the hope that newer radiators will radiate out more heat.

Replacing all the raditors and the plumber’s labour change is going to cost me a bit though, so I don’t want to spend a load of cash for minimal return.

Cheers

I’ve done up a couple of old eBay bikes that I’ve then used for work commuters. As I enjoy fettling, I wondered about doing up a couple a month and selling on eBay for a bit of beer money.

However I came to the conclusion that unless you can secure a load of second hand parts, or get old bikes from the tip for free or very cheap, then the margins would be very thin.

The bikes I bought for about £30 (were reasonable MTBs back in the day, just old and neglected) both needed the needed cables, pads, cassette, chain, various bearings etc. One needed a new chain rings too. If you add on other comparatively expensive parts you might need like tyres, then you could easily spend about £30+ on thoroughly renovating it.

You then also have the hassle of selling/eBay fees/hassle if person buys it and then encounters some unrelated problem two weeks that they think is your problem)

Even if you then added on modest profit, I suspect the majority of buyers looking to buy a cheap bike would then just think they may as well just go to Halfords/Argos etc. and spend a bit and get a brand new shiny BSO.

I’ve just sent my old pair of specs to be re-glazed to an online place. They mailed out a postage-paid box, and you simply post it back along with your glasses and prescription.

It’s certainly cheaper than the High Street, but a slow service (more than 2 weeks now since posting them off and still waiting to get them back).

It’s not a problem as I’m it’s a spare pair, but would be a consideration if it is your main pair.

Cheers

She does worry about it getting low – probably stems from having had a few close calls of nearly running dry when I was driving and her having an absolute fit about running out. Therefore it’s usually brimmed before the light comes on.

When I gave my last company car back, I narrowly avoided her tanking it the day before it was collected.

Mine will put fuel in but is completely unaware of anything else mechanically

– Oil light came on. Not only the light but also a buzzing warning sound. Did she pull over? Did she hell – just drove home. Thank God it was just a duff sensor, but how far do manufacturers need to go to stop people from potentially wrecking their cars?

– Washer bottle light came on. This time she did take action (can’t remember if this was before or after the oil warning light incident). She just happened to be passing the local garage so stopped by. The guy there topped the washer bottle up (no charge as he recognised her) but was duly tipped a fiver!

– I drive her car for the first time in a while and notice something amiss, like engine management light on. “oh yeah, that’s been on for ages”

Some impressive mileages racked up here.

Barely run in by some of the responses here, but my 03-plate BMW 320d did 120k in 4 years and still drove like new, having had nothing more than routine servicing and tyres during that time. According to MOT history it was never put through another MOT, so I can only assume it was crashed or stolen.

On another note, what is the likelihood of today’s modern diesels covering 200k+ mileages, or will they have all been scrapped at 6 or 7 years old due to failed DPFs,dual mass flywheels, EGRs etc.

We were shown round house by the elderly vendor. He initially seemed ok, but then went on to tell us that the only reason the house was on the market was because his wife had done a runner with a waiter they had recently met on holiday, and now wanted to cash in her share of the house.

He casually observed on showing us one of the bedrooms, that this the room he tried to top himself in, ‘when it all became too much’.

He clearly and understandably didn’t want to sell – if this story was his not-so-subtle wat of putting off prospective buyers it certainly worked.

When the EA called for feedback, he didn’t seem too surprised by our experience!

Thanks – gets excellent reviews for Sikkens products.

With regards to the patchy colouring on the door, would I need to further sand down the door to try and get an even colur, or should the stain (probably something like light oak) cover it?

Cheers

I also did the Foundation course with Les Tabernacle. There was a considerable amount of dry content to cram in to 3 days, followed by a written(!) exam on the last day

Les made it all bearable – if the same material had been poorly presented, I think I’d have lost the will to live within the first couple of hours.

The lack of spare wheels on my last two company cars was a major PITA.

A flat on my Mazda 6 at 11pm after a really long day, that could have been a remedied with quick swap to the spare, instead resulted in a 90 min wait for tow truck to take me home (and then having to get mobile tyre fitter out). The recovery guy said he’d picked up someone with brand new Range Rover earlier in the day in same predicament.

On the one occasion the can of gunk did work, Kwikfit wouldn’t subsequently even attempt to repair the tyre (apparently too messy/time consuming to remove the gunk out of the tyre before doing repair. And I dare say more margin on new tyres than repairing.

One getting rid of company cars and buying an older car, I was pleased to find a full-size spare in the boot.

Good luck.

When my VM line was down it was a nightmare – the mobile reception in my house is rubbish, so I’d try and call them via mobile and then either not be able to hear the person as line was so bad, or the connection would drop mid-conversation.

I resorted to using a neighbour’s landline, and when that became too much of a PITA (as had to make numerous calls to them) I started using Skype.

Of the more modern cars, the Alfa 159 is my favourite – just seemed a bit more interesting than the big slab of black plastic in my 3 series.

I’m not a fan of digital the dashes that seem to be increasingly common on new cars – much prefer analogue dials. Lots of new cars also no longer seem to even have a temperature gauge – guess that’s testimony to how reliable modern cars are. I used to be really envious of my mate’s Clio 16v that had an oil pressure and temperature gauges!

+1 for the Casio welshfarmer recommended. I’ve had mine for more than a year and it’s been great. For a watch that needs to be tough and cheap, it ticks all the boxes. At £7 you can’t go wrong.

Bracknell

Another vote for Virgin Media – woeful experience

From your company’s prospective, if the car is changed from being permanently allocated to an employee to a pool car, then who pays the lease? Your company probably won’t want to take it on, unless they’re short of a pool car.

When I had a company car, the car policy was very clear that you had to have the car for the 3 year term, and there was no option to change to cash for cars mid-term. (unless you could find a company-car eligible employee who was willing to take your car, rather than order one of their own)

Why do people have hedges?

I’d much rather a hedge and having to cut it once a year, rather than staring at a fence and have the mind-numbing chore of having to put wood preserve on it every few years