.
4 September 2010, 9:21 UTCBlogger turns 11
Lynne has now been using blogger for more than half its life. Here's the blogger birthday cake:
30 August 2010, 14:00 UTCA trip to Royal National Park
Royal National Park is a big chunk of bush land south of Sydney. You can get there by train from central.
13 August 2010, 5:06 UTCCup of brown joy
There's a great piece by Elemental called Cup of Brown joy.
3 August 2010, 3:12 UTCInstalling a through wall pipe in a wootank
I just installed a through wall pipe on the wootank, it doesn't seem to leak. Much. (mental: well, at least it's not leaking a lot)
I drilled the hole while the tank is full, putting a block of wood on the inside to prevent a jet of cold water. The water is approx 6C, and keeping your arm in it for any period of time is not fun. Then I removed the block of wood and inserted the flanged pipe, with a bit of duct tape over the hole. The pressure alone was sufficient to keep the flange in place and almost no water leaked out. I then screwed on the outside flange and tightened, added a stopcock and removed the duct tape. No obvious drips, it appears not to leak... of course it could be leaking very slowly inside the plywood which we will find out about in a few months when it fails spectacularly. We'll see.
This means I can adjust the overflow level more precisely than cutting away the wall of the tank, and also hopefully will stop the water leaking between the liner and ply when it goes over the overflow (and we're talking many kl here over a period of months), which I suspect has happened at some point.
It also allows me to try out the super low energy flood and drain idea I've had rattling around for a while. The idea is to have the f&d bed at just above the tank's water level and use an axial flow pump to raise the level the requisite 10cm water level. This would, for a 3.6x0.9 m bed, require at least 160J, which is 200* less than the current system.
(As an interesting aside, we might save even more by setting the flood and drain at slightly below the tank level, reversing the pump so as to keep the average at the neutral point. Extra points by having the system resonate as a wave guide so that most of the energy is conserved)
<insert pictures here>
update
No obvious leaking. Rate is below evaporation.
31 July 2010, 0:56 UTCPoffertjes for slackers
I quite like poffertjes, sort of mini pikelets traditionally made with yeast. You can buy them at the farmers market, but they are $12 a serve. I'm not usually willing to wait for yeast to rise (a recent crumpet project took 3 hours, far too long for breakfast). So I aimed to make poffertjes using self raising flour.
19 July 2010, 2:09 UTCBeaming
Tobin and I put in the other beam in the new kitchen.
18 July 2010, 2:00 UTCAttic gaps
Nick writes:
Dr Nathan Hurst <n...@njhurst.com> wrote:> Ok, I put another R3.5 in the ceiling last night and this morning, > despite last night's storm, the house is still warm. I laid the > batts across the ceiling joists, 90 degrees from their direction, > which will probably also help with air tightness and heat loss through > the joists themselves.
BPI would say "airseal first!" They also say over and over that fiberglass does not stop air infiltration. You might get your house blower-door tested and seal some holes in the attic floor.
So I set up a wind powered blower door test and I have indeed found some air leaks.
16 July 2010, 1:25 UTCVirtual Insanity
I was thinking about doing Jamiroquoi's Virtual Insanity as a postlude on Sunday and dug up the music video from the web. It was a rather good video for its time, and we can assume that there are no fancy computer graphics in it due to its age. We can also assume a nearly infinite budget. So the question arises, how was it done? Before reading down, I suggest you think about how it might be done.
16 July 2010, 0:20 UTCMaking clothing
It's interesting how people jump to spinning and weaving as a response to the threat of energy decline. Both seem poor investments to me (I should speak softly here, my wife is currently away at a fibre crafts fair). They are fun, but are only ever going to be hobbies.
Consider that a spinning machine (that draws the fibre and spins into even thickness multi-ply yarns) is something that can be built by a knowledgeable blacksmith or carpenter in a day or two. A mechanised weaving loom can be built with 18th century technology. Automated knitting is 19th century as are sewing machines. But what we still haven't made machines to efficiently do is make clothes.
So it would seem prudent, while we have a supply of cheap fabric, to learn how to efficiently make efficient clothing. And it's actually fun. What got me started is the fact that I am very long in the body, so off the shelf clothing is either baggy or midriff. I've made tee-shirts, underwear, polar fleece tops and bike riding clothes using nothing more than a bottom of the range sewing machine and some simple long life low tech tools such as the humble stitch unpicker.
14 July 2010, 1:15 UTCinstalled
Lorry and I installed the steel beam yesterday, using a technique he used for his house extension. The studs are cut 3/4 of the way through just below the base of the beam. The beam is then lifted onto temporary framework aligned with the cuts. Then starting from one end the studs are cut completely (using a Japanese hand saw) and the beam angled into the cut. Once we got to the load bearing portion (in the centre) we added the end posts, bolted them together and placed them on pine skids. The beam position is adjusted with a percussive microadjustment tool maintaining verticality as much as possible. Finally, once all the studs are cut and the posts are in position the posts are bolted to the base plate and the wall can be removed.
The silver at the top is low cost cornicing :)
To determine the effects of live loading on the beam I installed this advanced technology maximum deflection detector. Nature has been kind to me by providing storm winds over the last 24 hours. Despite that, no deflection has been measured.
I adapted a program from Schaum to compute worst case deflections: beam2.py I have a second moment calculator in 2geom, if anyone is interested.
11 July 2010, 5:13 UTCClimbing the Gloucester tree
8 July 2010, 1:03 UTCSteel yourself
1 July 2010, 8:04 UTCNice furniture you can put away when not in use
30 June 2010, 5:15 UTCThe purpose of lists
24 June 2010, 2:48 UTCA nice day in the city
22 June 2010, 3:52 UTCBloated cat
19 June 2010, 9:13 UTCBurnt quince toffee icecream
16 June 2010, 3:56 UTCShrinkfilm windows
16 June 2010, 3:44 UTCAntigravity cat
13 June 2010, 23:46 UTCPig people
12 June 2010, 6:36 UTCUnderfloor insulation
9 June 2010, 6:46 UTCWatchmaker's bench
8 June 2010, 0:47 UTCReally Narrow Streets
3 June 2010, 3:13 UTCRender under Citrus
2 June 2010, 3:37 UTCProof by induction
2 June 2010, 2:14 UTCSimple panel store using found materials
2 June 2010, 1:39 UTCCutting corrugated iron
28 May 2010, 5:11 UTCEasy automatic door snake
25 May 2010, 23:23 UTCBlack Swan Event Horizon
19 May 2010, 2:54 UTCFerrocement kitchen bench
Nathan's Home page