Burn the Tartan Tories

I'm confused, not for the first time admittedly, but the Scottish Government are tipped to turn down Europe's biggest wind farm development on the Isle of Lewis. This is the same Government who recently ruled out any chance of building new Nuclear Power Stations on Scottish soil. Fair enough? So where is Scotland going to get their energy from? No renewables, 'cause they look ugly (and they don't work) and no nuclear power 'cause they're dangerous (not really, the technology has moved on somewhat in the past 50 years, safer, cleaner more efficient).

If the wind farm is turned down due to "beauty" issues then where can they build it? Scotland is a pretty darned nice looking country (only behind Norn Iron in that respect) so that will be a valid rejection point for any development. Of course they could bulldoze Parkhead, build power stations on the reclaimed land and do the entire country a huge favour by removing that deviant eyesore. Just a thought.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Start building Nuclear Power Stations now! you useless twats.

Category:

• Nuclear
• Energy

Double Glazing

"Abandon hope all ye who enter here." I'm about to arrange the most dreaded of appointments, for a double glazing salesman to come round to give us a quotation.

We need 6 new windows and a backdoor but for now it's the three upstairs windows for the rear that we'll get done as they can be installed in a day with no other work required. The downstairs three are in the sun lounge and will have to wait until the summer for the work to be done as it's just too cold for that at the moment, and will require major redecoration.

I really don't enjoy salesmen of this ilk. Who do they think they're kidding with the initial multi-thousand pound quote and then all the guff about discounts, offers, "need to talk with my manager", sucking of teeth, bashing away on a calculator bollocks? I'm thinking of being a right git up front and giving them a warning. They only get one chance to give me a quote. If it's bollocks they're out the door, no sale. Could be quite fun. Deep breath, wish me luck.

Category:

• Home
• House

Hi Ho, Hi Ho

Gone and got myself one of them job things, much to the relief of Lesley (who was fed up of having me around the house when she came home) and my own if I'm honest. Obviously I'll not be going into any details of new job other than it's relatively local (good) and the pay is very reasonable (nice) and I know the company from a previous life.

As I hinted in the original redundancy post I needed a break before actively looking for a new job. To that end I never really seriously started the hunt until after Christmas. My CV was well received by recruitment companies a couple of weeks before crimbo but obviously the vacancies were tailing off for the holidays.

With the New Year I was expecting to be beating off offers with a sh*tty stick but that just didn't happen (very puzzling for a genius such as myself). I'd sort of got it into my head that Aberdeen and the Oil & Gas industry is where my future lay.

I became more and more frustrated with recruitment agencies handling the job search and adverts for all the big boys. What a complete shower, a disgrace. These guys really shouldn't be allowed. All they do is get a checklist from an employer and check it against the CVs they've got on file. If your CV misses something on the list they won't forward your CV for consideration. Cowboys. I had one argument with a weggie twat who tried to tell me I didn't have any "Precision Engineering" experience and therefore he wouldn't put my CV forward for a job which was perfect for me. Precision Engineering? I piss Precision Engineering... tosser.

Word of advice, particularly for Oil & Gas ('cause they're crying out for skilled Engineers), compile a list of companies you'd like to work for and send a CV with covering letter direct to them, cutting out the useless recruitment agencies.

Anyway, rant over. Next up is a haircut, a couple of pairs of new trousers, half a dozen shirts and a couple of new ties (my last place was strictly jeans, actually that was my rule ;-) so at least I'll look the part. Not looking forward to early starts again.

Category:

• Redundancy
• Work

Electricity - How Much Does It Cost?

So, we know that energy prices are going to rise again and that hurts. There's nothing much we can do about that, the market will do what the market will do. Yes, you can switch suppliers constantly trying to chase the lowest tariffs but there comes a time when there's nowhere left to go. So what to do? Simply put the best thing you can do to lower your bills is use less energy. Sounds easy doesn't it... hmmm. Before we can start saving we need to know how much we're using and how much it costs.

Read more...


Have you ever really paid much attention to the explanation of the charges on the back of your bill? Me neither, once the shock of seeing the big number on the front has passed I lose the will to read any more. But now is the time to get better aquainted with your bill, get into your head how much electricity costs, how much you use, and attach it to a real world example like a light bulb burning away.

So I gritted my teeth, turned over the bill and read all the blurb about units, kWhs, day and night rates, standing charges, blah blah blah. What I wanted to do was to distill the information into one easy to understand number - how much does one unit of electricity actually cost me? This is relatively easy to do. Add up the total number of units used (usually listed at two different rates for night and day) and divide by the total cost of the bill (assuming it's for electricity only), this gives us the actual amount a unit of electricity costs us. This figure will average out the different rates, standing charges etc. Remember to include the 5% VAT charge. The figures for my most recent bill can be seen below.

I used 1114 units on day rate costing £107.81 (9.678p per unit)
I used 408 units on night rate costing £16.50 (4.045p per unit)
Standing charge of £17.05 (14.45p/day for 118 days)

Adding that all up I've used 1522 units costing £141.36+VAT@5%= £148.43 Therefore 1 unit actually costs 9.75 pence. This is the headline figure we need to keep in mind from now on.

1 unit = 1kWh which costs me 9.75 pence.

So lets put that into real world terms using something we can all understand, a 60watt light bulb. As the name suggests it will consume 60watts of power. Now, all our calculations are based on kWh so we'll convert this to match.

60watts = .06kW (60/1000=0.06)

Now we know the light bulb will consume 0.06kW and one hour's usage will cost 0.06*9.75=0.585 pence. Not very much in the great scheme of things. Leaving the light bulb on for 24 hours will cost me 0.585*24= 14.04pence/day or £4.35/month or £51/year... ouch. Of course you'd never leave a light bulb on 24 hours a day, would you? No, you'd switch it off when light was not needed.

But what about all those things around the house that you do leave on 24 hours a day? I'm not talking about the essentials like a fridge/freezer I'm talking about the TV/Hi-Fi/Computer/Consoles/Laptop/ etc. When you analyse the amount of energy these things consume (even when apparently switched off) it's enough to make your hair curl. I'll follow up this post with real world measurements of power consumption of devices in standby mode and real, actual costs for each item. To be continued...

Update: Second post on this subject can be found here.

Category:

• Electricity
• Home

Telescopic Ladder

Bought myself a new ladder primarily for access to the loft as I've some insulation work to do up there and I want to add a floored storage area as well. As you can see from the image it's a fancy dan telescopic ladder and very nice it is too.

We have two loft areas in our house. The first, over the single storey extension and the second belonging to the original house. The first is of limited height and has existing insulation but could probably do with some filling of gaps. The second is of good height but the insulation is totally inadequate by today's standards (all new houses require loft insulation to a depth of 270mm). As it's got the space I will also add a floored area for storage.

I did a bit of looking around the net for a suitable ladder and finally decided on a telescopic design. The sort of ladder you can get from B&Q just didn't suit due to weight limits (most of their domestic ladders have a maximum weight range 95-100kg, which with the best will in the world is unsuitable for me ;-) and the hassle with storage for occasional use.

Got a good deal on an Xtend & Climb Telescopic Ladder. Very strong, reasonsably light, stores in a cupboard, easy to extend/collapse, all in all much chuffed with the purchase. Ordered it from Toolstop for £99 with a free set of steps, delivery free. Company seem to be based in Hamilton, Scotland so it arrived very quickly.

Telescopic ladders obviously attract a cost premium (avoid cheap ebay knockoffs) especially if you go for top of the range industrial usage types but this domestic model is actually quite cost effective when you factor in storage and working weight capacity.

Category:

• DIY
• Home

New Year 2008

My 4th annual New Year post. What can I say, the year has been marked and totally overshadowed by my redundancy. Although the axe didn't fall until the middle of October we were all pretty sure by early July, with news of the appointment of a new GM, that our days were numbered.

So, I'm not going to review the past year and can only really concentrate on a new job for this New Year.

Enough of this gloom, I hope for you and your family that 2007 was a good one and all the best for 2008.

Category:

• Personal