Victorian TAC Christmas Ad revisited

We ran this last year.  Are you going to be driving again this Christmas?

You NEED to watch this.  Confronting I know, but if this gets the message home to one person I'll be glad.

Click Here to go to YouTube.  Need I say any more?

Wulfe HWS

It was uncanny that a few days ago I wrote "things happen in threes".  I really didn't mean it and have no time for superstitions generally.  Well, it sort of didn't happen in threes, but as I type, Michael from Mizu Plumbing is currently installing a new Vulcan hot water service in the cupboard under the stairs.

It's actually been leaking for years, but it has come to a head and we've been investigating where this mystical water leak is coming from.  It has destroyed the walls around it, the bottom plate and the skirting board.  But it hasn't been real clear exactly where the water has been coming from.

Well, it's been the hot water service and the reason why we haven't been able to identify it is that it only leaks when the electricity to it is turned on and the element is heating. And because that's on Off Peak Tariff 2, that's only really between 11pm and 6am of a night.

Night before last after I had removed all the damaged gyprock and skirting board to try to get to see where the leak was I went out and the channel I had cleared was full of water.  Given that it had been almost dry an hour before I reckoned I was in a prime spot to see the leak and I was right.  Yep.  The hot water service, which was thirteen years old and not a very good brand according to our plumber who has had to replace quite a few of them.  There was a sure and steady drip of water coming out from the base of it, and falling exactly where the water had been accumulating.  It had been running around the channels where the bottom plate had gone and wicking up the studs and into the gyprock.

So the third thing has been fixed within the last couple of weeks: the water tank pump, the personal video recorder and now the hot water service.  That'll do us for a while thanks.  Which is just as well, as I now have a lot of carpentry and gyprocking to do.  Here's the extent of the water damage:

Bianco Pump Back

Wow, things are happening in quick succession now - today a BRAND NEW Bianco Pump finally came into stock which the wife brought home after work, and not only that, I reinstalled it today as well.

We now have the toilet and washing machine connected to that completely full 5,000 litre rainwater tank in the back yard, and to celebrate, I flushed the toilet FULL FLUSH three times!  (Okay, I was clearing the air out of the lines, but it was slightly celebratory).

The new pump is quieter, and has a longer mains lead on it, which is great as the previous one only just reached the power point before.

Our next in-home repair is going to be a water pipe in the laundry which is looking like having tiny pin-prick corrosion holes in it, which is causing water to slowly drip into the laundry wall and rot the bottom plate out.  It is going to be interesting to see what happens.  If all goes well with our plumber, he's going to be here after lunch time when I get back from having an Xray done.

Homecast comes home

On Thursday the Homecast PVR returned home in working condition!  The electronics technician I dropped it into was fairly busy.  I dropped it in Monday, and then rang on Tuesday afternoon.  "Have you had a chance to look at it?" I eagerly asked.  Alas, no.  "Just so you know: we're missing it" and I left it at that.

On Wednesday I thought I'd leave him to his own devices and not bother a very busy man who has a phone glued permanently to his ear.  Well, every time I dropped in he was on the phone talking through procedures!

On Thursday morning he rang me.  Early.  "It was a couple of capacitors and a resistor, and it's all fine now - $99.  And I'm leaving early this afternoon at 3:30, so you can pick it up Friday if you want".

I interjected that I'd be there within an hour, and he said that'd be fine.  I'll say that'd be fine.  The thing came back home, I checked it out and re-installed it in its pride of place.

It had recorded a show at 8:30pm on the Saturday night, but it hadn't recorded "Insiders" which is on ABC1 at 9am on Sunday mornings.  So it failed between then and then.  Was there a power surge, Saturday night at all?  A couple of caps, a resistor and a pair of diodes in the power supply chain sounds suspiciously like a bit of a power surge to me.  Anyway, we'll never know, and the Homecast is back in heavy service as usual.  Didn't even get the VHS machine out while it was absent, although it was starting to look like it was going to be fired up again.  Sheesh, I wonder if it actually still works?