A Cautionary Tale

Merry Christmas readers.  Yes a day late… and how do I know that?  The local supermarket has hot cross buns for sale so it must be boxing day!

We had a very quiet Christmas Day.  Jan seemed rather disappointed in the morning as she had put out stockings in the hope Pip & Mick’s <nb Oleanna> stocking fillers would also visit us.  Apparently not!  Christmas Dinner was home made hamburgers and very delicious they were.

Much of the time leading to Christmas has been spent inside.  A combination of hot weather and a bad back.  During this period I spent many frustrating hours attempting to setup and configure a very old desktop pc as a PVR (Personal Video Recorder).  The pc has three old TV tuner cards which provides the opportunity to simultaneously record six TV channels.  The operating system is Xubuntu 18.04 which is the most current version of Linux I could find for a 32bit computer.  The TV capture software is MythTV, a rather powerful software with many functions including advert stripping.

Commercial Australian TV companies do not allow the public to download their EPG’s (Electronic Program Guides).  To get around this I’m using a another program named ‘Shepherd’ which integrates with MythTV.  In simple terms Shepherd visits each of the TV company websites and peels off a copy of their EPG webpage.  The data is then checked with the International TV and Movie databases for additional information before it’s recompiled and made available for download by subscribers.  This project is almost completed.

My cautionary tale is about Christmas Day.  I decided to continue with the excavations for the second toilet.  Some care was required as my back is still very stiff.  Anyway, I started digging only to discover there were six (YES SIX) buried pipes in the immediate vicinity of the bathroom window.  There is one large white PVC pipe which I suspect is the stormwater from the roof.  The remainder are copper pipes.  I assume water and (perhaps) gas. 

After digging with the long handled shovel for several minutes and accidentally striking the copper pipes a couple of times a small warning bell started to ring in the back of my head.  Then it got LOUDER!!!!

What was it going to cost us if I accidentally broke a water or gas pipe on Christmas Day?????  Time to stop digging and drink cold beer!

Meanwhile I’ve discovered the free advice from the plumber was incorrect.  He informed me there was no concrete pad under the bath and implied the digging would be easy as it would be sand.

Well there is a concrete pad under what was once the bath.  The only area not concreted is around the bath drain pipe.

 

What else has gone wrong?  After replacing the four batteries in the tyre sensors the TPMS still makes that beeping noise.  Obviously my guess about the flat batteries being the cause was wrong.  Looks like the TPMS will have to be discarded.  Fortunately after market TPMS systems have become much cheaper in the two years since purchasing the existing unit.

Having mentioned the 4x4 I should also report recently it’s had difficulty starting in the morning.  It can’t be the temperature at this time of the year.  After experimenting I thought it might be air in the fuel line as only recently both the primary and secondary fuel filters were changed.  The vehicle would start after I’d raised the bonnet and manually primed the fuel system.  However I couldn’t find any fuel leaks which might allow air into the system.  Then I discovered the battery wasn’t fully charged.  That damned ‘smart alternator’!  I now have the battery connected to our CTek 240V charger and will try to start the engine after the battery is fully charged.  It’s possible our 2½ year old battery is reaching the end of its life.  It’s the original battery and only comes with a one year warranty.  It’s capacity (430CCA) is also quite small for a large diesel engine.  If the battery requires replacing then Santa probably bought Jan a gold topped 810CCA battery this year