Did I do it?

In the last blog post I mentioned Perth had only received 15% of it’s usual summer rainfall.  Well late yesterday afternoon a thunderstorm rolled through giving us a welcome drenching.  Then Jan and I went to Ocean Reef for lunch today and it started raining.

The woman ahead of me in the food queue was telling the cashier they had recently left England to avoid the rain only to find it raining in Perth.  The cashier asked her whether they had done the UK-Oz flight non-stop and was informed they had transited through Singapore.  The cashier then asked her how confident she was about getting a return flight given that Singapore is starting to have Coronavirus problems?  I don’t think the English tourist had thought of that!

Meanwhile Postman Chan delivered another parcel today.  It was the Tyre Pressure Management System (TPMS) I’d ordered from China.  After removing the wrapping I washed my hands and then opened the package.

The TPMS consists of a control unit with LCD display and four external tyre sensors which screw onto the tyre valve.  The control unit is configurable allowing the user to set an upper and lower tyre pressure as well as a high temperature reading.  If any of these parameters are exceeded then the unit emits a visual and audible alarm.  It has a small solar panel on top to charge the control unit and can also be via a micro SD port on one side.

I’m going to secure it to the dash mat with a piece of Velcro.   The pressure readings on the display appear to be accurate and I thought it was good value at just over $30.

Outback “Stuff”

This morning the courier delivered more equipment for the planned outback trip later in the year. 

The first delivery was two recovery tracks.

I now have a total of four, which makes sense when you know the vehicle has four wheels

They are cheap chinese clones but as I don’t plan on using them (I hope) and if I have to; then it will be to get out of soft sand.  All they will need to do is spread the load and provide some traction

I’m going to fit them onto the top of the freezer compartment lid.  I’ve already cut out the securing bracket from some surplus steel.

The second delivery was the replacement shock absorbers for the trailer. 

The shorter (black) shock is the replacement.  Using a shorter shock should prevent it from “bottoming out”.  The replacement also has more friction (dampening effect).  The above photo show the shocks in the compressed state whilst the next photo shows them at full extension.

Fitting them is another outstanding task.  However I don’t feel like working outside as it’s rather hot (35C).  This is the last week of summer and Perth has only received 15% of its annual summer rainfall.

Slow Progress

Despite insulating the workshop I’ve been finding it’s not worth working in it after 11am.  Well I am retired and time isn’t an issue.  Although I guess it means end date is getting closer!

I used the blade I made for the lawn edger today and it appears to be doing a better job of cutting the grass than the original.

Meanwhile the hole I’ve been filling in the lounge wall is almost complete. 

Jan and I agreed the door should have glass panes thereby reducing the risk of walking into each other when opening it.  I’m going to fit a window above the door to allow more light into the room.

All that is left to do is paint preparation and the last of the painting…. Which I’m not looking forward to doing!

Paul the plumber visited yesterday and confirmed my excavations around the sewer pipe were satisfactory.  He will install the connection for the new toilet shortly which will enable me to then continue with the bathroom renovations.

When is a whistle not a whistle?

This morning the postman delivered a small envelope.  I immediately realised it was from China but couldn’t identify the contents as it felt like a long thin rod.  Perhaps Jan had ordered a crochet needle?

Looking at the description on the label I realised it was the stainless steel whistles I’d ordered from www.joom.com.

When I opened the envelope I discovered there were no whistles. 

It contained one small artists paintbrush!

What happened to my whistles?

Is it worth us buying a residential battery?

If you have been following this blog since 2017 you may recall we moved into the Perth house in May of that year.  Initially we had very few household effects whilst we waited for our possessions to be delivered from storage.  In August of 2018 we had a 6.4kW solar array fitted to the roof of the house.  This certainly lowered our bi-monthly electricity bill.  However it did annoy me that we were paying roughly six times the cost of a unit of electricity (kWh) from the utility company than they were paying us for the surplus power we generated and returned to the network.

This afternoon I sat at the pc and went back through the data in the electricity bills from May 2017 until the end of 2019.

Our electrical consumption for the period May 2017 to Dec 2019

The blue lines show how little electricity we were using when we first moved it.  However note it was steadily increasing.  The very high peak in Jun-Aug 2018 is an aberration.  This is the period when the solar array was fitted and the utility company billed us for the new solar meter, etc in kWh equivalents.  They then didn’t credit us for the electricity we sent back to the grid until the Oct-Dec billing period which is why the red line is so low for that period.  The green line is our consumption for 2019 and is relatively flat.  Obviously the bill is lower because most of the time during daylight we are consuming the electricity we generate.

Last year is the only period where we have 12 months of accurate data and I’ve used this to calculate the average daily kWh’s we purchased from the utility company.

A battery of 8kWs would probably meet our needs but 10-13 kWh’s would provide some spare capacity for a very dull day.

What is the cost of purchasing electricity from the utility company?  It’s broken into two parts.  The actual units of electricity we consume from the grid, which is a variable charge and a supply charge, which is a standard daily rate.

The Jun-Aug and Oct-Dec data for 2018 should be ignored.

It’s obvious the 2019 data is the lowest of the three year period.  The average daily cost is $1.40 with the fixed daily supply charge being just over $1 of that amount.

The Tesla Powerwall 2 residential battery has a capacity of 13.4kW and costs $10-13,000 installed.  If we were to install the Powerwall the payback period would be 9286 days or 25 years ($13,000 ÷ $1,40).  The battery has a guaranteed life of 10 years.  Even an 8kW battery has a payback period of 15 years.

Therefore, with our current solar power setup it’s not financially viable to install a residential battery.

However I anticipate as more home owners fit solar arrays to their houses the utility supply charge will increase to compensate for the reduction in demand and loss of revenue.  Moreover residential battery prices are likely to slowly reduce, which means we will need to monitor the situation with the view of further reducing the cost of our electrical consumption.

Before the virus

Recently I purchased a camera suction mounting bracket from China at the extreme expense of $1.65.  It must have been one of the last items to leave China before Australia cancelled all direct flights until the Coronavirus is under control.

The bracket arrived yesterday and I immediately fitted it to my Xiaomi 4K action camera before attaching the mount to the 4x4 front windscreen.

The camera is orientated towards the driver as it’s my intention to film me speaking whilst driving during some of my outback trips.  However I’ve already identified one problem.  the camera is upside down!  Now I have to discover whether the camera has the capability to reverse the image otherwise I’ll need to look for a software solution. 

Meanwhile one member of the household just loves having their teeth cleaned.  When the brush and toothpaste appears they get very excited.  Yes it’s Molly!  Who would have thought a dog would get excited about having their teeth cleaned.  It must be something to do with the chicken flavoured toothpaste.

Caught by the simple thing!

Today is Valentines Day and I asked Jan what type of flower she would like….. Plain, wholemeal or self-raising?  I’m such a romantic

OK, what really happened this morning was Jan woke me at 7am to inform me the electricity had gone off.  Apparently the automatic garden water reticulation system had stopped working midway through the 3rd station.  She also reminded me last night she had informed me the air conditioning unit in the bedroom was making a vibrating sound.  Being slightly deaf, I couldn’t hear it!

Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes I went to the house switchboard which is located on an exterior wall.  One circuit breaker had indeed ‘tripped’.  I reset it, only for it to trip again several seconds later.  Obviously we had a fault.   I’ve never been impressed with Australian Electrical Wiring Regulations which IMHO are considerably more lax than those in NZ.  The row of circuit breakers on the switchboard are numbered 1 – 9 rather than naming what circuit they represent.  We had a fault on circuit 7, but what did it feed?  Eventually I established it supplied the power sockets in one half of the house along with the air conditioner in the bedroom (the one Jan had hear noises from).  Unlike NZ; the air-con doesn’t have an adjacent isolation switch which meant I couldn’t isolate it from the faulty circuit.  Consequentially I was able to isolate every power point on the circuit apart from the air-con.  We still had a fault and the air-con was looking to be the guilty party.

My next step was to run two extension leads inside the house to get the internet router working along with electricity to the recliner chairs.  This provided both a level of comfort and would enable me to start searching the internet for a copy of the air-con maintenance manual.  I’d now established the fault wasn’t with the electrics of the automatic water reticulation system or any of the appliances in the house.  That left the bedroom air-con. 

Jan asked if we could use a 3rd extension lead to provide power to the TV.  The only spare lead was in the garage and I was using it to supply power to the trailer battery charger.  Off I went to get the lead.  That’s when I discovered the garden water reticulation system had been spraying water onto the end of the extension lead.  I’d found the fault!

Why was the water spraying onto the extension lead?  After examining the reticulation hose I realised one member of the household, who happens to be small, brown and hairy; had been chewing on the hose which had created a hole that nicely lined up with the end of the plug.  When the lawn and garden automatic reticulation system reached station 3 the water squirted into the plug and create the fault.

Always look for the simple thing first! 

What’s been happening?

The answer is quite a lot.  We borrowed the courtesy trailer from the nearest hardware store using it to bring home more materials for the various projects.  Mostly it was timber and polycarbonate sheets.  The latter were cut to size using the portable jig saw with a fine tooth metal blade.  I managed to fit 90% of the first sheet to the porch roof before the heat drove me inside.  The sheet is secure, but not water sealed.  Not that this is an issue with the current high temperatures and dry conditions. 

I’ve decided to only work outdoors during the mornings when it cooler; and that is a relative term at the moment.

The second sheet might be installed tomorrow morning, leaving the sealing and flashing for the following morning.

After looking at the linear price of timber architrave in the hardware I decided to purchase cheaper standard sized pine which I will mould into architrave using the thicknesser and router.  Jan has selected a glass pane timber door for the lounge room.  I’ve fitted the hinges and given the door it’s first undercoat.  The door frame has also be made from pine I’ve cut to the required width on the bench saw and then run through the thicknesser.  It’s now awaiting a first undercoat.  This left the workshop full of sawdust and wood shaving so I spent an hour removing all of it through the dust extractor.

More painting is scheduled for tomorrow morning.  It will probably take me five days to complete the painting and have the door ready for installation.

The postman delivered one of my recent purchases from China.  Jan and I debated whether to dip the package in disinfectant and unpack it with surgical gloves but in the end decided the risk was probably minimal.  It contained the blade sharpening jig.

I’m close to hopeless at sharpening blades freehand which is why I have the jig for the wood chisels and hand plane.  This jig clamps to a desk top or bench and is fitted with four whetstones of various grades from 180 to 1500.  The blade gets clamped into the jaws and the angle of the whetstones is adjusted before running the stone across the blade at a constant angle.  I haven’t tried using it as Jan informs me all her knives are sharp.

Large Australian Spider

 

We are not paying that much!

The blade on the lawn edger has worn out and today we visited the hardware for a replacement blade.  They had them in stock but I wasn’t going to pay $29.95 for a piece of flat steel with a hole in it; no matter how fancy and colourful the blister pack!. 

The old blade.  Probably half the length of when it was purchased.

Poor Jan got dragged down to the steel area in the store where I found a 2 metre length of flat steel of the same width and thickness for $11.25

Once back home I cut 240mm off one end with the Aldi angle grinder.

There is enough flat bar left for another seven blades.  However I’ll probably use the bar on the trailer.

I used the gauge callipers from Aldi to measure the diameter of the original hole before drilling a hole in my new blade (Aldi step drill bit…. love Aldi).

Then I ground an edge on each end of the flat bar using the bench grinder and a flat file.

The last step was to fit it to the lawn edger.

Total cost somewhere under $1.50.

Cynical amusement, the dishwasher and the plague

I can’t but help be cynically amused by the Trump impeachment.  During the last presidential election Trump’s campaign rallying cry was “Drain the Swamp” tapping into the groundswell of voter disillusionment with their elected representative in Washington.  I doubt many of those Trump voters recognised they were voting for one of the largest toads in the swamp.  Some still haven’t realised it!

Now we have a situation where those Republicans “in the swamp” are cynically doing all they can to protect the largest toad in the swamp.  You couldn’t make this stuff up!

Meanwhile Jan is complaining about the dishwasher pre-wash cycle.  The cycle occurs intermittently and only when the door is open.  Of course Molly doesn’t recognise this as the pre-wash cycle…. It’s the entrée!  Doesn’t matter how many times Jan scolds her and mentions cutting her tongue on a sharp knife; Molly keeps going back!

The current outbreak of the coronavirus in China had me thinking about earlier pandemics.

The first was the 541AD Plague of Justinian which mostly affected the eastern Mediterranean. In 2013 researcher confirmed the cause of the plague was Yersinia pestis. The ancestor of the Justinian plague strain has been found on the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and China.  The plague killed between 13-26% of the world's population at that time.

The second plague was "The Black Death" which reached Europe in 1348. It originated in or near China and spread along the Silk Road. The death toll is estimated at 350-400 million.

The third plague began in Yunnan province in China in 1855. This plague appears to have been spread by two different methods. The first was bubonic and similar to the first two plague pandemics being transmitted by rats and fleas. The second, more virulent strain, was primarily pneumonic in character with a strong person-to-person contagion. Approximately 10 million died, mostly in India and China.

By the 20th century the western world had identified links between good public health and disease control. Vaccines had started to be developed and by the 1940's antibiotics.

In 2002 SARS appeared in China and rapidly spread around the world. SARS isn't bubonic. It's pneumonic and can be spread by human contact.

In 2012 the MERS coronavirus was identified in Saudi Arabia. The source was subsequently traced back to Zarqa, Jordan. MERS was of major concern as millions of muslims from around the world were heading to Saudi Arabia for the annual Haji. MERS has a 42.6% mortality rate. Fortunately modern public health measures limited the spread

This year we have another coronavirus outbreak and again the source is China. Four of the recorded five world pandemics appear to have originated in or on the border of China.

The source of these outbreaks appears to be animals where the virus jumps between species through eating affected animals, poor hygiene, living in close proximity. They can be contained through isolation of people and affected areas. However it is vital to find the source in order to prevent a re-occurrence.

Our neighbours

Our neighbours have started a new business and yesterday evening we went along to see how it was going.  Daphne wanted to sell Taiwanese street food and her husband, Daniel has built the food van over the last 12 months.  He has done all the work himself, except for the gas fitting which required a specialist license.  A great effort for a man who used to be a camera technician.

They sell Hoki Bao which is a type of Chinese sweet steamed bun with various fillings.

Jan opted for a chicken Hoki Bao whilst I had the beef.  The van appeared to be quite popular and I’ll endeavour to confirm that next time I have a conversation with them.

Street food appears to be gaining popularity in Perth with the vans regularly setting up in various suburbs around Waneroo City. 

We wish Daphne and Daniel the best of luck with their new business venture.

On, and we will be back to try more of their delicious menu!

Yet another success

It was relatively mild today and I decided to remove the two old sheets of polycarbonate from the backyard porch roof.  It wasn’t too hard although I’ve discovered I no longer have much of a head for heights.  The most difficult part of the process was removing the silicon securing the end of each sheet to the steel guttering on the house.  We now have a gaping hole whilst I source a trailer in order to collect replacement sheets.

The old sheets used to be opaque but have delaminated with years of exposure to UV and temperature. 

Rather than throw them away I’ve decided I will attempt to reuse them on the lean-to I plan to construct beside the garage. 

It also seemed an opportune time to check if my modified sawdust collector has been successful.  You may recall I replaced the expensive plastic bag system with a metal rubbish bin.  It was ¾ full, so another success.

We went to Anaconda this morning (Anaconda is an outdoor store) becuase I wanted to buy a fishing rod to replace the one that is now the mast for my trailer sand flag.  I’d decided on a 12ft Ugly Stik which was going to cost $179.  However when we arrived and I started looking at rods I settled on a cheap 10ft rod costing $49,99.  Quite a saving, we then went to the camping section where I found jerrican racks on special.  Instead of $89.95 they were $39.95 and seizing the moment, I purchased two.  At the check out I handed over my membership discount card which dropped the price of the rod to $39.95. 

This is what the jerrican rack will look like on the front of the trailer

With these latest modification the trailer is almost complete.