Boilers, Radiators and Quotes!

[The Duke]

If you get wet windows, is to do with air flow rather than rad placement. A lot of older houses suffer from bad air flow.

[Anonymous]

Recommendation is to put radiators underneath the windows, which evens the heat across the room.

[Dave Rice]

I own a “new” house (actually 15 years old, but well within the time frame of getting serious about energy usage) and all the radiators are under a window where there is one.

[Richard]

The Duke wrote:

If you get wet windows, is to do with air flow rather than rad placement. A lot of older houses suffer from bad air flow.

Steve, I agree. Though sometimes other issues are also in play. Are the windows correctly set in their opening, has the pointing been checked?  Has lime mortar or plaster been reworked with modern non breathable cement mortar or plasterwork added?

However, radiators under windows are the preferred arrangements for airflow reasons and for making furniture placement easier in most rooms.

Since we had the bathrooms updated to modern standards with trickle fans through out (in a house that is only 25 years old) all signs of dampness, summer or winter have been banished from the windows.

Richard

[Ed P]

“Has lime mortar or plaster been reworked with modern non breathable cement mortar or plasterwork added?”

+1 — Rendered brickwork is a well-known house killer.

[Bob Williams]

Ed P wrote:

“Has lime mortar or plaster been reworked with modern non breathable cement mortar or plasterwork added?” +1 — Rendered brickwork is a well-known house killer.

Ed that is similar to a product once applied to car chassis in the 70’s. “Cadulac” had been applied to the chassis of a Capri once owned: the last I ever had of 7 Capri’s. I was driving some Staffordshire cousins in the rain once, when a voice from the back said “My feet are wet!” When I got home I took out carpets and checked from underneath. There was a big crack straight across the holes in the floor, sealed by rubber grommets in the factory. In a similar way to cement rendering, the Cadulac was inflexible, not like Waxoyl, and did not flex with the floor. One crack opened up another and held water up to the bare chassis. The floor was rotten, I had to scrap the car. Fortunately, it had been previously owned by an enthusist and I was working as a manager of a garage with a large compound. It had a blueprinted engine and a 5-speed box, with a special velour interior. I was able to sell all parts independently and actually made more than I paid for the car. What was left was just a body shell and that went to a scrapyard.

But the principle was the same; a product applied without forethought and testing, causing more destruction than it was meant to prevent. An engineer’s nightmare.

 

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Richard]

I used to be a fan of Waxoyl but sprayed inside semi-closed section of cars. I have simply not used the rest of the last can I had. I did once apply ‘underseal’ to a car and found, like you that it was simply a way to accelerate rusting, not stop it happening. Plastic liners under the wheel arches were a different matter and to my mind a much sounder idea provided that they left a small air gap and were able to stop stone chips to a well painted underside.

If anyone knows why a modern car will keep reporting the same error code after all the items covered by the code have been replaced I would be very pleased to know. Life was so simple when a bowden cable controlled a proper throttle, if it broke you replaced the damned thing, job done.

[Ed P]

@Richard – a wiring loom problem?

[The Duke]

The issue with sealing cars with products is most of the cars  now have are double skins of pressed metal, so once an ingress point rears it’s head, your basically sealing the moister inside and rotting the car from the inside out. Same with box chassis.

I think in the 70 a number of cars in America had a paid option of an ‘underseal’ and basically it destroyed  the cars as done what I described above.

[Richard]

Ed P wrote:

@Richard – a wiring loom problem?

That is what I suspect but no one appears to have been able to reproduce the issue – except by me driving it when it is unpredictable if/when it happens. I am reaching the point of seeing a crusher in its future at the moment.

My hands and for that matter neither is the rest of me on these cold days, looking for the aggravation of sorting through it, but when I do reproduce the failure by driving it is after the engine suffers a rocking when stuck in very slow traffic. The damned mud pie men have been hyper active with their starts of work and jam creation schemes, but hopeless at getting the h*ll on with work and clearing the h*ck out of the way when it is done.

With nothing else to loose I may don the vinyl gloves and go on the attack when my hand has recovered from today’s procedure.

Thank you for commenting.

Richard

[JayCeeDee]

Richard wrote:

Ed P wrote:

@Richard – a wiring loom problem?

With nothing else to loose I may don the vinyl gloves and go on the attack when my hand has recovered from today’s procedure.

Intermittent wiring problems are a b*tch. Is it a proper wiring loom, or a more recent style data bus system?? If the former, first try everything electrical, to see which works and which doesn’t. If there is a common point for two faults, there’s a good place to start. Back in the Seventies, the windscreen wipers and cigarette lighter socket shared a common fuse, so a dodgy cigarette lighter, or one pushed too hard back into the socket, could blow the fuse and leave you without wipers and/or horn as well.

The new Data Bus ( CAN ) type wiring is something I’m unfamiliar with, but HERE seems to give a good explanation.

 

Good luck.:):)

[Richard]

JayCeeDee wrote:

Richard wrote:

Ed P wrote:

@Richard – a wiring loom problem?

With nothing else to loose I may don the vinyl gloves and go on the attack when my hand has recovered from today’s procedure.

Intermittent wiring problems are a b*tch. Is it a proper wiring loom, or a more recent style data bus system?? If the former, first try everything electrical, to see which works and which doesn’t. If there is a common point for two faults, there’s a good place to start. Back in the Seventies, the windscreen wipers and cigarette lighter socket shared a common fuse, so a dodgy cigarette lighter, or one pushed too hard back into the socket, could blow the fuse and leave you without wipers and/or horn as well. The new Data Bus ( CAN ) type wiring is something I’m unfamiliar with, but HERE seems to give a good explanation. Good luck.:):)

Too be honest I do not know which loom it is but I do know it relies on five volt levels between the ECU and the devices in question. Doubts have been raised about the ECU itself, but while I know that ‘feelings’; are dangerous, somehow an ECU fault just does not ‘feel’ right while a physical wiring deterioration somehow just fits in my mind. The problem is that it can run for 100 miles without issue with me and totally without issue when other have driven it approaching that distance. It is not speed related in that I have driven it up to the speed limit in both 5th and a lower gear that allowed such a road speed and it never skipped a beat, it is only at low speeds that it will buck and go into limp mode – and limp it is!

[The Duke]

My laguna had a wiring issue, where it would cut off the power at 2000rpm to save itself.

It took my mechanic many hours to track it down to a loose wire in one of the sensors iirc air mix one, that wound intimately come loose, and the car would o into limp mode.

Once it was identified, it took a 5 sensor stopped of one in the crap yard, and 30mins labour yo cut the bad connector   off completely and solder the new second hand one on.

Renault was saying it it would cost 100s or more, my mechanic. Charged me £15. Didn’t e en charge for the hours it took him to narrow it down.

Also back in my youth, I blew piston out the top of my escorts rocker cover, trying to do 90 with 6 adults in it going to Blackpool. It limped to Blackpool and back ok, then my local garage wanted £750.

my dad’s friend owned a back street ‘dodgy garage’, but as look would have it, he had an escort 1.4 rocker cover, left over form sonthing, and he swapped it out and cleaned the oil out of the bay for £30. Took about 30mins, only called in for a price.

That was the only issue I ever had with that old 1991 escort. Never spent a penny on mot’s. It just worked, good old simple engineering.

Edit- I forgot, I also ripped the breaks out of it, going to quickly over a speed-bump when you get overloaded. The next junction was a fun. Can’t recall how much that cost, but it would of been cheap.

[Bob Williams]

Two Motability leases ago I had a Focus Titanium 1.6 Auto which developed a rear wash/wipe fault. It took the Mablethorpe Ford dealer 3 days to find the fault: they started at the dash! End of second day, I could not believe my eyes when I visited the garage. They had wiring looms out everywhere. I asked if they had an Auto Electrician, they said no it’s one of the mech’s. Tomorrow you get a proper Auto Leccy on the job, or I report this to Motability and Ford website.

By the end of the 3rd day it was done. I spoke to the Leccy, who said it was a manufacturing fault and he found it within an hour, but would have found it sooner if the mech’s had not pulled all the other wiring out. The loom to the rear electrical components had been incorrectly laid, the wash/wipe wiring ran across a raised weld and wore through the insulation, with predictable results. That Focus was the worst Ford I ever had from new, lots of niggling faults.

Now I am almost at the end of this next lease, the current C-Max has been leased from a much better Ford dealership, closer to my home than the 13 mile trip to Mablethorpe. My next lease is a Hyundai Tucson and the trip is almost to Grimsby, probably more like 18 miles, but there just happens to be a Hyundai Service Manager from there, living around the corner. I get lucky now and again. As long as he doesn’t move jobs to another dealership. The C-Max has developed a strange fault: a “Check tyre Pressures” warning which will not go away. Checked the pressures and they are perfect, tried to setup the dash display to reset the warning light and cannot get into ‘Vehicle Systems’ from Menu, it does not come up. Oh well, I can live with that until the MOT, Service and Motability Condition report next week. I have just valeted the car, as a good condition report gets me £250 from Motability when I get the next one. They should have no problem selling it: less than 30,000 miles and looks immaculate, not a scratch.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Ed P]

“wash/wipe wiring ran across a raised weld and wore through the insulation, with predictable results”

That is the sort of problem I had in mind.  Insulation breaks or wear are a bitch as anything can trigger the fault – damp being a common one, but if the sensor depends on the capacitance of something then a wide variety of apparently unconnected causes can trigger it. You can even get ‘cross-talk’ with the other equipment, just like damned statins cause in my nervous system (easily cured!).

[Bob Williams]

Which Statins do you take Ed? I ask because I now take Pravastatin, and was first prescribed Atorvastatin. The Ator gave me bad side effects which my GP says he has never experienced in a patient before. (typical for me to have them though) I took them for two weeks and suffered a complete loss of energy. I just did not feel like doing anything, which frightened the family as I am never like that. I stopped for two weeks and started again, to have a comparison. I became listless and unable to focus on anything. GP gave me a blood test, then one month’s grace without any statins at all, another blood test and prescribed Pravastatin. No more problems and my Cholestorol has gone to normal, whatever normal is for me. 😉 🙂

I think that I am actually a little healthier as a result. Certainly I appear to be walking for slightly longer distances each day. Perhaps my distrust of Pharmaceuticals is a little misplaced….

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Ed P]

They tried a variety once Lipitor  had triggered problems (after 8 years!). Simvastatin, and Atorvastatin are two I remember. I suspect that when you get to the stage that the insulating myelin nerve sheath has been damaged anything that prevents both the healthy and unhealthy aspects of cholesterol’s repair of the sheath is a bad idea. I therefore informed my GP that the statin prophylactics were damaging quality of life by too great a factor. I’d take my chances on upping exercise and reducing carbohydrate consumption after 4pm. Eliminating statins did not make a huge difference to the bad cholesterol levels but the good ones shot up.

[Bob Williams]

Thanks Ed.

Yet another clue to the medical profession, as proof that patients are all individuals, with individual needs and requirements.

When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.

[Author]

Posts