Fuel prices

[simonineaston]

Quick Q. for you physics-capable readers... which saves more money - reducing the time the gas boiler is on each day, or reducing the maximum temperature that the water reaches?

[Mick F]

Whilst we're talking of push-mowers vs petrol ones, this is our back garden.
You try using a push mower!

[simonineaston]

What you need, Mick, is goats !

[pete75]

Quick Q. for you physics-capable readers... which saves more money - reducing the time the gas boiler is on each day, or reducing the maximum temperature that the water reaches?

If you reduce the max temperature the boiler will be on for less time anyway.

[Cugel]

Whilst we're talking of push-mowers vs petrol ones, this is our back garden.
You try using a push mower!
Back Garden.JPGDeer in Garden.JPGBack Garden June 2013.jpg

What's all that baldy-grass for then? Is it to play bowls or perhaps crazy golf? (It would be crazy bowls an' all, on that slope). One feels that Mick needs to just let nature garden that place, perhaps with a little encouragement in the way of a liberal scattering of wild flower seeds, some planting of unusual local shrubs and the like.

Mind, a lot of lads like the neat & tidy, eh? Many prefer to do away with gardens altogether in making room for the 7 cars to park, the oil tank and an assorted clutter of slowly mouldering defunct things bought for some reason now forgot, all on those beautiful swathes of concrete or super-geometrical block paving. So attractive, especially if they can get a few oil-drips and rust patches on there! Ha ha.

But I digress. I did hear of a clover that can supplant the grass, with the advantage that it's very low growing so needs no mowing. Also, the bees and other buzzers enjoy the clover flowers.

Cugel

[Cugel]

When I'm dictator, fossil fool toys will all be melted down to make those ploughshares, which large hairy-hooved horses will be encouraged to pull about. Think of the pleasures to be had from communing with a horse down some leather straps as you perform an ancient tradition with a big proper tool (the ploughshare or perhaps something even more fangly)! So much greater than making an irritating noise and stink with a probably dangerous little man-toy liable to trim you as much as it does the greenery.

Cugel, fond of large axes and saws (not a fetish, no).

You're living in fantasy land if you think it's feasible to go back to working the land with horses. Ideally we need to produce more food in the UK not less. A friend's grandfather said when they worked 500 arable acres with horses about a quarter of the land was used to grow feed for them. In other words a return to horses would reduce the amount of land available for growing people food by about 25%. Ploughing would go on all winter - about an acre a day for a good team and the ploughman has to walk around 11 miles to do it. That's in all weathers too.
A lot of heavy clay land can only be worked with modern tractor power so that would all have to go back to animal grazing - another quite large loss of arable.

We're all living in a fantasy land, Pete ole fellow! It's gone so far that even reality is being done away with in favour of all sorts of mad glamour-sheens, monster-hiding illusions and other such stuff conjured from the loony minds of we humans. For example, we waste the growing potential (and a lot of the actual growths) of enormous amounts of land on maintaining the farming of beef and other meat-producing beasts, whilst moaning on about the prices and refusing to look at the abattoir. And then there's the tame pheasant-murdering "estates" .... .

But here's a question: how much acreage will be required in the growing of bio-fuel crops to run those geet big tractors I see crushing the worms and moles? Do they need more acreage per tractor horse power than a horse? (Don't forget the tractor-making energy either).

Cugel

[simonineaston]

If you reduce the max temperature the boiler will be on for less time anyway.

I can see your point - however, the boiler is governed by a control unit (obs) and one of the parameters you can change is the time on / off. Presumably if I set it to come on at five o'clock, for 30 minutes, then it will continue to burn for 30 minutes, even when the target temp. has been reached... ? Which would count as a waste of money. Short of hovering about the vicinity of the boiler to watch what happens, I can't think of a way to check.

[Jdsk]

Presumably if I set it to come on at five o'clock, for 30 minutes, then it will continue to burn for 30 minutes, even when the target temp. has been reached... ?

I'd expect it to stop firing once it has been told that the target temperature has been reached.

Jonathan

[al_yrpal]

Just ordered winter logs before the prices go stratospheric. Smokeless fuel has gone +50 percent.
Went up North for the weekend where petrol prices were definately much higher.

Motorways were a constant succession of traffic jams and one we saw Saturday evening heading north stretched about 20 miles from the accident causing it

Al

[rjb]

Fit some PV solar panels and divert the excess electric into the immersion tank. I have read that heating to a higher temp is more efficient than a lower temp as it reduces the lag time when the boiler is firing up and burning gas before it starts heating.

[simonineaston]

however, the boiler is governed by a control unit (obs)

On inspection, I see that I was wrong (a familiar situation... ). The wall-mounted controller does only time. The temp is set on the boiler itself so I conclude that the time switch is blind with respect to the temp.

[pete75]

You're living in fantasy land if you think it's feasible to go back to working the land with horses. Ideally we need to produce more food in the UK not less. A friend's grandfather said when they worked 500 arable acres with horses about a quarter of the land was used to grow feed for them. In other words a return to horses would reduce the amount of land available for growing people food by about 25%. Ploughing would go on all winter - about an acre a day for a good team and the ploughman has to walk around 11 miles to do it. That's in all weathers too.
A lot of heavy clay land can only be worked with modern tractor power so that would all have to go back to animal grazing - another quite large loss of arable.

We're all living in a fantasy land, Pete ole fellow! It's gone so far that even reality is being done away with in favour of all sorts of mad glamour-sheens, monster-hiding illusions and other such stuff conjured from the loony minds of we humans. For example, we waste the growing potential (and a lot of the actual growths) of enormous amounts of land on maintaining the farming of beef and other meat-producing beasts, whilst moaning on about the prices and refusing to look at the abattoir. And then there's the tame pheasant-murdering "estates" .... .

But here's a question: how much acreage will be required in the growing of bio-fuel crops to run those geet big tractors I see crushing the worms and moles? Do they need more acreage per tractor horse power than a horse? (Don't forget the tractor-making energy either).

Cugel

None they can get all the fuel they need for tractors from oil and by the time that's gone electric tractors will have long been in use.
This bio-fuel idea is rather silly. Why waste food growing land to produce fuel which can be sourced elsewhere.

You can't look at the abbatoir, food safety regs mean they won't let you in. When I was a kid you could stand and watch them in the local slaughterhouse.Quite popular with small boys and a good source of free maggots for fishing.
Blokes worked with a big open door when it was hot. All they did with a bullock was fire a captive bolt gun into the forehead and then screw in something like a giant corkscrew to make sure it was dead and not just stunned. I think the pigs were electrocuted. Some people still kept pigs at home and they were usually slaughtered by cutting their throats so the blood pumped out to be caught for making black pudding. People complain about Halal slaughter but it was no different here other than the creature being a pig.

A horses hoof is at least as effective at crushing worms and moles as a tractor wheel. I've had a wheeled tractor run over my foot - slightly unpleasant but no more. Also had a shire step on one - that bloody hurts and your foot will be black and blue the next day.

In rural Lincolnshire the acreage devoted to raising stock has fallen drastically over my lifetime. One reason is the wider use of artifical fertilizers. In the past many farms were mixed because cattle over wintering in a crew yard produced much of next years manure. If organic production increases it'll probably mean more animal muck is needed.

[Biospace]

A farmer friend has noticed that a lot of time spent by a tractor isn't doing hard work, rather plodding about a yard, fetching and carrying, lifting and stacking, burning diesel in an engine being used to less than a tenth of its potential. He's convinced a horse would be a better investment and is seriously considering the idea. I suggested a typical 1960s tractor would make even more sense, while they're still affordable.

pete75, you're assuming without questioning that ploughing is somehow a necessity to grow crops. I remember reading a book written by a Japanese farmer at least 20 years ago, detailing how his crops grew stronger and more profitably when sown in un-ploughed land. I've since learnt there's the possibility that ploughing too deep and too frequently is not good for the health of soil - excessive exposure to UV light being one of the theories.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40166313

If you're ploughing with horses then you can't plough very deep. No till farming requires more herbicides and more fertilisers than conventional farming.

No, I was talking about a mate who is talking about using a horse for general farmyard duties, not ploughing.

"You can't plough very deep" - that's considered one of the problems with huge amounts of power available today, excessively deep and frequent ploughing. Plenty of switched-on farmers are deliberately not ploughing as deep as they once did, because of the growing evidence that it damages soil.

Where do you get the idea that no tilling automatically means more chemical use? There are advantages and disadvantages with not ploughing, wrt weed-control.

[pete75]

A farmer friend has noticed that a lot of time spent by a tractor isn't doing hard work, rather plodding about a yard, fetching and carrying, lifting and stacking, burning diesel in an engine being used to less than a tenth of its potential. He's convinced a horse would be a better investment and is seriously considering the idea. I suggested a typical 1960s tractor would make even more sense, while they're still affordable.

pete75, you're assuming without questioning that ploughing is somehow a necessity to grow crops. I remember reading a book written by a Japanese farmer at least 20 years ago, detailing how his crops grew stronger and more profitably when sown in un-ploughed land. I've since learnt there's the possibility that ploughing too deep and too frequently is not good for the health of soil - excessive exposure to UV light being one of the theories.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-40166313

If you're ploughing with horses then you can't plough very deep. No till farming requires more herbicides and more fertilisers than conventional farming.

No, I was talking about a mate who is talking about using a horse for general farmyard duties, not ploughing.

"You can't plough very deep" - that's considered one of the problems with huge amounts of power available today, excessively deep and frequent ploughing. Plenty of switched-on farmers are deliberately not ploughing as deep as they once did, because of the growing evidence that it damages soil.

Where do you get the idea that no tilling automatically means more chemical use? There are advantages and disadvantages with not ploughing, wrt weed-control.

There's some evidence it may reduce annual weeds but hardy perrenials more likely to take hold and they're much harder to kill.

I hope your mate is taking account of the extra hours he'll have to pay one of his farm labourers to look after the nag.

[reohn2]

.....Motorways were a constant succession of traffic jams and one we saw Saturday evening heading north stretched about 20 miles from the accident causing it

Al

The standard of driving,especially tailgating,on the choca M5 and M6 as we made our way up country on Friday last was appalling and had to be seen to be believed.
We passed four rear end shunts on the hardshoulder on the M5 alone and a further rwo on the M6,it was madness