Nest Thermostat - Wifi Woes

Something I have not hidden is that I am a big fan of the Nest learning thermostat. I purchased one on the first day they were available in the UK and soon after became an authorised installer. Up until recently all had been good, I was saving money and my house was more comfortable to be in but late last year they issued a software update and for a short while all was good.  Soon I noticed that on occasion one or more of my nests were dropping off the network and showing off line.  Sometimes after a few days they would come back on there own, other time  I would have to restart them. On a few occasions even this did not work so I had to reset the networking on them or even in two extreme cases restore the unit to factory defaults.

Out of exasperation I finally made contact with Nest support and as always they tried to say the issue was with my router. Finally after a lot of backwards and forwards with support they have admitted that there is an issue with wifi, on these devices.  Solution? Well at the moment there isn't one although they have suggested they are working on one.

In the mean time there is a work around, remove the nest from the stand or wall and reset it by holding in the button (or to be more accurate push in the back) for 10 seconds or until the screen goes black and then put it back on the stand.  It appears to get them back online for a while but they are still dropping off every so often.

I'm not sure if this issue is affecting many other users having spoken to friend with Nests most seem to of had them drop off occasional but not nearly as often as mine do.  Hopefully they will come up with a long term solution soon, in the mean time I'm retting it as and when needed.

New Workshop - Foundations

The shored up trenches awaiting inspection.

Once again all of the below took place a few months ago but my day job was so busy I never got round to posting. Finally I have had a quiet day to write this up, Hopefully this post will bring things pretty close to up to date.

Having had a couple of false starts I finally found someone to do dig out for and then cast the concrete foundations for my new workshop.  Fitting the building on the site proved more difficult than I was hoping as the site is both not square and out of level.  With a bit of work we managed to get it on site with only a slight reduction in size from that planned.  The reduction being required do to the fact that the plot has a slight taper, getting smaller from front to back.

What with the wet weather, the ground being a little on the soft side and the closeness of a neighbors building  we  had some unexpected expenditure shoring  up all the trenches whist we waited for the building inspector to sign off on the work.  Sadly despite everybody's hard work when the building inspector arrived she was not willing sign off as she had concerns about a tree that used to be on the site. After a few days she finally came back to me and said she would require the trench depth to be increased by 50mm, which was a shame as we had now shored up the trenches and this would now require doing by hand!  Whether the 50mm would really make any practical difference I do not know be needless to say we complied with her request and thankfully she was happy to accept photographic evidence so we did not need to wait for her to come back out.

Trenches full of concrete.

So with the sign off, we cleared the site of rubble and the soil from the trenches and ordered the two truck loads of concrete which came in at just over a thousand pounds which was a lot more that I was expecting!

Since then we have got the walls up to dpc level but I will save the pictures of them until my next post when hopefully the walls will be up to ridge height. Hope fully this will be in the next few weeks providing things warm up a bit!

Lego stress relief

I've had a fantastic few days working on a really interesting project with FizzPOP which for now I cannot talk about.  Once I can talk about it, I will make a post here.  Whilst it was fun all this has left me somewhat shattered and a bit stressed out, so I decided to buy myself some Lego, Can there be any better way of relieving stress that building Lego?

New Workshop - Lets make some space.

Lathe suspended in the air.

All of the below took place a few months ago but my day job was so busy I never got round to posting this. Finally I had a quiet day to write this up, so here goes!

In many respects the aspect of building my new workshop I was most concerned about was emptying the old one and finding somewhere to put everything. Luckily I managed to negotiate access to a lockup garage on a near by street where I can store everything for a few months.

With that problem sorted the next one was how to move everything.  I investigated hiring a man with HIAB to come and move the lathe etc for me but the cheapest quote I got was over £300 which was way out of my budget.  With that idea discounted I considered hiring or purchasing a lifting gantry, something I had hired when I moved everything from my parents house three years previous, but the price for the weekend hire was coming out not shy of the price for the HIAB and as is always the way there were none coming up on eBay anywhere close enough to collect.

Lathe loaded on the trailer. 

Finally I decided the only sensible and above all affordable option was to put something together out of stuff I either already had or could borrow from friends. I was able to borrow some Cuploc scaffolding and I already had a length of I beam and a chain block. With these I built a couple of towers to support the beam to hang the chain block. The only major down side to this approach was that it quickly became apparent that our lifting structure was to high to fit under the roof so we had to remove the roof sheeting earlier than we had intended.To move the lathe a friend was able to borrow a heavy duty plant trailer which combined with his Land Rover Discovery was more that up to the job of moving the lathe.

Starting to dismantle the garage.

Finally it came time to take down the garage, we decided to forgo the spanners and go straight for the angle grinder for nearly all the bolts as most of them were rusted solid!  It was then just the hard work of lifting the panels down and loading them into the trailer. Whilst you could pick up one of them on your own it really helped to have plenty of helping hands around especially when it came to moving the corner panels which were definitely a two or even three man lift.


Its gone!

So with the garage gone all that was left was to secure the site.  I had intended to buy some Heras temporary site fencing but I never got around to it. So on a Sunday afternoon the only option was to pick up some fence panels and make some big free standing brackets to support it, job done!

In total all this took three days, one to empty out all the small stuff, one to move the heavy stuff and finally one to move the garage its self which a friend took off my hands.

We have already made a start on the foundations, I will post about these soon.

Nest Thermostat - Guess I must be saving money?

I fitted my Nest's about six months ago and whilst for most of that period the heating has not needed to come on, it looks like I am already making a saving.  Just had a letter from my energy provider informing me they are reducing the size of my direct debit as I not using as much energy as before.  Whilst this probably isn't just down to the Nest, I am sure its a major contributor.  Although it will be some time before a recoup the purchase price of three nests. All in all I still very happy with my Nest's and if the energy savings continue I will be very happy indeed!

Airshow - Lancaster Bombers

Having tried to see the two Lancaster bombers flying together at the Bournemouth Air Festival earlier this year when I was disappointed to find the Canadian bomber VeRA had suffered an engine failure.
My dad and I were determined to see it but could not make it to any of the other air shows it was meant to be visiting but found out it would be flying over Collingham, Nottinghamshire on the 20th September. Having moved a few things around we decided to go up and have a look and were not disappointed.

The venue turned out to be a village show which seemed to have a lot more attendees that they normally would of had, as the Lancaster's were running late we decide to have a look around the show and grab a bite to eat which was a pleasant enough way to pass the time. When they finally arrived there was no warning over the PA that they were about pass over. Hearing he sound of the eight Merlin engines was the first I knew and with in a few seconds they broke into sight over the trees and within a minute they were gone again, luckily I had my camera at the ready, but with so little notice it was difficult to frame a shot.

Whilst I did not get any great pictures I will always remember seeing and hearing them go over head and I am so glad we made the effort to go and see them.

New Workshop - Introduction

When I purchased my house one of the main reasons I chose it was because it had a double garage at the bottom of the garden which would of made an ideal workshop.  After several year of letting the house out and a couple of an extensive remodel I finally moved in.  Many months passed before I was recovered enough from the effort of the building work to think about using my workshop.  To my dismay I soon discovered that the garage frequently flooded due to water seeping under the doors and between the walls and the slab. It was clear that I was going to have to do something about this.  After investigating a lot of options to stop the leakage it became clear that the only repair option was to dismantle the garage poor a new slab at a higher height and rebuild which was going to be a big hassle.

So I decided to make the best of it and build a bigger and better workshop with more space so I can work on multiple different projects at the same time and insulation so I will be more comfortable.  It will be a large single room of just under 50 square metres but I may partition off an area for use for small electronics / modelling projects in the future.  Having investigated various construction options I have opted for conventional construction with rendered cavity walls and a tiled roof.

With a design in mind it was time to draw up some plan and apply for planning permission. Which was easier said that done.  On the third attempt the council finally accepted them and it was just a matter of waiting for a decision.  The planning office decided she need to see the site and gave me a good grilling about what I was intending to use the space for, finally I got the approval!

So its all stations go, next stage will be the emptying of the old garage which will be no mean feat!