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You shouldn't need to take any lids off to see if your valve motor is doing its stuff. Look for a small lever sticking out of the side of the thing. This is a manual override lever and it's used to put the valve in mid-position for bleeding the system. Once you find it check that it hasn't...

As kevplumb says: I would add two words of warning (well several actually): 1) A full tank is very heavy. Think carefully about where you're going to stand it. 2) Your cold tank will be high up above the ceiling effectively cut off from rising heat. You will have to lag it well...

By "a new light fitting" do you mean a complete new set of lights or just the bulb holder in the first set. If you only changed the holder then you're looking for a break in either the brown or blue wire leading to that holder. One possibility is that you tightened a terminal screw onto...

We seem to be generally agreed that (a) the British armed forces are ranked amongst the world's best and (b) this has a lot to do with them being 100% volunteers. Conscripts might look impressive marching up and down the parade ground but what happens when you put them in the firing line...

Fair comment big-all. I didn't look at it that way. On reflection, a forum thread doesn't work in quite the same as a meeting. How do you quietly get up and walk out????

If the definition of a power tool is one with a plug on it or a battery in it then I must vote for my trusty soldering iron. Most jobs for which we regularly use power tools can be done by hand - and in days gone by were. I made my very first soldered joints with a lump of copper heated in a...

I'm thinking back to the seventies and the riots outside perfectly legal National Front meetings. The result, apart from a load of trouble for the police, was extra publicity for those inside and good publicity at that. I was a student at the time and we had similar problems with controversial...

I have an idea that A N Other plumber could be starring on Rogue Traders some day! If your system was working two years ago there's no reason why it shouldn't work again. It's hard to be specific without more information about your pipework but it sounds like hot water is leaking past a...

We have loads of magazines scattered around here to help patients pass the time while they wait for their daily dose of photons. They are mostly full of mindless pap (the magazines, not the patients) and have titles like Heat, Now and - wait for it - Celebrity Looks. No, I didn't make that...

Now I get it. Yes, that does make more sense but let's run them on vegetable oil/alcohol/etc. You might even get one to burn rubbish. The waste heat that any engine must produce wouldn't have to be piped quite so far to the houses either. Moreover, those underground storage tanks would be a...

Now I see what you mean. A steam turbine is indeed more efficient than a petrol engine. I think it's about 40% compared to 20%. Diesel is a bit better than petrol but the turbine still wins. The power station can also burn more intractable fuels like coal and heavy oil. Try putting those in...

Listen carefully, I shall say this only once. The value of any product is inversely proportional to the zeal of the salesman. I've fended off many attempts to sell me overpriced extended warranties. My usual line goes something like this: "No problem. I fix particle accelerators for a...

I can't argue with that. We should all try to travel fewer car miles. I know that some people have little choice but there are also those who will happily drive round the corner to buy a bottle of gin. For what it's worth I go to work on a bike. You thought right. Almost everything that...

How's this for a rather different kind of crop oil. Since mineral oil is formed from the decay of marine organisms can we speed the process up. Imagine a fermentation tank full of plankton churning out hydrocarbon oil as good as any that comes out of the ground. Would it work or would the...

If I read the original post correctly the new heater has already been fitted but, for some unknown reason, it has to be turned up to near boiling point to get hot water. It's a pretty fair bet that the old one would have done exactly the same. This is beginning to look like a plumbing...

About 30 years ago I read something about a carbonate fuel cell. It used carbon electrodes in molten sodium carbonate electrolyte. The drawback was that you had to get it up to about 700 deg C before it would work. The advantage was that thanks to the elevated temperature you didn't need any...

It looks like I'm showing my age again. Does this explain why I've never heard of Sarah Beenie? I was also in a bit of a hurry so I just typed in whoever came to mind first. If I'd dredged a bit deeper through the grey cells I would have remembered Stevie Nicks and I should never have left...

Makeup? Yuck!!! The theory behind it is plausible enough. You paint your lips red so that they look more engorged with blood. This is supposed to mimic a sexual signal. You clag that blusher stuff on for the same reason. You pluck all your eyebrows out then paint on false ones. What's...

AdamW wrote: Maybe not in law but there certainly is in practice. It's 37 deg C on a wet bulb thermometer. At the other end of the scale, I once knew a welder at a shipyard who told us how he had to work in freezing temperatures. I pointed out that there was a minimum legal temperature...

First law of thermodynamics: you will get as much energy out as you put in. Second law of thermodynamics: you will always get less USEFUL energy out than you put in. That second law is the important one where engines are concerned. Fuel is chemical energy stored in a useful form but if...