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I really should stop reading articles on the internet. We have an in-ground liner swimming pool installed around 1980, which has a pump and 12v underwater light, no other electrics. In 1997 we had a new house consumer unit fitted and at that time the installation was changed from TT to PME. The...

I am replacing our swimming pool pump and I am a little confused with the electrical connections. It is a single phase 0.33 HP 230 v motor sold through a UK retailer but made in Spain. The connection box has a choc-box connector with three terminals. On the pump side the connections are...

In our kitchen are a large and small electric oven and two microwaves. All four have digital clocks: when we have a power outage (which is occasional) they have to be reset manually. We had an outage last Monday afternoon, and I reset them on Tuesday morning. I am quite nerdy about setting them...

When we moved to our house some 30 years ago, we were blessed (and cursed financially) with a swimming pool. The circulation pump has failed after twenty years or so and I'm replacing it like for like. The old pump label says P1 is 0.45 kw, and P2 is 0.25 kw. I understand that P1 is the wattage...

I realsise that this might have been gone over before.... After 12 years with a Sony Bravia KDL-20S2000 20" 720p HD ready TV, it's time for my tired eyes to move up a size or two. (Our viewing distance is about 6 feet, the room does not lend itself to huge TV screens, and nor do we). The...

Some time ago our faithful FM portable radio finally broke apart, so it was time for a new kitchen radio. Welcome to the world of DAB, where sets cost twice as much, use three times as much electricity, and reception is four times worse (I know that doesn’t really make sense, but you get the...

I'm having a little trouble with our TV watching, or Humax Fox T2 DVR watching actually. We can see all the freeview programmes we want through the Humax but when we record one prog and watch another the signal drops and often one or the other fails. This is noticable on the COM7 channel 55, I...

We're having our water supply (spring to house) relaid in 32mm mdpe. The original supply was 1980's 1" alkathene but is being rerouted due to nearby building works. We occasionally get small frogs in the pipe so can't use liners in the fittings or screw-down stopcocks, as the fatter frogs get...

About five years ago my garage was extended and rewired. The contractors fitted a metal 8-way Steeple cu to feed power and lights with Steeple rcd and Series E mcb's. Yesterday I opened the cover for a look and found that the rcd/mcb mounting rail was not the usual fairly narrow din rail with...

Our house has been supplied with 'mains' water from a spring for many years with no problems. The new next-door neighbours are running a trench to install water from the public supply, so we took the opportunity to go with them and share costs. So very shortly we will have a proper mains supply...

The main lighting in my kitchen is 2 x 30w and 2 x 18w fluorescents mounted on the top rear of the wall cabinets, with the light bouncing off the ceiling. I am perfectly happy with this. The fittings are Eterna electronic ballast T8's. I bought these because they were the only make available...

We have had a large landing ceiling replastered (end 2009). Last week I gave it a prime coat of thinned Dulux Vinyl Silk emulsion from a spare tin. I then gave it two coats of B&Q Colours matt emulsion (Antique White). To my disappointment it still looked patchy. I'm starting on a third coat and...

I have an oil tank with a Sensor Systems Watchman level monitor. It transmits the oil level to a display in the kitchen. All was well for the last two years. A couple of day's ago the display went from 2 to r, with a flashing light. This is, according to the instructions, the display going into...

Ok, I like the arch, and I hope I'm not too resitant to new ideas. I would prefer something less experimental, but... how on earth did he arrive at the figure of selling £1800 a year excess energy back to the grid? That's heat and light the house, and have the equivalent of £1800 to spare? I'm...

Opinions wanted, facts if you must. We have an en-suite with wc, washbowl and shower cab. There is a bath in the main bathroom but I hardly ever use it (haven't had a bath for years) and the spouse uses it occasionally. The en-suite is being refurbed. I'd be happy to just have a shower unit...

I want to buy two new 256 mb memory cards for my spouse's old Toshiba Satellite S3000-X4 laptop (it only has one 128 mb card and it groans). The spec is SDRAM SODIMM PC100/133 144 pin CL2 Non-parity Non-ECC 3.3v. There are hundreds of cards with this spec going reasonably cheaply (£10 ish)...

Hi, Anyone have any experience with Keiro FS900 satnav? They are sold on Amazon for £250 and also on Ebay at £150. They seem to have the best reviews of all, but you never know who's writing these reviews. (My spouse wants a satnav, I can't be bothered to be honest.) Failing that, the...

Does anyone have any opinions/experience of using Kuterlite comp fittings on mdpe? I'm aware of the advantages of Philmac type fittings, but there is a specific reason why I'm considering using Kuterlite. I really want to know if Kuterlite does a good competent job. The Kuterlite body doesn't...

For reasons I won't go into at the moment, I have been trying for some time to find copper or s/steel inserts for 32mm MDPE pipe. On my trawls through the internet I have learned that inserts (universally plastic) are required for metric mdpe pipe, but not for imperial. I couldn't quite grasp...

Can some kind person tell me what size cable I need to use to connect a Horstman HCT2 cyl stat to an oil boiler programmer? I assume that the current through this cable will be low, i.e the whole boiler burner/pump etc won't be passing through it, but the stat will energise relays in the boiler? Ta.