The Blog of Adrian Hollister

I've given up trying to get a wood pellet stove. The main suppliers out there are only interested in big business and refer to 'local installers'. Those local installers are just about impossible to get hold of and when you do their prices are in a different league. Mark up's on the products are incredible and labour is twice the cost of a standard wood burning or multifuel stove (although just about the same effort is required to install a wood pellet stove).

Supply is also a little too unpredictable. A few companies might be able to supply me, but only in bulk, and a few more can supply small bags, but at a cost which equates to twice that of coal. I want to be leading edge with my sustainable approach, but not at the cost of living essentials, or making the cost inappropriate for anyone else to repeat.

So the hunt is now on for an alternative. At the moment burning wood (logs, compressed products) seems to be one of the better options.

Posted by Adrian Hollister

I can’t quite believe that we as a country have voted via our elected representatives for more Nuclear weapons. The weapons are useless against the types of warfare that we are seeing at the moment and you can just see that we are going to continue to be a puppet of the dying American empire. Bush says push the button, so go on Blair, he clearly knows what he is doing.

I don’t see that holding any nuclear weapons offers us any type of security - if anything we become a threat. My vote is to drop the nuclear arms, spend the money on an independent and environmentally appropriate energy, reuse and recycling systems.

Posted by Adrian Hollister

Computer went bang today. Very annoying. My fault completely as I do so like to take things apart and put them back together again. It seems that when putting the PSU back together again (please don’t take yours apart) I forgot to put some insulation back in and one of the circuit board’s touched the side of the case. Bang - and the power supply was gone (as they say in the adverts).

A few more components seem to have gone to a better place with the PSU and stopped working completely or just mostly.

I phoned the most computer literate person I know and he laughed. Laughed a lot. Then he gave me a few links to computer sites selling new power supplies. “It’s not worth repairing”. I phone a computer shop near to us and the guy had the same story - bin it and buy another one.

Having completely destroyed the power supply and with no real option but to buy a new one, I decided to take it apart again. There in the PSU was a blown fuse. There were a few nice scorch marks and some serious black carbon type marks on the PSU case.

IMHO computer components usually release their soul (ok smoke) when they die leaving a strange smell (is there an electrical heaven?) and a few burnt out/popped chips. PSU’s are a little more basic. Big things, connected in big ways with big chips. They are generally designed to handle massive load (though I’m guessing not a massive short). Anyway, this PSU looked and smelled ok.

You can clearly tell here that I’m no electrician, more a faith healer to the electronic world. But I had a good feeling about this little PSU, so I set about looking for another fuse to replace the blown one. A screwdriver, 15 mins and the local tip were all that was needed to get a nice selection of fuses.

I’m sure you can guess where this is going by now. With the fuse replaced the power supply sprang back into life. It did make me think though about the volume of stuff that I put into the recycle bin without thought to their re-use or repair and reuse value.

The Green Party have a good summary… “Reduce, Reuse, and then Recycle.”

Posted by Adrian Hollister