What Preps are you doing this week? Part 13

How are you preparing
Frnc
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Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 13

Post by Frnc »

GeraldTheBonzai wrote: Fri Apr 10, 2026 7:37 am Put the woodburner to bed for the year. Hoping it's not too early but we are getting low on wood. Just have to get some jumpers out if there is a cold snap,

Now to find a chimney sweep. It's overdue and normal sweep has retired.
Was 2° here this morning. But I barely used any heat - just 38 pence worth. I doubt I'll use any more today. House has enough inertia from warm sunny days to coast through these periods. Thermostat is down to 17 during the day, and 17.5 for the first 2 hours.
Peter
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Joined: Wed Mar 01, 2023 4:21 pm
Location: West Midlands

Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 13

Post by Peter »

Not used the woodburner/stove over winter, i’m getting to old to hump buckets of coal,
set the central heating to 21C and relaxed :lol:
GeraldTheBonzai
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Joined: Fri Oct 08, 2021 7:52 pm

Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 13

Post by GeraldTheBonzai »

Installed an earth rod next to the shed, then put a proper earth onto various bits. Something i've been meaning to do for a while - didn't like the inverter not being properly earthed.
Yorkshire Andy
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Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 13

Post by Yorkshire Andy »

GeraldTheBonzai wrote: Fri Apr 10, 2026 7:21 pm Installed an earth rod next to the shed, then put a proper earth onto various bits. Something i've been meaning to do for a while - didn't like the inverter not being properly earthed.
Did it need earthing? Look into "floating earth" in some instances adding a ground can make things more dangerous...

Often to make some stuff work which uses ground detection a link between the earth terminal and negative on the input side can be adventagious (negative earth vehicles for example)


Some light bed time reading
https://electrical.theiet.org/wiring-ma ... busters-6/
If your roughing it, Your doing it wrong ;)

Lack of planning on your part doesn't make it an emergency on mine
jennyjj01
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Joined: Sun Jun 04, 2017 11:09 pm

Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 13

Post by jennyjj01 »

jennyjj01 wrote: Thu Mar 26, 2026 8:51 am My preps this week......
Commenced First Aid Course.
Sourced some super cheap BIG ~600W Solar Panels, fingers crossed they work out.
Completed my first aid course: Handy if MrJJ falls off the garage roof.

Progressed construction and painting of a mounting frame for the solar panels. We've gone with timber construction at 20 degrees with a big tray for ballast. I've been on wood painting duty :)

Panels acquired: Inverter now ordered. Assistant arranged for mounting the panels.
Graceful Degradation! Prepping's objective summed up in two words. Turning Disaster into Mild Inconvenience by the power of fore-thought

Not Feeling Optimistic. Let me be wrong
jennyjj01
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Joined: Sun Jun 04, 2017 11:09 pm

Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 13

Post by jennyjj01 »

GeraldTheBonzai wrote: Fri Apr 10, 2026 7:21 pm Installed an earth rod next to the shed, then put a proper earth onto various bits. Something i've been meaning to do for a while - didn't like the inverter not being properly earthed.
Apparently Solar panel frames are supposed to be earthed. ???
Graceful Degradation! Prepping's objective summed up in two words. Turning Disaster into Mild Inconvenience by the power of fore-thought

Not Feeling Optimistic. Let me be wrong
GeraldTheBonzai
Posts: 307
Joined: Fri Oct 08, 2021 7:52 pm

Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 13

Post by GeraldTheBonzai »

Yorkshire Andy wrote: Fri Apr 10, 2026 7:37 pm
GeraldTheBonzai wrote: Fri Apr 10, 2026 7:21 pm Installed an earth rod next to the shed, then put a proper earth onto various bits. Something i've been meaning to do for a while - didn't like the inverter not being properly earthed.
Did it need earthing? Look into "floating earth" in some instances adding a ground can make things more dangerous...

Often to make some stuff work which uses ground detection a link between the earth terminal and negative on the input side can be adventagious (negative earth vehicles for example)


Some light bed time reading
https://electrical.theiet.org/wiring-ma ... busters-6/
I've been looking into this, in particular Earth / Neutral bonding. The inverter I have (Renology) has a failover capability. It can be connected to the mains and provide power from that, but when it detects the mains disconnecting, it switches over to battery. When connected to the mains, it gets its Earth/Neutral bond from the house mains. When it cuts over, it becomes a floating neutral. The manually specially says to not attached anything that has a Earth/Neutral bond, as this can lead to a second earth loop, which can cause issues with RCD's.

Everything I have in the shed is double isolated, so the floating neutral is not an issue. However, the inverter has a metal case - its this that I have earthed.

It gets more complicated in that I also have a generator. I need to determine if it has a Earth/Neutral bond or is unbonded as I can use this to charge the batteries in the shed, but potentially use it to feed into the inverter.
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itsybitsy
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Location: East Yorkshire

Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 13

Post by itsybitsy »

Given that these peace talks have ended with 'No Deal', today I have been going through and ordering anything that I need in terms of non-prescription medication or things to help my eyes such as drops, Meibopatches, blepha-wipes etc that I need and that may become hard to source soon. Particularly anything that's not manufactured in the UK.
GeeGee
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Joined: Sat Aug 15, 2015 3:35 pm

Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 13

Post by GeeGee »

I had a strange one where I was delayed some repeat meds ..not because of where the meds came from ..the packaging apparently ..they were delayed but not out of stock while they sourced alternate packaging
Something i never thought of
Will be getting my no prescription stuff I use though also and stocking up on them...
Frnc
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Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2022 1:54 pm

Re: What Preps are you doing this week? Part 13

Post by Frnc »

Got 10 weeks meds.

Bought a few things - some socks, couple of tops, new summer duvet and bedspread.

Forecast is patchy, so decided to dry laundry indoors. Got my duvet cover washed, dry, and back on the duvet, all in about 5 hours. Used a dehumidifier and a bit of central heating. I have one in a drawer, but I don't like to mix my colour coding scheme up, even if it's obvious I'm not using my winter duvet now. The one I'm using now is my spring/autumn one, a cotton filled tog 3.

Almost cleared the junk I dumped in the front room after it was decorated. Put some in the grey wheelie bin today.