Posts by artig
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Whakaari/White Island 'eruption' this morning.
-
Whakaari/White Island getting ready to erupt this morning.
-
Sunset, November 26, 2014
-
Hard News: Campbell Live: A Disturbance…, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
Yes, Rosemary, that was one of the ones I read. And one that perfectly illustrates why I usually just skim the topics and don't bother reading the whole screed. My blood pressure is grateful for that. Fortunately the remainder of the paper, except for some of the letter writers, seldom drops to the level of the 'editorials'.
Had a nostalgic flashback this morning after digging up an old Freeview recorder with a number of recordings from about 2011 of The Court Report, Media 7, and other programs mainly from TVNZ 7. Ahh, memories.
-
Meanwhile we get this load of bile from the owner/editor of our local freebie weekly paper, the Weekend Sun/Sunlive.
I don't usually bother to read his 'editorials' but just happened to notice that today's one was mostly about the demise of Campbell Live.
Sad to see that the program ends tonight. I've watched all or part of the program ever since day 1, following on from watching 3 News. In future the TV will be switched off at 7pm instead.
-
Now that the other Pohutukawa have stopped flowering, our two dwarf Pohutukawa have started putting on a show. They flowered a few months ago, then took a break, but have decided to put on another burst of blooms.
-
There are still a few flowering in Whakatane along the riverfront walkway.
-
Drizzly day in early December on Hillcrest, Whakatane.
-
In the 1950s the milk was left out in the sun, too.
The primary school I attended, despite being called a Maori school, had no teaching of te reo at all. The Maori children were discouraged from learning or speaking their own language. Unfortunately.
-
We bought an almost-new house 7 years ago that had solar hot water installed, together with a gas furnace for supplementing the solar, and for underfloor heating. These were European systems specially imported. There is a hot water cylinder with separate internal coils for the solar heated liquid with its own circulation pump, and another for the gas-heated liquid with another circulation pump. The gas only heats about the upper third of the HWC, whereas the solar heats all of it.
Getting it to work well was confusing. On most days in summer there is no need for the gas to supplement the solar, but in winter the solar just doesn't provide enough hot water for 2 people. My solution is to set the gas furnace timer to start up every evening if the water temperature is below about 60 degrees, and then switch off again after an hour or two. It doesn't work too well when there are visitors requiring showers. Then the gas needs to be switched on again in the morning.
The gas furnace sometimes has problems with the NZ LPG supply, and parts are not available here for it. When it dies my intention is to replace it with an on-demand gas water heater that takes the water from the HWC, pre-heated by solar, and only heats the water when its temperature is below about 60 degrees. That should work well all year round, with no fiddling or changeover required during the year.
For some reason the underfloor heating is not installed in the rooms that need it most, and it's far too expensive to run on LPG, so we have never used it. It may be possible to run on a heat-pump system if we ever want to use it.
After about 5 years of use the solar panels started to corrode, so sooner or later they will have to be replaced as well. I have also looked at the option of installing PV panels, but the only suitable location and orientation of the panels would be far from optimal.
