owning a marquee – garden tent
visitors this year: 255 A garden marquee is quite the thing in times not only when only outdoor mixing is allowed but also when you live in a climate with rainy summers. This page...
Category: home & garden
Sandstone patio – install, seal and maintain
visitors this year: 446 Here is advice to save money without affecting what you end up with. In short: your patio is going to end up looking like it was going to end up....
Countax mower repairs – C600 – year 2008
visitors this year: 1,463 A page where I record successful repairs as they happen. The parts list on my 2008 C-series is downloadable below. Steering Problem – can’t steer The Countax steering mechanism is...
how to know when the washing machine has finished
visitors this year: 683 If you need to know when a device, like a dryer or washing machine has finished working, get a ‘smart plug with energy monitoring‘. Amazon list many of them but...
automated fade up dimmer for analogue LED Strips – using a MOSFET and ESPhome
visitors this year: 5,522 This ceiling ‘coffer’ is lit by four 5m LED strips – each is cut to fit the space. When my kitchen lights turn on they fade up in a few...
what is the temperature of your oven? how to cook reliably with an inaccurate oven
visitors this year: 899 Ovens may have digital controllers or analogue temperature controllers and cooks seem to have blind faith in their settings. In this household the cooks were burning food so I checked...
how to integrate 433MHz temperature & humidity sensors with Home Assistant
visitors this year: 4,379 A home automation platform, such as Home Assistant, allows you to make temperature v time graphs using sensors that you might place around the home. Monitoring temperatures allowed me to...
XANES 2606-8 headlamp review, tips, instructions (aka ynport, teyli)
visitors this year: 332 This insanely bright headlamp / flashlight is excellent for hobbies, camping and cycling. Here are a few instructions to use it well This flashlight (aka torch) requires 2 x 18650...
coping with 18650 batteries with and without button tops
visitors this year: 1,165 I discover my bicycle headlamp wasn’t working because some 18650 batteries have a button top. Oh my, that was embarrassing to admit The 18650 ‘battery’, like many batteries, is named...
use Google lens to search the Internet using a picture or photo
visitors this year: 476 Here’s what to do when a restaurant asks you to scan a QR code for their track and trace (written in 2020). And here’s how to identify a plant, an...
T4EU1C and Home Assistant
visitors this year: 638 a 3-gang wall switch for your home automation – using eWelink, T4EU1C and Home Assistant I got to a point where I had plenty of ‘smart’ lights and gadgets but...
project: plot the temperature of your fridge-freezer, pet home or fermenting wine on a history graph in Home Assistant
visitors this year: 1,639 In a previous project I set up temperature sensors in my room and sent the data via Bluetooth to Home Assistant, the home automation platform. Home Assistant is software that...
recycle laptop 18650 lithium batteries in a DIY power bank
visitors this year: 917 If you could look inside an old replaceable laptop battery pack like this you’d find 4 or 6 cells. Usually the cells are 18mm diameter, 65mm long and are called...
the buttons to press to reset a Toshiba laptop when the lithium battery can’t be removed easily
visitors this year: 3,332 Sometimes a laptop goes into a comatose state that no amount of charging or on-offing can end. The solution might be to try the following. If you’re desperate do them...
project: plug-in energy meter with graphs of energy use over time
visitors this year: 656 ‘Smart meters’ and metering devices usually measure the electricity used by the whole house*. However I prefer to pay attention to the electricity used by individual devices, such as a...
best uses for a smart socket
visitors this year: 186 smart sockets have uses. A smart socket adds a little cleverness to a table lamp or electric heater. The printer upstairs takes five minutes to warm up so switching it...
433MHz smarter letterbox – for when you don’t want to walk to the letter box
visitors this year: 869 see also more about 433MHz devices The letterbox is five doors and fifty metres from my desk. The uncertainty of the postie arriving in the afternoon means that I make...
estimate energy bills – the cost of living
visitors this year: 73 This quick post is for anybody wondering how much money they need to put aside for energy. If you don’t use electricity for keeping warm, your summer and winter electricity...
smart sockets vs smart bulbs – introduction
visitors this year: 117 smart bulbs and sockets have select uses. A smart socket adds a little on/off cleverness to a table lamp, electric heater or the printer upstairs that takes five minutes before...
calculate how long is the day
visitors this year: 1,033 … and see how to add features to the Home Assistant display An interest in solar energy is a possible reason to record the sun’s azimuth and the time of...
project: smart thermostat – nest and hive
visitors this year: 1,493 The Google nest thermostat (or its Hive equivalent) are devices which I’d be happy to pay for and recommend. I could easily make something that turned on the heating with...
comparing the cost of fuels for heating
visitors this year: 1,381 I am the person who wants to know if using an electric fan heater in one room costs less than heating the whole house using gas*. At parties I can...
project: an immersion heater that turns itself when the water is hot – using a Sonoff POW relay.
visitors this year: 908 Domestic hot water can be heated by a gas or oil central heating boiler or by an electrical immersion heater. I take advantage of half-price nighttime electricity and use an...
project: cameras around the house
visitors this year: 252 There are a variety of camera types to help monitor the drive, a pet, a baby, a device, a bird feeder – whatever. You might want to know what’s eating...
project: does my broadband speed vary?
visitors this year: 114 Here’s how to add a little functionality to Home Assistant, the automation platform. Do try this especially if you’re just starting to add features to Home Assistant. speedtestdotnet: scan_interval: hours:...
project: when is the next train from the station?
visitors this year: 933 Travel information can be one of the things you need easy access to. If you have Google Home or Alexa you’ll find it helpful to recall the exact way to...
automation: turn on lights when I enter the room
visitors this year: 649 The LED striplights in a kitchen use 12v transformers and they are powered through smart plugs / sockets. The sockets are by TP-link – and they remember their on-off state...
project: smart electricity meter with historic energy use
visitors this year: 3,727 fit a sensor to the electricity meter for a minute by minute readout The UK electricity meter shows electricity use in kWatt hours, and a human sometimes pops by to...
heating oil tank level sensor – JSN-SR04T version
visitors this year: 5,602 make a heating oil tank level sensor that’s more useful than anything you can buy Some homes use oil as a fuel to keep warm in winter. Over the course...
how much heating oil does the boiler use?
visitors this year: 13,226 how much heating oil ought I use each year? Of course it depends but 1000 to 1500 litres a year is a useful figure. Let start with an example (which...
project: desktop volume control with Arduino
visitors this year: 736 A volume control at hand and ready to turn. Bash the top and the video or track pauses. Double bash to skip to the next track. It’s plug and play,...
life tips for my children by Roger Frost
visitors this year: 1,558 Thoughts of an old git recorded here to get them off my OCD kind of mind. I find many of them useful and hope you do too. I think they...
