Hello George,
That account of your daughter is appreciated. It isn't nice to hear and I hope she straightens out for you both. Just reading it made me feel a lot less isolated than I've been feeling lately.
It's not good to admit these things but I have always been honest with myself where my kids were concerned. I was the one that took the kids to school and looked after their activities when they were at school because I had the flexible work where the Mrs was 9-5. I was well known in the school for a number of reasons. One of them was being straight up with the teachers. Even then they must have had some policy to seek permission from the parents to Discipline the kids with certain things like keeping them in at lunchtime or whatever. They would ask me if it was OK and i'd be saying " What the hell you asking me for? It's your class, you have 30 of the little vultures to contend with. You keep them under control however you think necessary. "
I told a couple of them, I know my kids, they are smart, give them an inch and they will take 10 miles and then tie you up for good measure. You stand on them and don't let them get away with a thing or you will regret it.
I got told more than once that in XX years of teaching a parent had never said that to them. I said yes, most parents have rose coloured glasses and think their kids are perfect. I have never touched drugs in my life so I don't have that fantasy.
The one thing that ships me to tears is when you tell other parents about your concerns they say " Don't worry, they all do that" . So freaking what?
I'm supposed to pass off bad behavior " because they all do it?" Pigs arse! They rob a bank and that's OK because little johhny down the road knocked one over too? Yeah right. They might all be the same because they have their heads filled with all sorts of crap now but that does not make it right.
My daughter calls me a " cave man" for lots of my ways and thoughts but when I put her to the challenge of what specifically is wrong with my position, the best I get is " People don't think/ do that anymore."
Correct. They don't have manners, consideration for others, honor their word, treat others with decency and respect or a whole load of things that in my not so long life, were all basic standards of decency. While ever she is under my roof, she will have those drummed into her the best I can and she will have her arse kicked when she disrespects her mother that would do anything for her and does too much especially in light of what she gets.
As I say, I never thought having kids was going to be easy but surely to hell it should not be this hard and painful either.
I went to one place where the guy wanted to cover his roof with solar panels. The roof faced the wrong way and the slope was much less than ideal. Even with the grant, he might only have recovered his costs if the system worked faultlessly for 50 years. There was no dissuading this guy.
I see this all the time too. Just yesterday in fact. I was trolling round the factories going through some scrap metal bins picking up bits and pieces for my DIY supply. I went past this one place and noticed all the panels on the roof. I also noticed a row of trees directly in front shading about 90% of the panels. I was thinking about it and came back the same way and stopped. Pulled out my phone with the sun tracking app ( not that I'm a geek or anything!) and confirmed my thoughts on the direction of the sun. Those panels would have made about 10% of their rating on a good day. Clearly the panels went in when the large trees that had been there at least 30 years were well established and the problem should have been obvious to anyone that cared.
At the field my kids play soccer there are houses on 3 sides. Every side has a house with panels on the roof facing the field...... Including one facing due south when our orientation here is true North. None are pointing north and both the east/ west ones are shaded or obstructed. I always look at that and think WTF? Of course I can see by looking the angles are way off as well just to compound the problem.
Moron neighbour at the last place did the same. 5 KW of panels facing south west with the neighbors trees shading them from about midday on.
I reckon this guy would have got 3 Kwh on an average good day. Again, panels over 20o off tilt.... yeah, money well spent there all right!
There are a lot of companies telemarketing solar installations as well as scammers going door to door. They probably don't give a damn where the panels go as long as the people pay and they get their Gubbermint kickbacks. As long as there is enough roof space, I'm sure they don't care about direction, angle, shading or anything else.
Makes you want to bang your head against the wall.
Reference your diesel generator. You might find that buying a second hand unit from the likes of a plant hire firm through Ebay or whatever works out cheaper than buying a new alternator import and linking it to your engine.
Ahead of you there my friend!
Always looking on fleabay and dumbtree for that very reason. If I can find something that fits the bill premade and local, I'm in! Ideally something cheap because of a blown engine would be great. Happy to do a bit of spanner work as any option will involve that anyhow.
I bought an ex garden tiller a month or so back that was ex hire. been owned privately before me and the guy did a great job with it. Has an issue atm with shearing the flywheel key which I have found on the net is a common problem with the engines installed. Found the fix so will get onto that when the puller arrives which should be tomorrow. Other than that, best thing I have bought in a while.
About your diesel: Is the throttle controlled mechanically or electronically?
All my engines are Mechanically operated.
If your alternator is a traditional design and not overly saturated with electronic protection, then once it is synchronised to the utility supply, the grid provides a certain amount of speed regulation. Either the engine pushes the grid or the other way round. That provides a bit of a buffer against variations in your own load demands.
I have played a lot with an induction motor set up as a generator. Works the same way. Get the engine running near the motor speed, connect to the mains then ramp the engine speed up over sync and it becomes a generator that is frequency locked.
Can you do that with a generator that has an AVR?
I will probably set the IMAG up for back feeding ( although I'm leaning heavily to panels atm) but I would like a generator that will run stand alone if need be.
I cannot disagree with your comments on Greenwash.
I'm all for do the right thing, who the hell wouldn't be? Unless you are a corporation that puts money above all else, who would want to see pollution and destruction of the environment.
What ships me to tears though is the way the cause is bastardized and abused as a way of making a buck. I'm sick to death of being brow beaten at every turn about saving water and Co2 emissions when every other turn I see waste and stupidity that is needless and often being perpetrated by those enterprises and organizations that scream the loudest and put the guilt trip on the little guy.
I don't give a damn about green causes and save the planet crap yet I'll bet I do more towards that than 90% of the blowhards that do. I don't do it to save the planet, I do it to save money yet in the eyes of the greenwashed, I'm all sorts of mongerals for that attitude.
As for the corporate gubbermint thing, don't even get me started. You can pretty much bet those that put up the big shopfront facade about save the planet and wave the green flag are all gung ho on the front end and have a pile of manure out the back that goes against there preaching and guilt tripping.
All the time I see these green initiatives that in sum total use far more resources, energy and create greater emissions than doing things the non trendy flavour of the month way would cause and do not have a hope in hell of recovering any of the expenditure put towards them.
Pretty sure what they do create is well paid jobs for a lot of otherwise useless individuals and create revenue for gubbermint or big biz.
Had a new High with the solar setup the other day, 26 Kwh. Might have squeezed in one more if the clouds didn't come over an hour or so before sunset.
still, happy with that and looking forward to getting the panels up on the roof where they will get maybe an hour more sun thanks to no shading and I can run heavy wire back to the mains. The extension leads are still causing a little clipping but for a test setup and arsing around, it's saving me a lot of money on the power bill.
I'd like to put them on a tilting setup and trying to work something simple for a DIY setup to do that. If it proves too hard I'll go with a fixed angle but seeing the shed roof is only 5o and I need 34o, I'd like to make the frame work tilting if I can without too much extra trouble.