Grumpy old buggers thread

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Originally Posted by scarry

You were super lucky.

I had to go to the motel at Borallon this morning,no power,trees down everywhere,power lines down,been quite a bit of wind.Some of the officers said there had been some hail,but dunno if that is correct.

Both their huge gen sets were going flat out,they had used 2500L of diesel since the power went out.Still around 17000 in the tank....

Then onto Lowwood and Rosewood,not as bad out that way.

A mate of mine in Wynnum has huge holes in his asbestos roof,some you could fit your head through.
He is hoping for a new roof,but i dunno if they are going to pay for the old one to be removed.
Mention asbestos to tradies these days and most run away as fast as they can....[biggrin]

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Now that is interesting, you have just pointed out a real issue with battery chainsaws I hasn't considered. You probably will not be able to charge batteries if you need to use the chainsaw for any sort of storm clearing ......... as the power will most certainly be out .....

Probably best for remote people to keep at least one petrol saw around :)

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Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

Now that is interesting, you have just pointed out a real issue with battery chainsaws I hasn't considered. You probably will not be able to charge batteries if you need to use the chainsaw for any sort of storm clearing ......... as the power will most certainly be out .....

Probably best for remote people to keep at least one petrol saw around :)

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I can charge my cordless stuff off the car.... Of course, this depends on the car surviving the storm.

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Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

Now that is interesting, you have just pointed out a real issue with battery chainsaws I hasn't considered. You probably will not be able to charge batteries if you need to use the chainsaw for any sort of storm clearing ......... as the power will most certainly be out .....

Probably best for remote people to keep at least one petrol saw around :)

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Mine are always charged,then there is the portable generator we have,and at least 10L of fuel.

All was helpfull when the area one of the Sons lives was smashed about a month ago in a storm.

No power,or phone network for 4 days.
And lots of trees down blocking driveways,roads,etc.

Solar was helpfull as well,charging his camper batteries to keep a fridge going.

Yep. After the massive storm we copped in 202i here, I was one of the lucky ones who only lost power for 2 weeks. Some folks were without fort two months. NBN brought up a trailer with sat comms so we could check emails and do other internet stuff. I, after driving around in circles trying to find a road out of here that didn't have a bloody great mountain ash lying over it, shot down to the Kings store and got their last stocked genny. Wouldn't have been my first choice, but needs must.

Attachment 195067
Not driving around that, and there were hundreds of them. Tipping the SES and all the other mobs were not using battery saws for this.

Also, they were not driving EVs, In fact, nobody was. Couldn't charge 'em. Lucky the owners were locked down along with the rest of us,. I guess.

Even a Land Rover would struggle to drive over or around that.

Lots of people north of Brisbane are also without power due to the storms and it is now hot and humid as last night's storm didn't cool things down.

And I was driving a Ford BA at the time.

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Originally Posted by scarry

On a different Grumpy topic.

So Sunday night,hail storm decided to arrive all of a sudden.I think the dog thought a war had broken out.

The noise from the hail hitting the house roof and our colourbond shed was rediculous.The larger hail was around 50mm in diameter,it sure hurt when it hits one in the head.Don't ask me how i know.

We raced out and put old blankets on some areas of the vehicles,but they got blown off by the wind,and once waterlogged,some fall off.

Anyway,three vehicles damaged,sons Kluga dings all over it,tail lights smashed.

Hi Ace,only two months old,dents all over it,one huge dent on the bonnet.

Another older Hi Ace,dents, mostly on the roof,so not a real worry,it will be moved on soon anyway,buyers generally don't get a ladder and look at the roof anyway.

Building roofs seem OK,no solar,haven't checked the solar HW yet,but the water is still hot.

Camper and Land Cruiser were under cover.

Anyway,never had hail here in the last 25yrs,and never had a vehicle hail damaged before.

I suppose it could have been worse.Friends had roof tiles broken and huge areas of gyprock ceiling fall down as it got wet.
The SES guys who attended were very helpfull and did a good job tarping the roof.

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Hope your ok- The day hail killed my Golden Disco I saw a few people running out to try and move their cars get smashed by hail. We had several people in for stiches and a few ambulances that day! I miss my Disco[bawl] Bloody Insurance company did not do life support on my beaten-up disco that was more like a Golf ball with Divots that could have held hundreds of golf balls[bigrolf]

The pics of the QLD hail stones should be QLD hail ROCKs or boulders? HUGE!

Pat on the back for the SES. They must have been very busy!

I drive past a LOT of Wind towers. Being exposed to asbestos in the Navy was enough I thought till now!!!:soapbox:

Third renewable energy company discovers asbestos in wind farm turbine lifts - ABC News

The ABC understands Chinese supplier 3S Industry provides lift brake pads to the majority of wind turbine operators in Australia.
Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen told federal parliament that 3S Industry supplied parts to more than just wind turbine operators.
Asbestos Disease Support Society chair Trevor Torrens said it was "astonishing" Australia was dealing with an asbestos importation breach during National Asbestos Awareness Week.
"The importation of asbestos-containing goods has been legislatively banned since 2003," Mr Torrens said.

Not Bravo ZULU!

Yesterday I spent a good part of the day (in between dealing with matters regarding the fire) on the phone to Telstra. This convinced me that their entire customer relations is carefully designed to make contacting them as difficult as possible, to discourage customers from complaining.

Their procedure is designed so that when you attempt to talk to them about something, by the time you can actually talk to a human, you are shaking with anger. And the person you are talking to has nothing to do with the subject you are calling about, and can't transfer you to them, or if they try, the call is lost anyway. Faced with having to start the whole procedure again, most people will just give up.

That describes my attempt to call them about my non-working landline, which quit abruptly on Wednesday mid word. I wanted to try and find out what they were doing about it, and give them a further bit of information that might help diagnosis - after a day, instead of dead silence on the line, there is now a faint high pitched hum.

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Originally Posted by JDNSW

Yesterday I spent a good part of the day (in between dealing with matters regarding the fire) on the phone to Telstra. This convinced me that their entire customer relations is carefully designed to make contacting them as difficult as possible, to discourage customers from complaining.

Their procedure is designed so that when you attempt to talk to them about something, by the time you can actually talk to a human, you are shaking with anger. And the person you are talking to has nothing to do with the subject you are calling about, and can't transfer you to them, or if they try, the call is lost anyway. Faced with having to start the whole procedure again, most people will just give up.

That describes my attempt to call them about my non-working landline, which quit abruptly on Wednesday mid word. I wanted to try and find out what they were doing about it, and give them a further bit of information that might help diagnosis - after a day, instead of dead silence on the line, there is now a faint high pitched hum.

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Good Luck, JD. A few years ago, we had an 11 month saga with Telstra. We ended up with the input of the Tele-communications Ombudsman. We had no, or little, internet and were told several times by Telstra, that they had contacted us by email. Utter stupidity.
On another, relevant subject, we had a couple of bogus, sub-continent, Telstra agents call us, asking for certain, financial details. These blokes knew all our issues. Now, in no way am I construing that legitimate, sub-continent, Telstra employees were passing info on to rellies. Just be careful! [bigwhistle]