The General Chat Thread (2016-2022)

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Portugal is under severe drought, it barely rained this winter. It got so bad the government ordered our electrical company to stop using 5 dams to produce electricity.
 
LissaC said:
Portugal is under severe drought, it barely rained this winter. It got so bad the government ordered our electrical company to stop using 5 dams to produce electricity.
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In Scotland there is (was?) a hydro electric power station with a header or feeder dam. When electricity is cheaper and demand much less at night, they pump the water back up to the header dam thus recycling it. It's not far from my childhood 'playground' (aka wilderness to most people but I grew up there). I can remember going around the station underground as a child (it's actually inside the mountain so very little is visible to people passing by). Most of the hydroelectric stations in Scotland were built but the Victorians (so pre 1900's) and are amazing places to see.
 
LissaC said:
My manager is travelling from the US to Portugal next week and I asked her to bring me a bottle of this. The bathtub in the new house is full of yellow stains, I was advised to clean it with vinegar but I hate the smell of vinegar and some people say even vinegar doesn't always work. People on the internet say this Bar Keepers Friend line is the bomb when it comes to cleaning, it cleans every kind of stubborn stain you can possible imagine and I've read a review of this stuff on amazon where someone's tub was full of yellow/brownish stains like mine and this cleaned it really well. I could get this in Europe but it would cost me 20€ with delivery, I think in the US this costs less than 5$ so I'm saving a good amount of money.
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This is stuff is AWESOME!!!!
I would have your manager to bring a couple bottles ... I'd be willing to wager that you blow through that one bottle just on the bathtub.
I use it on pot&pans to get that brunt on gunk off the outside of pot & then also on sheet pans.
I used it on our electric glass top cooker/range/hob, I'm not familiar with induction, but ...
The stuff is awesome !!!!
Oh, there's a cream and powder, I like the cream best.
 
LissaC said:
Portugal is under severe drought, it barely rained this winter. It got so bad the government ordered our electrical company to stop using 5 dams to produce electricity.
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We are also in drought conditions, which doesn't matter as much now as it will if we don't start getting a lot of rain soon. This is the time of year when we fill our reservoirs for summer. We need to have them full by May, or we will have water restrictions by July.

CD
 
I had the electricity turned on the new house today. The gentleman from the electrical company said the electrical is old and won't have enough power for me to turn the house all electrical. I'm having an electrician coming tomorrow to look at it and give me a quote. I covered some holes in the walls with putty and was supposed to sand them tomorrow and start painting the house on sunday but now I'm afraid the power plugs aren't grounded and if they're not, they may need to open the walls and paint them again. Or I may decide to have plastic enclosure on the walls which will be much cheaper but doesn't look as nice. I may not even be able to afford this kind of intervention right now, in that case I'll keep the gas bottles for now and do this work later. We'll see. This is how the kitchen currently looks btw.
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LissaC said:
I had the electricity turned on the new house today. The gentleman from the electrical company said the electrical is old and won't have enough power for me to turn the house all electrical. I'm having an electrician coming tomorrow to look at it and give me a quote. I covered some holes in the walls with putty and was supposed to sand them tomorrow and start painting the house on sunday but now I'm afraid the power plugs aren't grounded and if they're not, they may need to open the walls and paint them again. Or I may decide to have plastic enclosure on the walls which will be much cheaper but doesn't look as nice. I may not even be able to afford this kind of intervention right now, in that case I'll keep the gas bottles for now and do this work later. We'll see. This is how the kitchen currently looks btw.
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Gas bottles like that INSIDE a house would NOT pass building code here. I would get a gas sensor to put in that cabinet. They aren't cheap, but I wouldn't be able to sleep with that much gas (propane, I assume) in a bottle inside my house, without a sensor.

CD
 
caseydog said:
Gas bottles like that INSIDE a house would NOT pass building code here. I would get a gas sensor to put in that cabinet. They aren't cheap, but I wouldn't be able to sleep with that much gas (propane, I assume) in a bottle inside my house, without a sensor.

CD
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This is standard here in Portugal, plenty of houses have it. Gas leaks are uncommon. The last one I can think of was more than 20 years ago. I'm getting rid of the gas bottles until summer anyway so I'm not investing any money there.
 
Btw I think one of the bottles is butane ans the othee is propane. Most people buy butane because it's cheaper
 
LissaC said:
Btw I think one of the bottles is butane ans the othee is propane. Most people buy butane because it's cheaper
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My primary camp stove is butane. If I camp in sub-freezing weather, I have to keep my butane canisters warm. They don't work well below freezing. Propane is not much better, but it will work below freezing, to a point.

For home use, the thing to know is that both propane and butane are different from natural gas (methane), which is what municipal gas lines in the US use. Refined petroleum gasses, like propane and butane are heavier than air, while natural gas is lighter than air. That means you can more easily smell a natural gas leak than a propane or butane leak. BTW, all of those gasses are naturally odorless. Chemicals are added to make them smell nasty, so people can easily smell a gas leak.

I know way more than I ever wanted to know about oil and gas stuff, thanks to my dad. He is a chemical engineer, and made his career in the oil and gas industry. He loved to talk shop. I had to listen. :laugh:

CD
 
caseydog said:
My primary camp stove is butane. If I camp in sub-freezing weather, I have to keep my butane canisters warm. They don't work well below freezing. Propane is not much better, but it will work below freezing, to a point.

For home use, the thing to know is that both propane and butane are different from natural gas (methane), which is what municipal gas lines in the US use. Refined petroleum gasses, like propane and butane are heavier than air, while natural gas is lighter than air. That means you can more easily smell a natural gas leak than a propane or butane leak. BTW, all of those gasses are naturally odorless. Chemicals are added to make them smell nasty, so people can easily smell a gas leak.

I know way more than I ever wanted to know about oil and gas stuff, thanks to my dad. He is a chemical engineer, and made his career in the oil and gas industry. He loved to talk shop. I had to listen. :laugh:

CD
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Yes, the municipal gas lines here in Portugal are natural gas too. In my new neighborhood, most buildings were built in the 50's. I saw three houses in that same neighborhood and none of the buildings were connected to the gas pipelines, they were all using gas bottles like the ones in the picture. I had a gas bottle like that in the apartment I was renting previously, and I can't stress how unpractical I think that was. In the beginning I was also really stressed out every time I changed the bottle (I had the bottles delivered to my house, but I had to change them), so I always kept a small spray bottle with water and soap and sprayed it on the bottle after I attached the cap (or whatever it is you call that thing that fits between the bottle and the nose).
 
LissaC said:
I always kept a small spray bottle with water and soap and sprayed it on the bottle after I attached the cap (or whatever it is you call that thing that fits between the bottle and the nose).
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That is an excellent practice. One of my outdoor grills (bbq) is a propane grill. On a very few occasions, I have gotten propane tanks that have leaked when I attached them to the grill. I have to return them.

CD
 
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