Dixon

New premises and I may need to turn the water off external to the property, so I lifted up the iron flap in the pavement (marked for Severn Trent Water) and took out the foam disc thing a few feet down. But rather than a water meter or a shut off valve there is something like a metal / plastic circular cover almost as wide as the hole and a big shiney bolt head (maybe 3cm diameter) right in the middle of it. Any ideas what it is and/or how to proceed?

The alternator is for a marine diesel engine in my Dad's boat. It had starting problems and he had work done on it to much cost but no success. I strongly suspect they are ripping him off.

Anyway, the deal is that one guy disconnected the dashboard ammeter because he thought the long run between the engine and the dashboard would drop the charging voltage too much. Well maybe, but all he did (apparently) was disconnect it at the alternator + output, not bypass it with a new lead direct from battery to alternator.

Since then, they replaced the alternator with a new one. My Dad asked for the ammeter to be put back but when the guy tried to - with the engine off - the lead sparked against the alternator + terminal. Since then my Dad has tried this himself and confirmed that it sparks even with the engine off.

This makes no sense to because a) how can the battery charge if there is no connection to the alternator? b) How can the lead spark when the engine is off? The only source of current is the battery but surely the rectifier diodes in the alternator block any current into the + terminal? The voltage regulator is internal to the alternator.

Can anyone explain this other than they put in a dud alternator?

A "clip-on" stand-off isn't suitable for putting on the roof because it tends to lift off the ladder. But when the soffit is wide a normal stand-off won't keep the ladder away from the gutter.

Like in this video from 5 to 10 seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5eICjQhVn8

Not DIY, I will get it done buy an electrician but I want to understand what the regs are and what is possible.

I want an additional outlet (single socket would do) in a kitchen on a plasterboard wall to power a freezer. The location means that it can't really come off an existing socket in the kitchen (doorways in the way) but there is a handy socket in the adjoining room. So there is the plaster board / stud wall between the rooms, but the existing socket is actually in a solid wall about 2m away.

The house was build about 1998 and the floor is solid over the whole ground floor.

So, what I really want is a spur off the existing socket running horizontally across to the stud wall and then to a socket on the other side of the stud wall. I haven't read the regs and that sort of writing generally does my head in anyway, but from just reading around, it seems as if going horizontal is a problem, even at low level.

What i don't really get is that if this was a new build I don't know how it would be done anyway, is it all under the floor in metal conduit? And is there a way (in terms of regs) to have the extra socket that doesn't involve digging up the floor (or ceiling). It would seem that a running a conduit from the existing socket along the top of the skirting board reaching to the stud wall would be sensible, because no one would accidentally drill into conduit, but regs never were sensible. Any info / advice appreciated.

It's like they are being generated by some kind of AI program to simulate genuine questions. But why? I mean who asks "If a photon particle of light has a mass then would its motion cause a disturbance in the Aether?" or "Does a magnetic field move at the speed of light forming a gravity wave?". I can't work out what sort of real person would ask stuff like that, but equally I can't see the point of making a YA question bot.

Does anyone know of a YouTube video for basic fitness that doesn't need any equipment (ie aerobics or similar) lasts about 10 minutes, and the really hard one, isn't introduced by an annoyingly upbeat American? Thanks.

So for instance, what happens when an anti-electron encounters a proton?

Is this video a wind up?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6VknOg0qjU

Thanks.

I'm looking at getting some photo-voltaic solar panels for my house (U.K.) If you have had them for a while, can you tell me how many kWh's per year you generate, your panel's rated maximum output (Watts) and your total panel area please? I want to get a realistic estimate for my property. It's all very well looking at the data sheets produced by the companies that sell them but I want some idea of what people are actually getting. Thanks.

I want to use it as a picture rail ie hang framed pictures off it. The walls are a mixture of; painted plaster board; old plaster which is freshly skimmed; old plaster lath which is freshly skimmed.

Basically, I want to avoid the effort of screwing the rails to the walls if I can, but I don't want them coming down later when I hang pictures off them.

According to my car insurance company, they didn't take all the payments for my policy back in March/April 2012. This looks like it is correct. They are now asking for the money. Do I have to pay?

When one particle is measured the other other "instantly" adopts the complementary state. But when things are at a distance, "instantly" implies simultaneity. We know that simultaneity is dependent on observer velocity, so what determines the reference frame of simultaneity?

I'm in a band that has gone from doing all original music to doing all covers, the sort of stuff that a wedding band might do ie all well known chart material, dance tempo and going from the 50's to now -Elvis, Tom Jones, Katie Perry, Prince, James Brown etc

The thing is, we need a new name to distinguish it from our previous stuff (which was like pop jazz). We are finding it very hard to come up with name that isn't already in use and which doesn't give the wrong impression of the band. Any ideas?

The expansion force in space is tiny, so tiny that within a solar system or even a galaxy it has little effect and is generally swamped by gravity. And we usually consider that gravity is a very weak force anyway. Plus, dark energy isn't even the expansion force, it is the extra bit of the expansion force we can't account for (is that correct?).

So, after all that, how does it come to make up nearly 3/4 of the universe? Or come to think of it, by what measure is it 3/4?

I play bass guitar and one of my basses is an acoustic bass (guitar). A double bass player happened to mention that on a double bass, gut strings are louder than metal ones. I was wondering what the effect would be of putting gut strings on an acoustic bass (it has a piezoelectric pick up).

I know the scale length is shorter on a bass guitar, so the string tension would be less than on a double bass. I also gather the string tension is much bigger on double bass to begin with - enough to crush an acoustic bass guitar probably. But what would the net effect be?

Would it work at all? Has anyone done this?

If the pitch is wrong but the tension is OK could I use strings specified for different pitches eg use a gut A as my E?