Balcony Project Week 4

Big progress this week from "Shed in sky" to blank canvas in one day. Holes for new steels have been cut in wall ready for the new structure. Nest step is for the steels to arrive ready for cladding and final fix. Some iteration of the steel design was done but the project must move on to reach target date.

It was decided to add a Steel C section fixed to the back wall to give better support for the front to back joists. The stairs detail continue to be the tricky part of the design.

Next

Balcony Project Week 3

This "weeks" progress has been concerned with the finer details in the steels. especially the staircase. The tricky piece has been to ensure that there is sufficient head clearance at the lower end of the staircase to satisfy building regs. Keeping within the outline of the balcony has forced some rework to use a double turn staircase.

Next

Also arriving this week were some samples for the decking and support materials. In order to have better durability we have chosen to use plastic lumber for the decking substructure from Envirobuild.

This new material is made from recycled plastic waste and can be worked with wood working tools and methods. Having got some 3M samples of 3*1 the feel of the lumber does seem to be a bit different than wood possibly not having quite the same torsional rigidity. This will be fine for the decking support but not sure would work for the main support joists.

Looking further on to the finishing touches we are considering an illuminated handrail which will certainly add some glamour and price.  Something like this picture.

Balcony Project Week 2

Whilst it may have been more than 7 days since the last weekly update, there has been a bank holiday in the way. However progress has been made. After a visit of the local council building control inspector the holes are now about a foot deeper down to below the level of the drains.

Forward progress this week has been filling the holes with concrete and measuring/marking the back wall ready for the steel support pads to be inserted. Today Max from local firm WM Ironwork visited to do the measurements for the structural steels.

Next

The colour decisions have been made “dark grey pearl” for the support leg collars and front edge facing covers. This will blend with the “stone” decking, white under roof and RSJ pillars.

Things may go quiet for a while whilst the steels are cut and shaped to plan. The tricky bit of the steels is the staircase that has to be specificity customised for the hight/travel.

Design conundrum

What we have seen since the dig has progressed is the level of rot in the support pillars. Two out of the five front pillars at the front two show significant rot at ground level that goes some what to explain the sagging of the existing structure.

The existing 2008 built structure is wood and showing the impact of age, water and poor designs.  The original support should have been built on top of a water proof support similar to this diagram....



Also the joists are showing the start of rain exposure damage caused by external exposure and run through.


The new structure is to have a waterproof under decking laid on top of the joists preventing such damage in the futures. However the conundrum is do we use joists made of recycled plastic or traditional wood. Liking the idea of supporting the alternative wood materials industry but they do cost three times as much per metre.

After some thought we are likely to go for the composite decking with plastic lumber under support as this will be the rain impacted area.

Balcony project Week 1

We broke ground today on the project to replace the balcony at the back of the house.
It’s just a start for now, we have the holes dug that will hold the supports for the new structure. The electrics have been moved and a tonne or two of gravel removed.
Currently there are 10 posts holding up the deck, the new structure will have just three, opening up the under deck space for other uses. The other key feature of the new balcony deck will be managing rain water creating a dry space for over winter storage of outdoor chairs tables etc.

Original Structure and project ideas can be seen here 

Good start but a long way to go. Next

BMW Announce recall for high performance John Cooper Works (JCW) Minis

Important - Vechicle Safety Recall

Action Required

BMW have announced today a new safety recall of John Cooper Works high-performance MINIs. The details of this recall are presented in this letter but please check with your local BMW dealership for further information. Models impacted are MINI R51.. R60 and F54 & F56 with JCW modified engines.

As part of ongoing quality analysis at BMW mini it has been determined that excessive travel of the accelerator pedal in these cars can result in high and sustained vehicle speed. As part of the safety recall JCW mini's will be also be adjusted to comply with the new EU rules and directives due to come into force in 2020.

As part of the recall process the following works will be undertaken:

* Areo devices and spoilers will be reversed to create upforce.
* Anti-lock brakes (ABS systems) will be adjusted to become always-lock brakes (ALB).
* All-4 Drive systems will be reconfigured to power one wheel at a time.
* Tyres are to be resized to ratios 80 profile and above.
* Navigation systems will be updated to "shout like your mother" if the current speed limit is exceeded.
* Vehicle suspension struts and shock absorbers will be un-slammed to ensure wheel arch clearance is enough for an EU bureaucrats head.

During the recall.

Cars that are subject to this recall should be taken to the nearest BMW dealership as soon as possible. To avoid disappointment with small underpowered micro hatch cars, replacement vehicles will not be provided. Instead an "Uber golden ride multi tickets" will be issued to each customer. These tickets are of course valid in all three of the major UK cities.

The vehicle rework time is unknown so please be prepared to be without your vehicle for an extended period of time. Rest assured the vehicle will be washed and hoovered before its return.

Thank you for your understanding during this vital safety recall program.

Richard Pricey
Aftersales Director

: Not for for public release before 1st April 2019


----------------

Feast your eyes on this R60 JCW All-4 Countryman

Filevault Decryption stuck - blocking upgrades Mac OSX - Remedy re-image

Had a problem with a MacBook Air running High Sierra that got stuck decrypting FileVault.

Backstory  

FileVault was being used on an existing machine that had been passed along to a family member. The machine worked fine but occasionally would ask for a older user account to unlock the system when being rebooted.  Machine owner wanted to add a partner as another user account to the machine. This was done but it was found that the owner user had to the the one to unlock the system after a reboot or restart.  Decided to remove Filevault as this was a known cause of the single account to unlock syndrome.  Set system to remove encryption and handed back. Both accounts could now be used to unlock the system. This was not the end of the story as the system came back after getting stuck on an  OS upgrade. A number of related symptoms were seen.

Symptoms

1) Upgrade fails

After a couple of weeks when the MacBook was brought over the to house for a TimeMachine backup to the the Time capsule on the network at the house it was noticed that an upgrade was waiting to install.  When trying the upgrade the message "macOS could not be installed on your computer" and  "Unable to install to "Macintosh HD" Because it is currently encrypting data." "Quit the installer to restart your computer and start again."

  

2) Filevault Decryption progress bar bounces around as per this video.

3) fdsetup gives variable results ...

From Terminal output

House-MacBook-Air-2:~$ sudo fdesetup status 

Password:

FileVault is Off.

House-MacBook-Air-2:~$ sudo fdesetup status 

FileVault is Off.

Decryption in progress: Percent completed = 20.23

House-MacBook-Air-2:~$ 

Even after leaving machine switched on and set to not sleep the percent complete does not move.  Does not even make progress when system is awake and at the login screen, with no-one logged in the background.

4) diskutil says decryption is needed

Last login: Mon Jan 21 00:30:50 on ttys000

House-MacBook-Air-2:~$ diskutil cs list

CoreStorage logical volume groups (1 found)

|

+-- Logical Volume Group 2Cxxxxxx3-AA11-48A1-B90A-756xxxxxxF39

    =========================================================

    Name:         Macintosh HD

    Status:       Online

    Size:         250140434432 B (250.1 GB)

    Free Space:   18882560 B (18.9 MB)

    |

    +-< Physical Volume Dxxxxxx1A-1061-4343-8E2C-D8AxxxxxxD78

    |   ----------------------------------------------------

    |   Index:    0

    |   Disk:     disk0s2

    |   Status:   Online

    |   Size:     250140434432 B (250.1 GB)

    |

    +-> Logical Volume Family 1xxxxxxE-4477-4DC4-801F-80xxxxxxFB50

        ----------------------------------------------------------

        Encryption Type:         AES-XTS

        Encryption Status:       Unlocked

        Conversion Status:       Converting (backward)

        Reversion State:         Reverting

        High Level Queries:      Not Fully Secure

        |                        Has Visible Users

        |                        Has Volume Key

        |

        +-> Logical Volume 1xxxxxxD-B8AE-4390-93B0-E93xxxxxx13

            ---------------------------------------------------

            Disk:                  disk1

            Status:                Online

            Size (Total):          249769230336 B (249.8 GB)

            Conversion Progress:   Failed

            Revertible:            Yes (unlock and decryption required)

            LV Name:               Macintosh HD

            Volume Name:           Macintosh HD

            Content Hint:          Apple_HFS

Remedy

Despite a few reboots and leaving switched on for long periods both logged in and log out the decryption did not progress or resolve itself.  A hunt round the forums found a few others that had similar problems that had not been resolved.

The only feasible solution I found was to re-image the machine using the most excellent Time Machine.  

1. Attach an empty external hard drive of larger capacity than the mac.
2. Add the new drive as an extra Time machine drive.
3. Wait until the back up competes to the new drive
4. Check to ensure that the new backup is of the same size as the contents of the mac
5. Unplug the backup drive
6. Reboot machine holding  R to enter the recover console.
7. Use disk utility to erase the main drive.
8. Use "Recover from Time Machine backup" to restore the system. Noting but ignoring the warning about using encrypted data to restore an unencrypted drive.
9. Restart machine once recovery is complete.
10. Complete the OS upgrade from the AppStore.
11. Remove the extra drive from the TimeMachine backup configuration
12. Switch on Filevault again ( optional )

Sorry I could not find some fancy hack to free up the decryption just grateful that TimeMachine could  save the day ( again).

BBC Pointless - Four things wrong with this show.

A couple of years ago I posted these three things that are just wrong with Pointless the popular BBC TV quiz program....just adding a new one.

1) The host Alexander often goes on about how many jackpots have been won latetly as though it makes difference to the cost of running the game. Each day another £1000 is added regardless, it matters only to the contestants if the jackpot is won or not. Alexander has not done this recently (2018).

2) The mark on the descending column is at the 63/100 level and yet is half way down and should be at 50. That's just wrong.

3) In the head to head round the winner is the team with the most points. To keep with the rest of the show the team with the least points should win. Each team should start with two blobs and loose one when a round is won. The first team to lose both blobs wins the round.

4) Can't see the size of the Pointless trophy from the clips shown.

** update ** 

The trophy is quite small

5) A fairer prize distribution would be for the final round contests to get prize fund / N where N is the lowest score from the three answers given. If finalists get a pointless answer then Prize fund/0 gives them twice the jackpot, 1 point gives them the whole jackpot. If say 5 is the lowest score then prise/5 is given.

See this handy round up of Inside Pointless information.

Broken washing machine Hotpoint BHWD129

Hotpoint BHWD129 Broken drum bearing 

We have had good service from this washing machine for about 6 years. After an incident of probable overloading a funny clanking noise was heard which sounded like a broken drum bearing. After a quick disassembly this was shown to the the cause.  The inner drum bearing has failed allowing the drum to wobble inside the plastic casing. This is a terminal fault as the drum is welded closed and cannot be dissembled.

I had forgotten how much fun it is taking stuff apart to investigate faults. The disassembly mission here was to make the machine easier to recycle and better still sell any useful looking parts on Ebay to recover the machine replacement costs.  Once up the dump, having separated the metal, concrete and electronic each was put in the correct bin. Turn out the "correct bin" is all the same bin were washing machines and parts are recycled. 

So far made £60 (-fees) selling the Door, Hinges, and switch & control panels.

Other interesting parts found inside the machine and listed on ebay.

Springs and dampers

Rubber ducting and ball valve

Waste water pump

Dryer fan and assembly

Main drum motor

Main control board

Switch panel

Inlet control things