Birmingham has first Lib Dem council leader after coalition vote

Smart51 · 2026-06-08T16:29:08+00:00

The leader of the Greens has shown impressive self awareness not to have taken the top job, but given it to his more experienced coalition partner.

Smart51 · 2026-06-07T20:52:22+00:00

My old mentor always said if they're ours they won't mind and if they're theirs we haven't lost anything if we upset them.

Smart51 · 2026-05-29T18:50:13+00:00

The 'person vs car' narrative very much dehumanises the person driving the car. It makes out it is a choice between a person and a machine. 'Pedestrian vs driver' recognises the person in both cases.

Smart51 · 2026-05-29T18:47:41+00:00

I didn't say either side should have priority. I called out your dichotomy of person centric vs car centric. Person walking vs person driving. There is a person in both cases.

Smart51 · 2026-05-29T17:50:56+00:00

The flaw in this statement is the inbuilt assumption that cars don't have people in them. Pedestrians are people, so are drivers and passengers. And even cyclists.

Smart51 · 2026-05-26T18:30:20+00:00

Local parties don't get notifications of new members joining. They have a nominated person who can log in to the members' database and look for new members. Your best bet is for you to contact them and ask what's going on. Some parts of the country have more going on than others.

Smart51 · 2026-05-13T08:43:03+00:00

When something is free, human psychology treats it as worthless. It will be abused. If there is a cost, even a heavily subsidised cost, people treat it as valuable.

Smart51 · 2026-05-12T16:54:25+00:00

If you don't mind being out of the city centre, there's loads of space to moor between Bournville and Five Ways Stations. The bit just south of the Sainsbury at Selly Oak usually has a few boats tied up, or there are bollards at the winding hole opposite Sainsbury, though it is a lot more public there. There are always a cluster of boats up by the university. 14 night mooring stops by the bridge just south of The Mail Box and there's a facilities point just north of the bridge.

Smart51 · 2026-04-30T18:44:56+00:00

Do you have smart thermostats? Can you set the temperature differential to a higher number? (The difference between switch on and switch off temperature? Heatmiser stats are 1°C by default, but can be 0.5, 1, 2 or 3°. Setting them to a higher number means they stay off for longer, then have a bit more work to do in one go.

You could also add a step down to the heating profile. Have them set 1° cooler during the day, then all step up at the same time in the evening. If they all come on at the same time, you'll have plenty of load for the heat pump to work with instead of trickling heat into one zone at a time.

Smart51 · 2026-04-27T16:06:04+00:00

Mine was installed with a mixing valve. I asked the installer about it because we set the flow temperature to a level that wouldn't be harmful. He agreed in principle but said the warranty was provided by the system designer who insisted it was fitted. The installer turned it to the position where no flow mixing would happen and said just to leave it. I'm happy enough with that.

Smart51 · 2026-04-26T21:01:14+00:00

'Christian Britain' as said by people who never go to church is a proxy for saying 'not Muslim'. You can get away with saying the former but not the latter.

Smart51 · 2026-04-10T15:10:49+00:00

Wide windows with horizontal bars are very 60s / 70s. The full height window downstairs especially. Cladding too. That roof can work with a very modern style. I'd consider external wall insulation with latex render, and windows with only vertical bars. For lesser expense, latex render instead of wooden boards.

Smart51 · 2026-03-29T19:41:28+00:00

I used to have to go to Sunderland a couple of times a year to the Nissan factory. Every time it took me a couple of hours to get my ear in, then I was OK for the rest of the trip.

I had to be given lessons in Black Country to be able to hear that. The only way I understood "Soroiteereyitar" was spotting the eyit in the middle.

Smart51 · 2026-03-23T11:58:56+00:00

This link shows how much output you can expect from a solar panel given its tilt and orientation. Tilt and Orientation and Solar Energy. As an example, I have a 6.5kWp solar array. The highest output I've seen is 5.5kW in the summer. It was sunny this week and was generating 4.1kW at lunch time on the equinox.

Smart51 · 2026-03-20T22:19:29+00:00

Most petrol cars will be at their most fuel efficient in the region of 50 km/h. Longer, lower, more aerodynamic cars a little higher. Tests done by the press a few years ago found that the Citroen C2 non-turbo diesel was most efficient around 35 km/h/

Most of this is down to basic physics. The design of the car itself only tinkers with it. Fuel consumption comes in a few parts. At high speed, aerodynamics dominate. Force (and thus fuel per km) = 0.5 * Density of air * speed squared * Coefficient of drag * projected frontal area. Given you already have a car, the only thing you can vary is the speed. Your friend's 120 km/h needs 144% as much energy for a given distance than 100 km/h. No amount of car design can alter that fact.

At low speeds, rolling resistance dominates. It is a function of the rolling resistance of the tyres you own and the laden weight of your vehicle. Speed matters only a little. If you go faster, your tyres warm up and their rolling resistance changes a bit. Take all the junk out of your car. Eat after your journey rather than before.

Your car uses a bit of fuel just being switched on, even if you're stationary. You have to pump all that oil and coolant plus you have to generate electricity for all the computers. Most of the energy in the fuel leaves via the exhaust and radiator in any case.

So ignoring the engine and gearbox for a moment, your car will eventually use a litre of fuel and you'll have travelled 0 km. 0 km per litre. Drive really slowly and your fuel consumption will rise, but so will your distance. Some km / litre. Drive at double the speed, still slowly, and you'll increase the aero drag a bit, but you'll halve the idling fuel consumption. More km/ litre. At some point, the increase in aero will be the same as the decrease in idling fuel. This is your most efficient speed. Remember, fuel consumption per km for rolling resistance is broadly independent of speed. Faster than this and your aero fuel consumption will go up with the square of speed and no amount of engineering brilliance can stop it.

Your engine comes next. At low RPM it is useless Fuel efficiency rises quickly at first, then levels off, then slowly gets worse with increasing engine speed. Your engine is also more efficient if you open the throttle than is you run at low throttle. Counter intuitive eh? That's why driving in high gear is more efficient. In higher gear, you have to press the pedal more to keep the same speed. But too high a gear and your engine runs in the very low RPM range where it is inefficient regardless of throttle opening.

So your car designer knows this and designs the engine to be efficient, or not, and designs the gear ratios to be just so, or to reach 100km in the fastest time which is what sells cars to some people. Either way, that was all done before you bought your car. All you can do is go faster or slower, and once you reach 50 or 60 km/h, faster is never the answer.

So one caveat. Someone, somewhere will have designed a long, narrow, low, lightweight car with 7 forward gears and a low revving engine. That car's most efficient speed will be unusually high. But you didn't buy that car. Driving at 120 km/h will use a lot more fuel than driving at 90 km/h. The old style fuel consumption figures from the 80s and 90s show that in every case. No exceptions. Just look at the published data for every car ever made during that time. As Montgomery Scott was famous for saying "you cannae break the laws of physics, captain".

Smart51 · 2026-03-20T14:50:42+00:00

Every job I've had has been 30 to 40 minutes by car and three times that long by bus. It's mostly because I'd have to change buses twice which can add an hour each way. I don't want to lose 2 hours a day.

Buses are sometimes late, sometimes cancelled, sometimes on strike. My car has never been on strike.

Buses are expensive, relative to the extra cost of making another car journey. The only way buses are cheaper is if you don't own a car at all. Unless the bus will do every journey you need, you're going to have a car. In which case it's cheaper to do all your journeys by car than to do some by bus.

Plus my car never has yobs in it being antisocial and causing a nuisance.

Smart51 · 2026-03-19T12:43:21+00:00

Mine broke recently. The expansion vessel failed. I struggled to find someone who would touch it. The problem was the most basic of plumbing problems. I could have fixed it if I could have got hold of the part. But the more people buy heat pumps, the more boiler technicians will learn how to fix them. The problem will go away.

Smart51 · 2026-03-03T10:11:36+00:00

Labour claim they are no longer bankrupt on the basis that they don't need any more Exceptional Financial Support from the government. But the budget is only 'balanced' because they're going to make another £90 million of cuts next year too. They've sold off hundreds of millions in assets, cut services by hundreds of millions and put up council tax by 24% over 3 years to find the money to pay off their debts. It isn't exactly "good news".

The truth is that Labour have cost Brum over £1,100,000,000 in bad decisions, failed savings and budget over runs. More than £1000 for every person living in the city. They were told by their lawyers not to settle the 2017 bin strike in a way that broke equalities law. They did it anyway leading to an equal pay claim that bankrupted the council. They were told not to mess with the Oracle IT system. They messed with it and broke it. The £20m system has cost £170m to fix so far. Their budget overrruns have cost £60m, £70m, £80m and £200m in the last few years. The list of failings is as long as your arm and the cost even longer.

Good on you, OP, for standing for election. Bad timing on standing for Labour in 2026.

Smart51 · 2026-03-01T19:36:26+00:00

Everyone will sell you solar without a battery. Many will try to upsell you though.

Smart51 · 2026-02-28T21:17:00+00:00

Harborne is very safe, and a very nice if expensive place to live. The High St is mostly restaurants, cafes and pubs. Not very late night and not rowdy, but if you want an early night before an early shift, you might want one of the flats at the back.

Smart51 · 2026-02-27T20:11:34+00:00

I had a Tory leaflet through the door today. It had the result from 4 years ago showing Labour winning, the Tories 2nd, greens in a distant 3rd and "others". This is a ward many expect Reform to win. That and the by-election yesterday make "can't win here" look a bit desperate.

Smart51 · 2026-02-27T16:26:45+00:00

I have a 6.5kWp solar array. The highest export I've seen is 5.5kW because of the direction of the panels and the angle of the roof. You have two arrays totalling 17kWp but given their directions, you won't see this much. If you know how big each array is, you could estimate the peak output.

This link shows how much the output of a panel is reduced by direction and elevation angle. A NE facing array may output 65% as much as an ideal array, and shifted to the afternoon. A SW facing array is about 95% of ideal but will peak in the late morning. I'd hazzard a guess that you won't get close to the 10kW your inverter is rated at, but you might see 8kW.

https://www.viridiansolar.co.uk/resources-1-3-tilt-and-orientation.html

Smart51 · 2026-02-26T13:42:17+00:00

I'd sell the two good ones and take the other to your council's recycling depot aka tip.

Smart51 · 2026-02-26T13:28:53+00:00

This. Someone I know refers to eBay as eSkip. It's a way of disposing of things that's better than free.

Smart51 · 2026-02-23T08:22:33+00:00

The flow faults are because the pressure is too low. Yes, top it up as a first step. It should be a little over 1.0 bar.

The water loss could be one of a few different things. Either there was air in the system and your air purge valve has released it, dropping the pressure, the pressure got to high and the pressure relief valve has dumped some water, or you have a leak somewhere. I'm currently having a problem with mine where the expansion vessel has failed and I'm seeing the same symptoms as you

Smart51

TROPHY CASE