The Grand Cafe

Warning apparently canceled, thankfully.

Apparently the cancel has now been canceled. Warning still in place after another quake.

Stay safe Mike.

Theyā€™re now issued a warning for Norfolk Island.

We just had a few eddies in the harbour in the end. Whangarei CBD was evacuated, which seemed to go very well. Better safe than sorry,

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Just cancelled my BBC TV licenceā€¦ :wink:

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Good to know youā€™re all safe.

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What did your evacuation involve Mike ?

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We have maps that show evacuation zones for different tsunami alerts. Our house is on the hill above the harbour and outside the evacuation area. We have tsunami sirens that were activated and civil defence alerts that go to our mobile phones.

I got the alert driving home from dropping Miss Mike to school, which is not in an evacuation zone. I did go to her old school as Iā€™m still on the board there, to check that they had evacuated, as they are in the zone - they had cleared out in less than a few minutes and gathered at the fire station next to the airport.

I had to take Mrs Mike to a medical appointment in town, whilst the low lying CBD area by the river was being evacuated. That was pretty much everyone just getting out either by car or walking to high ground with police clearing the shopping areas.

The coastal areas all have tsunami sirens here and with the mobile alerts and media coverage everyone is pretty organised with a get out quick attitude.

This alert was a good test. The earthquake location and size is a worse case scenario for where we live. There is archaeological records of very high tsunamis going well in land in Northland (flattened fossilised forests and inland sea shell deposits), though itā€™s not known if these were from earthquakes or meteorites.

Just gave the go ahead for 27 solar panels, hopefully this will help reduce our huge electricity bill. Thatā€™s my upgrade this year.

I have family relation that live in a suburb of Sydney and had Sloar panels fitted some time ago and they bsaid it has been more than worthwhile.

When they were over about three years ago I was shocked at how much they spent on electric per annum taking into account of the climate difference than here in the UK.

Thatā€™s very true, we have a reasonably size house and rarely use any air con and our power bills are around $800 to $1000 per quarter. It makes sense to go solar as we get so much sunshine. After the government rebate it will pay for its self in just over 2 years.

I did the maths a few years ago when we changed to high pressure mains and it didnā€™t stack up, and there are no subsidies here.

Iā€™m interested in looking at one of those reverse heat pumps you can install in the roof cavity - ours gets really hot even in winter, so it might be a good less intrusive option. We have a iron sand coloured galvanised roof which is a real heat magnet.

A reverse heat pump is commonly known as a ā€˜fridgeā€¦

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Looking for a bit advice. Is it better to close the gaps using stucwerk, or shall I add a piece of wood on it to close the gaps?

Now injecting the insulation stuff ā€¦

Iā€™m not much of a handyman but Iā€™d probably fill it with wood first.

Iā€™m not much of a handyman so Iā€™d probably get somebody in who knows what heā€™s doing

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Thatā€™s my normal approach as I am pretty useless at anything DIYā€¦my approach is GMI = Get a Man In (apologies if somewhat sexist, maybe should be GPI)

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Not quite clear what it is, nor what is ā€œstucwerkā€? What was there before? Is it extensive or just a small area? Is there draught leakage (can you feel the wind blow through it?)? How big are the gaps each side of the timber, and how deep is the surface of the plaster (if that is what it is) each side from the plane of the timber? Oddly there appears to be a staple in the wood: why?

Builders expanding foam?

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You can make a real mess with that stuff, comes out a lot faster than you expect.

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