heater for greenhouse.

[Bill HH]

(NB: Be careful of leaving cable on the surface overnight; my extension lead in the early days got chewed through by a badger or something. Its buried now, so no problems).


.

Was that the Badger or the cable that got buried?

[Kristen]

(NB: Be careful of leaving cable on the surface overnight; my extension lead in the early days got chewed through by a badger or something. Its buried now, so no problems).

Burying an extension lead definitely not recommended, but maybe that's not what you meant? Needs to be armoured cable if you are going to bury it, and it has to be something like half a metre deep, and a tape above saying "Warning: Cable below"

I know it all seems a bit petty, but someone sticking a spade or a fork through a buried non-armoured cable may well come off badly.

It might be permitted to make a "temporary" cable route by attaching the cable to, say, a fence.

In case any help I bought my cable here:
https://www.electric-cable.com/swa-electric-cable.php

I found a calculator page, somewhere on the internet, that told me how "fat" a cable I needed for the size of heater I wanted to run in the greenhouse. It works out at between 60p & £1 per metre (exc. VAT)

[Philthy]

Haha! (Cable)

I never found the culprit.. probably went looking for a puddle to cool off in

[Philthy]

Hi Kristen. Yes, it's a proper cable about 2' down. Goes through the greenhouse foundation, and up the inside wall. I'd have fried myself many times by now...

[Hans Mum]

We weigh our propane and liquid carbon dioxide bottles once a week to prove how much is left in them.

Would hate to be 20 miles from base and run out.

Potty

Silly question then Potty how do we find out how much they weigh with & without contents....I'm guessing then we'd just work out as it runs down...why can't they have a contents indicator on them it would be much easier.

I never thought I'd be thinking about taking bathroom scales to allotment

[Bill HH]

Silly question then Potty how do we find out how much they weigh with & without contents....I'm guessing then we'd just work out as it runs down...why can't they have a contents indicator on them it would be much easier.

I never thought I'd be thinking about taking bathroom scales to allotment

Correct me if I am wrong but I think you can get regulators with a built in contents guage.The full weight should be stamped on the cylinder and probably the empty weight too. The gas is liguid when in the cylinder and if you rock it side to side you can feel how much gas is in there (roughly).

[Potstubsdustbins]

Correct Bill weights are on the cylinder.

As to wiring up your heater under ground or over ground you are strictly speaking not allowed to DIY any external wiring these days. We all do it myself included just don't tell your house insurance company.

Potty

[SarzWix]

Sarz how do you know when cylinder is nearly empty?.

The place where we bought the heater also sells gauges for the gas bottles. Although, to be really efficient it's better to have 2 bottles with a splitter/switching device between them.

[Kristen]

If you have the heater on full blast the bottle should get condensation on the outside that freezes - which would give you a level indication. Dunno if that works for greenhouse heaters (which probably don't use much gas) compared to warehouse heaters which get through the gas at a rate of knots

But I would weight them too. Just need to know the weight when full, and then the empty weight would be that, less the weight of the gas you have bought.

We have switch over valve on bottled gas for our kitchen cooker. I found that after switch-over if I just connected the "empty" bottle we would get another month or so's cooking out of it, so I thought them wasteful. However, running out of gas during cooking is a bit different to the middle of the night when it is -10C outside ...