Biopowered - vegetable oil and biodiesel forum
General => Chatter => Topic started by: Tony on September 12, 2016, 09:48:05 PM
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A couple of years back I had bit of an issue with rats in the outbuilding. They took up residence between the pitched roof tiles and the sarking and caked everything in a grey muck that looked like, and was almost as hard as, concrete. I soon replaced the edible pipes and bits with impenetrable equivalents, but they ate whatever they could (wood soaked in oil seemed to be the fallback for them).
Then we got a cat, grew into a big ginger tom - not too bright but very handsome and (surprisingly for a cat) absolutely devoted to me. Can't pop the bonnet on the car without him joining me to inspect the engine. He's also an excellent hunter. I've not seen a rat since.
Now that we're moving house I've finally been forced to dismantle all the bio kit. I've dragging processor et al out into the garden. I've also treated myself to a powerful new pressure washer. Finally I can blast the caked on grey rat-cement off the pumps and pipes and bits. The paint on some of the pumps has come off too, but at least they're clean.
I also discovered that a pressure washer capable of removing paint is also capable of stripping insulation of a hot water cylinder, and, somewhat more painfully, skin off hands. Stopping a pipe flapping about while it was blasted seemed like a good idea at the time.
My brother has volunteered to have all the bio kit stored in his garden while we move. I'm not sure he realises what he's let himself in for :)
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not liking the idea of killing the little buggers, i know i'm too soft, i leave the plastic rum of rat poison sitting where they can find it.seems to work fine. they have finished the whole lot in the last week. must get some more. it is inside the yurt so it must be the rats. the foxes and badgers can't get in. no cats or dogs around either.
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Hope the cats going with you ;D
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Should have got the pressure washer sooner and used it to shoot the rats!
Did the water jet pierce your skin? If it did it's defiantly worth a trip to A&E. I worked for a company making very high pressure water jetting machines and if you got hit by one of those the internal damage could be quite considerable (not to mention the risk of dirty water carrying infection internally) with very little damage showing externally. I doubt you're using anything like the same pressure but worth mentioning I think.
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There was a pipe waggling around in the spray and it was too tempting to grab hold of it to stop it. So, yes it took a chunk out of the back of my hand, but it's looking OK-ish today (bit manky looking but whatever). It's 150 bar, which seems a lot to me, but I guess nothing like a commercial machine.
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I think that's quite high for a domestic machine. We were making pumps that would do 10 times that, but hand held lances were generally 10 bar max (otherwise you couldn't hold them for long!). The industry has moved on and fixed cutting machine pressures are way higher than the ones we used to produce.
It sounds like you got a glancing blow rather than right angled penetration. All the same, even at a relatively low pressure, keep an eye on it. If tap water has taken any dirt from your hand and buried it in the lower layers of skin it could turn nasty.
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Watch out for Weils disease as well ;D
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It'll be fine, can always stick some gaffa tape over it 8)