Your lockdown purchases.

[Mito Man]

The place I ordered the chainsaw from never sent me anything so I called them up today and the guy just said its out of stock but didn't have time to tell me Just ordered it from somewhere else which I called to check that they actually have it in stock.

As its my birthday in a few days time I've decided to treat myself to a quad bike and ordered a CF Moto 520. It's a bit of a budget brand, like a well specced Kia I guess but the price on secondhand big name brands is a joke. Clean 5 year + ones are going for what their list price was back then...
Speaking to the dealer pretty much all quads have gone up about 20% since last year although it is a new model launched in March but there's another 18% price increase in September so no point waiting.

[Simon]

So what is driving the price rises?

[Mito Man]

Seems to be a bit of everything, shipping, raw materials, semiconductors and then a little bit of price gouging along the way across everyone who has a hand in it.

[Mito Man]

I’ve brought Jezza to the countryside from London
Just put a quick tank through it to break it in and fix the slop

The fuel tank is 1.3 litres but it consumes 3.2 litres per hour - I think I got about 20 minutes out of it just cutting whatever small stuff was lying around.

The body is surprisingly not that heavy but the bar is crap which I knew from reviews. It’s a solid steel lump with no proper oiling channels and has no bearing. It’s basically designed for Amazon style rainforest murdering and it’s very nose heavy which makes it unwieldy and a pain to work on or place down. You have to hold it with both hands whilst walking otherwise it just drags on the ground. I did always intend to swap it for a lightweight slightly shorter one and leave this for extreme situations. It’s length is about one American pick up truck in width.


However the Defender has clever slots which pass through rear seats which means the bar fits under the seat and doesn’t even protrude out the other end.

See, they didn’t think about this shit when making the new Defender

[dinny_g]

I hope you were wearing your chaps Mito…

Serious looking bit of kit!

[Jobbo]

Ordered this a while ago - it was due to arrive last Friday but actually landed yesterday. 2/3 filled it overnight, so it'll be full tonight and I can dose it with the chemicals. I suspect the next couple of days will warm it up to quite a comfortable temperature.



The dismantled trampoline is still visible; too hot to do tip runs at the moment.

[mik]

Sex pond deluxe?

[GG.]

Sex pond deluxe?

Sex pond MAX. Come on Mik - it even says on the side

[Mito Man]

Anyone thought about fitting a rectangular one of these and putting decking round it so that it looks like a conventional £100,000 pool without costing £100,000?

[Jobbo]

It's not a hot tub because we're not swingers, but I'll post up my attempts at fornication in there if you like.

[Jobbo]

Mito, I don't think there's a way of making an above-ground pool look like a proper swimming pool in the ground. Decking would look crap round a proper swimming pool anyway, let alone with an above-ground one.

Much as I'd like a swimming pool in the garden on the few nice days each year, we had one when I was a child and my stepfather eventually had it filled in because it was barely ever used, took far too much maintenance and was a pain. Most people I know who've bought houses with them have filled them in.

This pool was £399 and won't be there beyond this season because the extension is going to take up part of its area

[mik]

It's not a hot tub because we're not swingers, but I'll post up my attempts at fornication in there if you like.

Negative. But thank you for the offer.

[Simon]

Mito, I don't think there's a way of making an above-ground pool look like a proper swimming pool in the ground. Decking would look crap round a proper swimming pool anyway, let alone with an above-ground one.

There are ways of both sinking an AGP into the ground and also putting decking round an AGP even when it's not sunk. See YouTube for examples.

Are you considering heating with it at all? We got ours to 34 degrees over the last few days with my ninja plumbing routing some water through solar mats and also the solar cover in place. TBH, that's too warm, even for me, as it feels like you're swimming in a bath.

30.5-32 seems to be a sweet spot.

If you want any tips hit me up and I'll share what I've learnt this year.

[Mito Man]

I've seen some nice ones with decking round them but it's definitely more of an American thing. It is something that's only used a few times a year in the UK and if it costs say 5 grand but lasts 10 years that's pretty good value. Maybe a project for the next lockdown

[Jobbo]

Simon, this was me with a spade creating a sort-of level area and a cheap pool, so landscaping etc is definitely out. Cheers for the offer of tips though; we aren't going to heat it (the water which came out of the outside tap was initially hotter than the hot tap output yesterday) but I will treat the water and we have a solar cover. This is 12ft in diameter so I'm not expecting to swim much, more to get in water when it's hot.

Mito, not sure if it would last 10 years but this is a fair bit less than £5k: https://www.splashandrelax.co.uk/produc ... 3832298307

[Mito Man]

Yes but I'd still want a deck round it and with the price of wood these days...
Mind you it would also need a concrete base and that's too much work for me

[Jobbo]

Yeah, if you want to do it properly then it's a lot of work and expense. Or just flatten a bit of grass and plonk it down because you know you won't want to bother with it next year

[jamcg]

If you only want a pool for a couple of days just hire a 20 yard roro skip, line with visqueen and fill it with water

[Jobbo]

If you only want a pool for a couple of days just hire a 20 yard roro skip, line with visqueen and fill it with water

That probably amounts to the same cost and effort

[Simon]

Ordered this a while ago - it was due to arrive last Friday but actually landed yesterday. 2/3 filled it overnight, so it'll be full tonight and I can dose it with the chemicals. I suspect the next couple of days will warm it up to quite a comfortable temperature.



The dismantled trampoline is still visible; too hot to do tip runs at the moment.

So, have you been swimming yet?