Peter's Blog

Redefining the Impossible

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I can imagine that the tech community is keen to hear my opinion on the Cuprinol fence sprayer, THE gadget for the British garden this summer. I have been putting off painting my fence for about 5 years now so it was very dry and grey. The adverts on the TV show someone whisking through painting a fence so I had to give it a try.

Impressions:

  • It is expensive: £25 for the sprayer and £10 for a 5 litre bottle of fence treatment. Luckily homebase had a 10% everything day so I took my chances. I bought 4 bottles of treatment as each one is supposed to cover 5 x 6 foot square panels.
  • the sprayer works on compressed air, pump it a bit and it sprays. Pumping is not hard work (compared to rowing). It only needs 4 bar to work and goes for over half a panel.
  • very easy to use, actually quite fun. Almost had a fight with wife over it.
  • did fence in about 2 hours. The blurb says you can spray a panel in four minutes and this is about right.
  • the treatment comes out of the bottle orange but if you try to spray the fence orange you use up a bottle in two panels. This got me worried about having enough so I concentrated on just getting the fence damp which just about worked, just covering my 20 panels.
  • the fence looks good. This is 'Harvest Brown':
my fence
  • washes out in water. Fill with water, tie trigger shut and leave it to clean itself.
  • the spray has quite a range. I was somewhat distressed to discover I had sprayed the front of my car, about 10 feet the other side of the fence. It does wash off with a bit of a scrub.
  • Spiders don't like being sprayed orange. They may have had more of a chance to escape if I had used a brush.

Conclusion: the coverage is a bit thin and it'll probably need another £40 worth of treatment next year. Ok for now though.


Filed under: diy gadget gadgets

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It may stretch the definition of a gadget but I think the world needs to know I've bought a new washing machine, a Hotpoint Ultima WD860. It has 1600 rpm spin speed and super slient motor: the only noise it makes is the gentle slosh of water. My old washing machine had developed a horrible knocking after 5 weeks of cleaning nappies and as it was 16 years old I decided to retire it. The old machine was also a Hotpoint so I decided on some brand loyalty, especially as the new one matches the dishwasher and fridge/freezer.

Main reason I want to tell the world is that I bought it online for £300 compared to £470 in a shop. Woohoo.


Filed under: gadget

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