[Others.047] What the fork??

Around early December last year, while waiting for wife shopping in Kmart Hornsby, I saw this cheap "Gardener's Choice Fork" around $20 and bought it without much thinking... I wasn't a heavy user, just like to loose the soil for the grass to grow better probably once or twice every 6 months.

It worked ok for a while, then one day while I was working near the brick retaining wall, it snapped into two.... What the fork??!!

A closer look shows it's actually not very strongly made....

From this photo you can see the metal surrounding the timber handler is actually quite thin... No wonder it didn't last long....

Have to drive all the way to Hornsby to get a refund, and on way back, saw this "Stanley" Garden Fork fork in Bunning's on special around $30 and comes with 5 years warranty. Should be much better and stronger than the previous one if it's almost 50% more expensive and clearly specified warranty period, right?

Wrong! I used it near the same spot and snapped! It's broken again! What the fork??!!

This is a closer look of the broken part...

After some explanation, I got it refunded, and was strongly recommended to get this "proper" one called Cyclone Garden Fork which was "Made in Australia" and comes with 10 years warranty.

At about $65 it's not cheap, but certainly felt much heavier and stronger by the look of it...

So, did the new fork work at the place where the other 2 failed? Well, yes and no...

Firstly, I definitely don't want to take the risk for this new expensive tool... Secondly, I thought about it for a while, inspected the spot which killed previous 2 forks and then I noticed the problem... Silly me, I was standing quite close and facing the retaining wall. Which means I was actually working against the big blocks, which is why those 2 forks broke... If I turn and face the opposite side, and work the fork the other way, instead of towards the retaining walls, then there won't be any problem at all!

Any way, I learned the lesson the hard way. Luckily, thanks to the Australian law which protects customers against all sort of stupidity like mine, I got both forks refunded. If I had used it correctly, even that under $20 one would still be working fine I guess...

[Progress.159] Water Tank Filter Replacement

Hope everyone had a happy and safe long Christmas/News Years holiday break!

Recently, we noticed after every toilet flush, the refill from water tank seems to be getting slower and slower, and the noise seems to be getting louder as well. Called the maintenance guy and was told the water tank filter needs to be replaced every 12 months or so, and it's probably time to replace our filter.

Got the supplier contact details, gave them a call, and what? Have to pay almost $70 for 2 filters? Ouch.... A few days later, here's what we received, 2 new filters wrapped in nice bubble wraps.


Removed the wrapping for one of them, the only noticeable sign on it is the word "MEXICO" on one side. Tried to search for the product on the Internet but strangely couldn't find any.... If any of you know where to get the same filter with much cheaper price, please let me know....


Next, I was supposed to open the filter with the little plastic blue handle after turned off the taps. It's a bit tricky as the handle doesn't quite fit (a bit loose)and it took me a while to work out the correct direction to open it - which is clock-wise when viewed from top.


After some hard work, finally got it opened, as below, the dirty old filter in the middle.


With the clean and old filters right next to each other for comparison, you can see how much dirts the filter filtered out after about 12 months of usage.


After the new filter inserted, put the cover back, turned on the tap, and we got the water tank system back again!

[Progress.158] Daikin Air Con "E0" error

It was so hot the other day, we decided to turn on the Air Con. Surprisingly, it showed this "E0" error and the machine refused to start.

Tried a few times but still couldn't get it to work.

Wife mention she received this notice from the Air Con servicing company last month (or earlier?) saying it's time for our annual service and also mentioned something about needs service to maintain the warranty.

Wasn't happy about this and as it's after hours, got no choice but to bring out all the the old fans from the storage area to cool everyone down -- have to wait until next morning.

Next day had a nice chat with the servicing company, who said they wouldn't do such thing as programming the machine to stop functioning if any service schedule was missed. That "E0" error was simply the Air Con couldn't get enough electrical power to start up the motor. It can be easily fixed by restarting the Air Con circuit switch in the meter box with a 5 min delay between the shutdown and restart.

Sounds quite reasonable to me, as wouldn't surprise if most houses in Sydney all had their Air Con turned on that day, causing the power shortage problem.

Tried the restart when back home and it worked as expected! Another lesson learned, and we happily booked our Air Con service. Wouldn't want to have any more problem with the Air Con...

Remember someone asked me what are the other maintenance cost after the house completed? Well, I mentioned the TermGuard in previous post, Air Con maintenance would be the other one you have to pay every year to keep the warranty. Will let everyone know if I can think of anything else.

[Others.046] Where on earth is "Toowoon Bay"?

I read an article talking about property investors using real estate web sites to look for cheap houses.

Just for fun, I did a quick search for "Town Houses" under $300,000 in NSW on realestate.com.au, and it returned quite a lot of hits. I switched to "Map" view and moved around, the first one I checked was as below, this 2 bedroom townhouse in Toowoon Bay (The others were all too far away...)

I've been to The Entrance a few times, but have absolutely no idea about the rental market over there. So I switched to the "Rent" view, entered "Toowoon Bay" as suburb and as below, it returned 3 houses, all with 2 bedrooms and within $210-$245 range.

Next is the fun part. I switched to "Map" view again to see whese these 3 houses were located, and as below, strangely I got a blank screen. The bottom of the map says "Map data 2009 Europa Technologies", ok, but where is this?

I zoomed out a bit and as below, noticed some arabic writings all over the places. What the??

Walla! I zoomed out a few times and as below, found that it's actually pointing to Algeria in Africa, with Barcelona/Madrid of Spain just above. And the top of the page still says "Displaying 3 homes for rent in Toowoon Bay"!!

Must be my first time lucky, as I tried a few others and none of them seems to have this problem...
Any way, will report to realestate.com.au and hopefully they can quickly fix it...

[Others.045] Nice features of new houses in California

During my short stay in California, I found quite a few nice features which I like to share with everyone.

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The most impressive feature is the high ceiling, which I think is about 10 feet/ 305 cm high. The dark brown door in photo below is the main entrance, the plain white door at the far right is the garage door which is about the same height as the normal door we have here. Compare the gap between the doors and the ceiling and you can see the difference.

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The next feature I like is the smooth/round edges for all the walls. This would certainly be more child friendly than the sharp ones we have here.

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I also found they all have a big tray under the washing machine in the laundry, similar to this one. This would protect the floor from been damaged.

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There's also wallpapers been applied in some of the rooms. And as below, the light switches were beautifully covered with the wallpaper.

The switch at the far right has some sort of built-in sensor, which probably would turn on the light when it detects any movement. This certainly looks better than a separate sensor been installed on the ceiling corner and less wiring required.