What we buy creates tomorrow’s world

I agree on rechargeable power tools. With little use, batteries do not last.

We bought a rechargeable pole pruner and claimed a free battery. A chainsaw on the end of a pole although useful when required, has very limited use. It might get used once or twice a year making around made 10-30 cuts a time.

After several years, the batteries were dead and would not charge. I got them replaced as not fit for purpose. The store I purchased them from argued my case with the manufacturer on the basis the batteries still looked brand new.

Several years later, the batteries are nearly dead again. This time they have had periodic recharging but neither has enough power to cut through a branch.

So we have just bought a corded pole pruner that cost less than buying 2 replacement batteries. It is lighter, available on demand and I wonder why I struggled with the other one for so long.

The August 2018 issue of the Which? magazine has a decent article on plastics waste and hopefully we will see other environmental issues covered in future. I would like to see Which? look at the use of environmentally harmful chemicals in the home and garden. Antibacterial handwash is an example of a worthless product that is damaging to the environment. If you look at the list of gardening chemicals that have been banned it’s not difficult to imagine that those now on sale may well be banned tomorrow.

Probably the best way to raise awareness of environmental issues is to focus on how much our lifestyle costs us.

‘Buy cheap and buy twice’ is an old adage warning of the risk of buying cheap goods. It would be interesting to know how long cheap goods last using familiar examples. On the other hand, paying for expensive products might not be good value unless they continue to work for a long time and are not just replaced with new ones. Again, it would be interesting to have some information about lifetime. The easiest approach is to look at cost of ownership, but that will relate to the overall environmental impact.

We have often discussed the need for schools to teach kids about how to manage money and to make them more numerate. I don’t disagree, but it’s a great time to learn about sustainability and respecting the environment.

I first read Mr Vicary-Smith’s piece in the August Magazine and was surprised to see it being used as Conversation subject as it doesn’t seem to go anywhere. We are told that Which? would love to hear our views “on on [sic] our buying choices, and the impact these products have on the envrionment [sic].

I am not sure what Which?’s “buying choices” are – does it mean the products they choose to test, or the products they recommend us to buy? If the former, then they should not be making choices – they need to test all the products easily obtainable in the UK that lie within the category for testing, but they should also comment on any environmental impact – positive or negative – in order to produce useful test reports to assist consumers. If the latter, then the question arises whether environmental impact is a criterion for determining whether or not a product is a ‘best buy’ or a ‘don’t buy’. Personally I don’t think it should be taken into account in rating a product which should remain based strictly on performance and price, but a commentary should be included on any environmental factors as well because in the minds of some consumers that might have a bearing on their decision.

I question whether it is possible to obtain all the relevant information necessary to make an authoritative comment on the environmental factors except on the basis of typical use, but how is that determined? Must it assume that a washing machine or a dishwasher will always be loaded to its maximum capacity? That a kettle will only have just enough water for the volume required? That appliances will be kept in perfect condition and be used until they fail completely? Domestic life is full of inefficiency. Should Which? stop testing products that are cheap and perform adequately but are environmentally unfriendly? Which is more important to include in test ratings – environmental impact or safety? It is arguable that ‘safety’ is a factor in performance so is included in the test ratings. I feel that so long as we are given as much information as possible on the environmental factors we can then use our own judgment as to what we should buy [if we really need it and the colour is compatible].

I have been in two houses lately where a 1970’s hostess trolley was standing in the dining room awaiting the call to service so there is no need to replace things if they are fit for purpose and durable even if a little dated.

I am very glad that we are having so much discussion about environmental issues in the past few months. I would be delighted if Which? would include an environmental rating as a factor in calculating ratings. Maybe we should look at ethics too because some of the best known products come from companies that are not very good in one way or other.

Regarding dishwashers, why not wait until they are full? I expect that at some time in the future, someone will work out that the aggressive detergent that is used in dishwashers is not very good for the environment.

Why not wait until the dishwasher is full? Because even with a good stock of pots & pans and crockery & cutlery there are often some things in the dishwasher that are needed before the machine is full. As I said, domestic life is full of inefficiency.

On the question of the aggressive detergent used in dishwasher tablets, the big problem is that many sink wastes [into which dishwashers usually drain] do not flow into the foul water system but into the surface water system and thus end up in water courses. This is usually because incorrect alterations have been made to the property drainage in order to allow for sinks, dishwashers and washing machines to be installed in rooms where there is no convenient soil pipe. Where there are ‘combined drains’ at least the only outlet is to the foul water system and sewers but it means that surface water is entering as well and potentially giving rise to flooding and backing up.

None of this comes close to the problems caused by the disposal of non-decomposable wet wipes down the toilet. The word ‘flushable’ is truthful but misleading; yes, they will go into the sewers alright, but they will not break down and will eventually clog up the sewers [especially when amalgamated with fats and other solids] preventing the free flow on which health and hygiene rely.

I very rarely put pans in the dishwasher. They take up too much space and non-stick pans are very easy to wash by hand. Like combining journeys and car sharing to cut down on driving there is a great deal that we can all do to minimise our impact on the environment, and without going to extremes.

Edit: You are absolutely right about the problems associated with waste plumbing in homes, John. I am very disappointed that more has not been done to address the problem.

To me as well Roger . Spock –of the good (American ship ) Enterprise -figures, would also say, Illogical in engineering terms (after speaking to Scotty ) . Its been admitted many times in America .

I think Engineers should take on a substantial role in ruling the country (and the world) as they combine expertise, enquiring minds, innovation and pragmatism in appropriate proportions. I’d also include some Scientists.

They certainly coudnt do any worse than the current politicians . The UK is getting ready for an emergency if there is no Brexit agreement – the military have been told to store food as have supermarkets . Dont get alarmed though HMG says -quote-“its just a precaution ” we are looking after your interests . I am sure an older guy than me said the same thing to me about the same “precautions ” before WW2 . You got my vote malcolm .

Malcolm – one of my frequently used sayings as I encounter life’s technical problems is “there is no problem that is not susceptible to an engineering solution”.

I think the stockpiling of essential commodities is easy to criticise and mock as the media are doing but if we didn’t and the worst happened we would look a bit silly and for some it could mean severe hardship. We have got ourselves into a corner over Brexit so the government owes it to us to find a way out.

We really are like a rabbit caught in the headlights right now not knowing which way to turn; I think this is going to go down as the biggest political débâcle in our history.

IT’s not a new thing either. I remember in yesteryear that What Car and “Motor” both used to list cost of replacing front brake pads, alternator, headlight bulbs and services as part of their road tests..

So did the very first Which? mag, for a Standard 10 and an A35 I think, although if I remember rightly the test report came from Sweden. I am all in favour of cooperation with other consumer bodies to share the costs and get better reports.

There are plenty of smartphones for far less money, of course. Best buys start at £200
https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/mobile-phones

We are susceptible to features that are added as phones are remodelled, presumably in the belief they will improve our life or image. The ease with which this can be done at the end of a 2 year contract is one problem, where the real cost does not hit you. Which? could maybe do more to point this out but it can only educate a relatively few people who are probably savvy enough anyway. Is there an answer to stopping this waste? What bothers me also is that this habit extends to the young, and even very young, people who must be seen to keep up with or ahead of their peers. Not a good training for later life, perhaps.

I’m all in favour of a refurbished market if sourced from reputable dealers, and even more in favour of a return to easily-replaceable batteries. My 12 year old dumb Nokia is still in service (but has been rather superseded by a hand-me-down Galaxy S4 in which I put a new battery – but it may not have been necessary as I was not clued up enough to know how quickly they discharged compared to said Nokia.

I suggest just passing older phones on to friends and family because so many problems have been reported about dealers. If a phone is worth too much to pass on then why not keep it and ignore the commercial hype about the latest and greatest phones.

Thats what upset American Big Advertising , they admitted the US public are getting more cynical about all those adverts saying – your neighbours got one , want to be left out of the crowd ? -upgrade now ! and they dont use all the facilities provided .

My 9 year old Nokia is still going strong on the original battery. I recharged it 2 days ago and the battery is still registering as full.

It is mainly used as an alarm clock to give daily reminders to take meter readings then coffee time, but is also still in service and gets used sometimes as it gets a better signal at home than the Samsung (same network 🙄 ) that can drop mid-conversation.

I can’t see the Samsung battery lasting 9 years.

Mine are too – I have a few Nokia 6310i phones and a few batteries in the drawer for a rainy day. Wonderful things. June uses one and it has endless staying power.

Must have been a Samsung battery . I wouldn’t mind losing only a single brain cell after 10 years.

Ten years is good for a car battery but there is no reason why this should not be common. Most modern car batteries cannot be topped up and that means that they will fail prematurely. That is poor design and a waste of resources.

I look after equipment owned by a charity. One of the batteries was fitted in 2003, which makes it 15 years old. It’s in use most days at this time of year. It is a traditional type and I keep it topped up with distilled water.

My tip for buying batteries is to avoid fast-fit and other normal retail outlets and go to a motor factor and buy a heavy duty battery, which will have at least the same CCA rating as the one it replaces. It’s best to replace a battery at the first sign that it is failing because it avoids inconvenience and a panic purchase that could be more expensive.

A motor factor will not replace a battery but it’s not difficult and there is plenty of information and safety advice online.

That is exactly what I have done all my life Wavechange –Motor Factor – cheaper and you get a choice and a technical comment on it relating to your car and —-yes – its always the heavy duty version . Good advice !

Sadly there are fewer and fewer motor factors around these days. A friend of mine’s father was a motor factor and his traditional shop was a veritable Aladdin’s cave of car parts from rubber pedal covers to semaphore trafficators and everything in between and since. He retired but was unable to sell the business as a going concern, although he was able to sell much of his stock to dealers and classic car enthusiasts.

Midnight Motors in Harrow was a treasure trove of car parts, and open till midnight. Great if you were repairing your car after work..

The motor factors that I am familiar with do not sell parts specific to particular cars, though can obtain them on request. They mainly focus on selling products that are in common use. A friend needed an oil filter for a 1949 Lister HA2 diesel engine and I suggested that he try the local motor factor. I suspect that it had to be ordered.

A branch of the motor factor I used to use opened nearby a couple of years ago, though I was not aware of this until recently. The garage trade are likely to be the main customers.

“Heavy Duty ” might have no legal meaning Phil but I have never bought a car battery on that basis its always been- on an AMP/Hour basis – heavy duty is a description, like most modern advertised products, till you read the small print.

You are quite right about ‘heavy duty’ being a meaningless term. Before I discovered motor factors I bought batteries from normal retail outlets and selected the highest capacity and most expensive one of the four that were shown as suitable for my car. The specifications were the same as the standard fitment for my car. The weight was similar too. Some ‘heavy duty’ batteries are rather light – as you can see if you put them on the bathroom scales.

Duncan – While the Ah rating is the standard term for capacity of a battery, for an engine starter battery the CCA (cold cranking amps) rating is more useful. Ah represents amps x hours and not amps per hour.

Your right Wavechange I shouldn’t have put the slash in .

Thanks. I realise that I should not have used the term ‘heavy duty’, which has been debased by marketing.

I think there are other words and phrases more over-used – “Rip off”, “Scandal”, “Plagued”, “Hideous”, “Hell”, “Last chance saloon”.

What will we use when these have lost their impact (if they haven’t already)?

Yes. We could have a discussion about that in The Lobby.

These are all words used in connection with “What we buy”. Marketing has been around since the year dot to persuade us to do, or not do, something. I think most people recognise marketing tactics. Heavy-duty is not an unreasonable way of describing something that people will understand – hedge trimmer, roofing felt, and, to my mind, if you have a choice of batteries for a car then a higher capacity heavier current one seems quite appropriately described as heavy duty.

As Phil has pointed out, heavy duty can be meaningless. I think I could get better value for money that buying from Halfords but commendably they classify the four batteries suitable for my car as having a 3, 4, 5 year and lifetime guarantee, rated at 480, 540, 620 and 600 CCA, respectively.

Have a look at cheap disposable batteries and they are often described as heavy duty, so the term is rather meaningless. These should be marked with their capacity in Ah or mAh in a standard discharge rate. The Ah capacity of a lead-acid battery is assumed to relate to discharge over 20h unless specified otherwise.

Yes, but I would look beyond the “headline” description of “heavy duty” or whatever.

Adding my 2d on car batteries… Obviously you would need loads of Amp Hours for a battery that has to do recreational duties as well as run the car (eg fridge, caravan stuff etc). However, I’d be wary of specifying an unnecessarily large capacity battery. Whilst in yesteryear Amp Hour went hand in hand with starting capability, for non hybrid cars (petrol and diesel) the important thing is the ability to deliver a couple of hundred amps for a few seconds with terminal voltage still up around 8 or more volts.

And there is a paradox. The larger capacity battery will have a greater acid volume and plate volume and surface area – and be more likely to sulphate itself to death prematurely than a smaller one if fitted to a small car with a puny alternator and an easy-spin starter,

Roger large capacity batteries for cars make it easier to start large(6-cylinder/8 -cylinder ) engines or high compression engines . My old Ford St 170 is high compression and a standard battery will not “kick it ” over a long period of time and its only 2 litre . The other batteries you are thinking of are Caravan batteries with a totally different discharge rate for continuous use.

As a lead-acid battery discharges, particularly after some weeks of self-discharge (or only a day or two if the lights have been left on), lead sulphate builds up on the lead plates, which on recharging fast can be reconstituted to lead and sulphuric to an extent – or at least freed off the plate to expose the metal (and sink fairly harmlessly to the bottom of the battery).
Yes caravan batteries are designed to allow fuller discharge – they have a greater depth for acid below the plates to allow for a greater build up of sulphate before they require electrolyte replacement.
However, unless I am mistaken, the amps per unit of plate surface area – both discharging (starting) and charging after a start – need to be within a critical range. If the rate is too high (which would result from a high compression engine/grunty alternator and too low a peak-amp rating battery) there is a risk of plates buckling due to local hot spots, which in turn will cause a battery failure; if the rate is too low (the scenario I suggest above – a huge battery and a Fiat 500) then the plate forces on cranking the starter and the recharging in the few minutes afterwards) will be too low to crack the sulphate off the plates, and the battery could well fail prematurely by plate resistance.

Lead-acid batteries are best kept fully charged at all times, which prevents sulphation. Starter batteries have thin plates to deliver high currents and minimise internal resistance. Under normal conditions they remain near fully charged because electrical loads are met by the alternator when the engine is running. As Duncan says, caravan batteries are different. They are classed as leisure batteries. Their life is very much dependent on the extent of discharge and how long they remain semi-discharged. Many who live off-grid and are dependent on solar power or generators try to avoid discharging leisure batteries by more than 50% of their capacity to achieve a compromise between useable energy storage and battery life. In the summer months I often spend at least a fortnight living off-grid.

I would be surprised if you can find a car alternator that delivers less than 100 amps these days, Derek, which meets all electrical loads when the engine is running.

Yes, the modern ones are often around 140 or 150A maximum output and it is amazing what they will produce even at idling speed. I have often seen 175A alternators but anything bigger really needs larger pulleys (while maintaining the size ratio to achieve the speed) or dual belts to reliably drive them without excessive wear.

The electronics in cars can drain batteries when not in use, so if you go abroad for a month it’s worth buying a cheap maintenance charger to prevent loss of charge and sulphation.

Vynor – I assume that the expensive batteries you are referring to are lithium ones, similar to the ones used in phones, cameras, laptops and an increasing number of power tools. They do not deteriorate if left partially charged but it’s vital to prevent them discharging too far because that will destroy them. Phones and laptops have circuitry that does this very well.

As you say an inverter can be a problem. The current drawn from a 12V battery will be about 10 times that of the current at 230V. The best solution is to use the inverter only when it is being charged and the alternator will provide all the power without depleting the battery. If you are powering a fridge it is more efficient to have a 12V model rather than running a standard mains fridge via an inverter. Apart from energy losses in the inverter they draw current even when the fridge compressor is not running.

I think we are getting a bit off topic. Sorry. 🙁

You also have to take into consideration there are two types of inverters – one is “modified sine wave “-aka cheap and pure sine wave -aka dear . Modified is usually a digitally produced square wave and that is the type most people have –unless you are rich . They can cause noise etc in electrical apparatus and some types of motors wont run on them . I know about very expensive sine wave inverters as they are used by some in very top end hi-fi to produce a “sparkingly” pure sine wave with extremely low distortion/ noise , you are talking big money here. They are also used in high end test labs along with test equipment costing ——–the earth ! . Yes ordinary inverters have a big drain current on the battery even though they use Mosfets /IGMosfets . I have a Maplin example I used at car boot sales (retired ) -1500 W output but the battery drained quickly when testing hoovers.

I will take your post to The Lobby, Mk 2, Duncan. I love technical discussions but we are seriously off-topic.

Okay Wavechange.