Getting household appliances fixed can be easier than you think

Duncan: fixing things around the house is not the preserve of the males in our society, nor should it be, and it doesn’t involve Engineering. It involves fixing. Engineering is often a four to five year course at a University just for starters, and a lot more to come before they become Chartered so calling a Dyson repair tech an Engineer is akin to calling the caretaker at the hospital a Doctor.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with education, either; it’s to do with the way the family and society have developed and the regulated culture that sees us increasingly moving towards a nanny state. But girls make some of the finest Engineers I’ve met. Their natural attention to detail, scrupulous preparation and careful presentation often exceeds that of boys’, and those I’ve known through our youngest have nailed and held senior positions in Jaguar, Grid, Airbus and a multitude of major Engineering companies who seek only the best. On the other hand, most can usually fix broken hinges and stick fanbelts onto Dysons, too. With a bit of help. Bet Lauren can reset her own circuit breakers…

Good for you Lauren ! and I bet you can do more than most young men in this day and age , dont stop learning , its all down to a practical and logical brain.

I strongly believe everyone should have a basic but usable knowledge of electrics and electricity. Our society would ground to halt in its absence, so understanding it is essential. And if you want to practice, Lauren, I can give you my address…

Excellent 🙂 Let us know next time you’re hiking around Snowdonia.

Sorry Wavechange; Duncan’s post caused me to run out a response without reading your comment, which I ought to have anticipated.

A lot of boys and young men have also been put off engineering [not because they have been told to put on an apron and go cook]. One of our biggest employment problems at the moment is the shortage of engineers coming through into the profession which is handicapping the UK’s growth potential at a crucial time. More effort needs to be put into ensuring that young people of both sexes are attracted to engineering. Only around 20% of A Level physics students are girls and this has not changed in 25 years. The Rio Olympics have shown what we can achieve when motivation and resources are directed at an objective. India shows the way where already over 30% of engineering students are women. What we need is a big uplift in total numbers of new engineers and cutting out the cookery courses for boys is not necessarily the way to get there.

John – if they are not taught at school how do they learn ? A child is heavily influenced by adults when young and what it learns it carries on into adulthood . this the whole basis of PC in schools as advanced by feminists ,they dont deny it , they publicize it vehemently. Most teachers are female . The excuse well its better for a males health if they learn to cook is ********, have you looked at what many women eat in cafes/restaurants/bakeries etc ,dont tell me its good for their health , if you check the figures males are now living longer and females shorter , why because they act like men drinking so much alcohol that in the US a bad result from a liver test is taken as normal and large numbers of females are dying of liver failure all because they are told to act “manlike “

Forgive me, Duncan, but I am not going to pursue you into that corner of the discussion.

But I will…. 🙂

Duncan: you have it all the wrong way round, I’m afraid. Teaching has gradually become a more female-dominated profession, but it always was, of course. Most Primary school teachers have traditionally been women, and most joined the NUT, making that the largest teaching union. But it’s a far more complex issue than you think

For the past twenty years males have been performing in schools less well than females. There are no easy answers as to why this has been happening, although some suggest the increasingly large part part played by continuous assessment in GCSE and even A Level examinations has favoured females, who excel at careful, detailed and precise, neat work whereas boys tend to excel at the single big effort or the examination model. Boys are also temperamentally and genetically less well-suited to sitting still and absorbing information; they prefer to move around and make discoveries. Boys also have shorter attention spans – again, a genetic characteristic and they also Psychologically seek instant gratification, whereas girls are adept at delaying gratification. I’ll say no more on that one.

Those same female traits are what make girls traditionally good teachers. But let’s examine the Engineering issue. True Engineering at the University level is far more than being able to make Meccano crane. It involves a sound grasp of advanced mathematics, modelling skills, computer skills, managerial methodology, deductive reasoning and far more. At its heart it’s a highly complex science involving branches of Chemistry and Biology and utterly dependent on a high level of Mathematical ability and a thorough grasp of Physics. In short, it ain’t easy.

Over the years, the pressure has been on youngsters to gain a university degree, without too much concern as to the nature of that degree. The better Universities haven’t made concessions to students and haven’t needed to, but the less successful have steadily lowered the academic quality of their offerings, so the much ridiculed’ Micky Mouse’ degree has supplanted those requiring sharp intellects and determination.

The Schools are, in the main, bound by the National Curriculum which determines that all children must be exposed to Mathematics, English and the Sciences. However, given the choices between academically demanding courses at A Level such as Physics, Engineering and Mathematics, and the less demanding such as Biology, Media studies and Psychology, which way is the average student going to jump? Children at the Secondary school age are also influenced mostly by their peers and not their parents.

I agree that schools must try to encourage the brightest and the best to do those courses at which they might excel and to which they are most suited. And therein lies the nub. Schools are very much the worse places to do this.

The year 12 and 13 students attend subjects by choice, and not by decree. Bright student tend to be both good at everything they do and to be the best to teach, so the average subject tutor will attempt to woo those students onto their courses. And charismatic teachers can do that very successfully, leaving the child in a course that suits the teacher better than it suits the student.

So no; the lack of girls choosing Engineering degrees is not down to a feminist agenda but to many other factors. But in the top Universities the percentages of females taking Engineering has been rising over the past 15 years, and rising steadily.

Ian- you are falling into the feminist/PC trap of -“boys have only one thing on their mind ” – and Female teachers- “we cant do anything with them ” and a whole page of likewise comments that get blasted over the media . In other words –they give up teaching them . I passed my 11+ with top marks went to high school where the teachers wore black uniforms you wouldnt dare cause trouble as a belt was waiting for you anyway . We all “belted down ” to learning and had a wide range of topics to learn from maths/science/music/ French/gymnastics/sports geography / music/art etc . None of it involved “life studies ” why ? because either your parents taught you or you spent a lot of time outside in contact with the general public – that was Real life – not pseudo- social psychology . When industry was “deconstructed ” by Maggie all the lower level male achievers were left without an apprenticeship this gave them some pride and satisfaction in that they were making something concrete instead of being servers now . All down to government policy of the City changing the social thinking philosophy of Britain. Males are now the underdog in society- ridiculed continually on UK media advertising / made fools of /put down etc while the government holds back a massive cover up in the number of young males committing suicide , worse than others . The “Donald ” has seen the light and wants to bring back US industry to the US but he is up against major monitory interests , Hedge companies , and a whole vast array of those with their noses in the trough . No this country has decided to go down a path of social engineering that leaves males in a state of limbo and most of us as figures in a Gallup Poll on how to get more money out of us by advertising.

I’m sorry, Duncan, but your opinion is exactly that: an opinion with no factual basis whatsoever. Lauren has asked us to get back on topic, but what you’re saying deserves a rebuttal.

Apprenticeships didn’t vanish because of a political decision: they vanished for a host of reasons, the most significant being that other countries were able to do the same work far more cheaply. But as you appear to be a Trump acolyte I would only add that the Education system in the UK has many faults, and you’ve managed to miss almost all of them. Perhaps we need a topic on Education.

Your right bishbut. About 25 years ago I bought a “security” bit set for my socket screwdriver from Maplin . It just shows you the bull you are told by manufacturers when they came out with this “security ” propaganda , when I checked into it intensively over a period I found out it was a manufacturers ploy to stop you repairing their products using various types of specialised screws . In my day you had the slot type and then came in the Philip’s type that actually gave a better grip as the slot type tended with cheap metal to widen and wear away . But this “new ” business is just a con no matter all the talk of “making it safer”-aka- bigger profits for repairing it. Now they make stuff that is impossible to repair unless you buy a complete assembly be it mechanical or electronic.

bishbut, you make a good point Being handy at home not only requires knowledge and common sense, but the correct tools. I bought a Makita tool box that included a large range of screw driver bits that suit lots of products, from your car to domestic items. It was inexpensive, as many tools are these days, and the quality of low cost tools has improved enormously. The screws that do require ingenuity are those with one way heads.

Quite agree malcolm , I joined the local library around the age of 8 or 9 (children,s section ) and spent the rest of my life soaking up knowledge of all sorts .There is something personal and inviting in reading a book than hours spent on the web (with trackers following you ) and that knowledge is more easily digestible as you can go over it again and again . Now, in many cases, much of it is hidden or verboten , I have a very large collection of technical books and would never throw them out , probably give them to somebody I think would benefit (educational wise ) when I am near departing . Knowledge is power let nobody tell you otherwise ,in the modern idiom – self-empowerment , as a certain group says.

Christopher -My mind conjures up an image of you walking round Portsmouth pulling a wooden trolley made up of wheels from an old 50,s pram squeeking as it goes and as time goes on the load gets bigger and bigger . It reminds me of an old 50,s film on Talking Pictures where the kids went round the streets gathering junk thrown out for collection so that they could put it to a birthday present for a sick kid . I was not adverse when young going to jumble sales to buy old valve wirelesses which I enjoyed repairing courtesy of the Practical Wireless magazine . I now go to car-boot sales although old stuff is in short supply ,saying that on Sunday I picked up a pair of Gale Gold Monitors ( hi-loudspeakers ) with stands for £20.

Your problem is that the company that did this job didnt seal the hole they made in your roof correctly ( or not at all ) . Many people dont realise how easily water driven by wind can enter even the smallest gap . Dont even bother paying somebody to take it apart its probable the chip, inside is shot because of water damage you might find green grunge or dried in stain due to the water and dust inside combing . DVD recorders arent dear now due to young people changing to web downloads and SSD,s dont even pay for an inspection . I have tripped over the number of DVD players/recorders at car-boot sales but nobody buys them and now they dont appear.

The problem arose when low-loss coaxial cable was introduced. This has air-spaced rather than solid plastic surrounding the centre conductor. It effectively has small tubes through which water can pass and get into TVs and recorders. Hopefully this sort of cable is no longer being used, but I know people who have had water come down their aerial cable.

The problem should not occur if the TV etc is connected via a wall socket.

It might be worth making a few enquiries of places that do repair or recondition DVD recorders but if it’s more than two or three years old, as Duncan says, it might not be worth it. Second-hand DVD’s do turn up in the better charity shops [like British Heart Foundation] where they will have been electrically tested and proved to work satisfactorily. You can put your name down for the next one that comes in.

But whatever you decide to do you should get the aerial entry port dealt with to prevent water going in. Obviously it depends where it enters your home but if it comes through a wall there are three things that should stop water ingress. First, the TV aerial cable should drop a short distance below the level of the entry port and then curve upwards into it – any drips will then drop off the bottom of the curve and not go into the wall. Second, sealant should used to close any gap between the wall structure and the cable. Third, the entry port should be covered by a plate that has a little hump at the base line to allow the cable to enter and pass into the wall; the hump will deflect any water away from the aperture. Cables should not enter buildings vertically through the roof.

John – What you suggest is good practice to prevent water entering where the cable passes through the wall, but the problem that Suze has is caused by the aerial cable acting like a pipe. If the cable is not sealed on the roof, water will enter run down it if it is the air-spaced variety.

Wavechange , if what you say is correct then you do realise that , that means the cable will have to be replaced ? I am sure you know as well as me the losses that occur at such high a frequency due to a lower insulation threshold means that cable will constantly deteriorate resulting in a weak signal and eventually no signal ? I would advise Suze to get an independent technician to disconnect the cable to see if that is the type of co-ax you mention.

I would agree with that. Choose a reputable aerial installer, though. Once up a ladder anyone can say: “Yes, the cable’s useless – you’ll have to replace it”. If you do have to have it replaced don’t get ripped off on price, get a quote showing labour and materials separately – good quality coaxial aerial cable is not dear, less than £1 a metre at trade prices. There will probably be some other fittings required.

Having looked into the problem, water ingress can also be caused if the cable is damaged at some point between the aerial or satellite dish and where it terminates inside the house. If the cabling is external rather than taken into the roof space it can be particularly vulnerable where it passes over the edge of roof tiles unless measures are taken to avoid abrasion.

It appears that modern low-loss cables are designed to avoid the problem of acting as miniature pipes in the event of water ingress. One solution is to use foam-filled cables.

Prompted by this Conversation I ventured into the loft of my house to find out if I might be at risk of water running down TV cables. I found that the cable had been replaced, presumably because of the move from analogue to digital TV, and the engineer had left a pile of old cables and his cable fishing tool in the loft. The old cable had large air spaces and when I tested a several metre length, water passed though easily. I also examined a short off-cut of the new cable and found this was foam-filled, without air spaces.

One of the benefits of the digital switchover has been the installation of new aerials and low-loss cable, but I wonder how much old air-spaced cable is still in use and could damage TVs etc.

Apologies-I’ve had a few issues signing back in. Thanks for the advice. The cable was over twenty years old, so I did get it replaced at the same time. I suspect other people may have this happening without realising it. I presume from other comments that newer homes have cable sockets, so nothing would go directly into a tv/recorder.

Your comment prompted me to investigate the TV cables in the house I moved into earlier this year, so was useful. Some of the cable to the aerial sockets is the old air-spaced variety, but that runs in the roof and cavity wall. I am reassured that the important cable between the roof aerial and the amplifier in the loft is new foam-filled cable.

It’s probably standard to have aerial sockets in new houses but for extra TV points it seems common to run cables down the wall and through the cavity wall, leaving a flying lead with a TV plug on the end. Hopefully no-one is still using air-spaced cable.

The builders of our house put TV aerial outlets in seven rooms and cabled them up into the loft but only connected one of them to a terminal block near where the aerial would go. When we had the aerial installed we had to hunt the live outlet and the installer had to crawl around digging down through 30mm of insulation to find the missing cables and join them in. Luckily in each case there was enough cable to make the connection without having to use a connector.

John – I expect that you have an amplifier/booster to ensure that each TV has a decent signal, and the cables to each room will be connected to it. The amplifier will be mounted close to the aerial, either on the pole (masthead amplifier) or in the loft close to the aerial, which is what I have. The only TV point I use is connected to my TV via a power supply for the amplifier in the loft, which seems to be a common arrangement.

I don’t think we have an amplifier but we only watch one TV set at a time and we only have two. The aerial is a high-gain type and might have a built-in amplifier plugged into the loft socket – I can’t remember. There are two lofts and the one containing the aerial is quite small and not a place I would enjoy visiting again! The picture is very good except on SD via Freeview if it is raining heavily near the transmitter.

If the signal is strong enough (which will depend on height, location and aerial), there is no need for an amplifier and a simple splitter will do the job, but with the more outlets on a splitter, the more the signal will be attenuated (weakened). I could be wrong but I don’t believe it matters whether a TV is in use or not.

Having an amplifier or splitter should make it unlikely that water can get into a TV. I wonder if contents insurance excludes damage from water that runs down an aerial cable. It’s something I have not checked.

Your right Wavechange , it doesnt matter whether the TV is on or not transmission losses via the splitter, if it is NOT active for every output on both the cable and the actual splitter network , as you say, weaken the signal thats why large UK top end TV cable installation companies working for major councils in flats etc always us very large high gain powered splitters . I actually have several from well known English companies and they put the Land of Built to a Price to shame. The internal active components are of high quality no cheap far east sweat shop companies but top electronic component manufacturers .