General Chat

It said in my Rhondda quarterly ratepayers brochure (following typical life of a bin man) that his alarm went at 5.30 every morning, got to depot by 6.30am and he finished work at 2.30pm.

It is part of this old-fashioned nonsense of starting early and finishing early. Early bird catches the worm, an hour before twelve is worth two after etc. Reason all the roads are clogged between 7.30 and 9 every morning.

But it has often been the case that you can't make a lot of noise before 8am. Can't hoot your horn before and after a certain hour etc. And I think few workmen here would dig a road up or do repair work before 8am in a built-up area.

Yes Potty, every day in summer. 5 times a week in winter. It´s really very good unless you live in a block of apartments where the tenants can´t be bothered to walk to the bins (usually less than 100 yards) & leave their full bags in the communal entrances & stairways, presumably in the hope that someone else will deal with them.
Generally speaking the public amenities here are extremely efficient.

Wisechild, it sounds as if your bins emptied every day. Some places here they are only emptied once a fortnight. Imagine what that is like when we occasionally get two hot days running!

Yes Ann. In the dark & in all weathers.
Needless to say it´s OH´s job. Well he goes out anyway to close the shutters :-D
Collecting the rubbish is an art form here.
We have never been fined(yet), but a policeman did tell OH off one night when he took a bag out at about 5pm.
The restriction makes sense in summer when the bins smell awful if rubbish is in them all day in the heat, but to be honest, that´s only true for about 3 months of the year.
As you say, Elf & safety would have a field day here.

So are you supposed to go out in the dark to put your rubbish bags in? I don't think that is the case in Tenerife. If it is we haven't been caught yet. Where we stay they seem to collect the rubbish about 10pm some days. Love the way the operatives leap onto the back of the trucks and travel there, sometimes at quite a high speed. Can't see that being accepted here by 'elf and safety.

True Ann, I´m not in the UK, but I still like my cuppa in the morning.
Not sure about working hours here, but if they say 8 am, I would expect them to stick to it.
In fairness, it came back on at about 10.15.
As far as bin collections are concerned, in Spain they start at about midnight until about 5a.m. We have communal bins in the street & can be fined if we are caught putting rubbish bags into them before 9 pm.
I wouldn´t complain too much about yours John.

I want to know why all bin collections start at 7am and end at 2.30 pm, but that is another story.

John, presumably because their working day is likely 7am to 4:45 pm, and in that time the last collection has to be delivered to the landfill site/recycling centre, and the lorry cleaned out,, servicedand parked up, before they knock off for the day........

at least thats so in my area.......
Bob

Found this on SSE website

"Regulation 14 - Planned interruption of supply
If your local distribution company needs to interrupt your supply, they’ll give you at least 2 days’ notice. If they don’t, you can
claim by contacting them within a month of the failure. They’ll pay £22 for domestic customers" There is also compensation paid by wholesale supplier each time supply is off for more than so many hours.

Had not realised wisechild was outside UK, but probably still worth checking - as t & c may be similar to UK. If a meter is changed and noone doesn't turns up, there is compensation paid - and very few know about it. One OAP I know has now been let down 5 times now - and he is very proud of the fact that he has been able to take his wife out for lunch on British Gas five times :-)

Wisechild is not in UK.

That is not on wisechild if they had done that to me and I had not managed to get my cuppa for breakfast I would have gone mad , Hope you phoned them :-0

What happened to Manana (sp) ??? :-D

I wonder if they are allowed to do work before 8am. I think, unless emergency work, it cannot be started till 8am. It may be that you are entitled to some compensation if they work outside the hours of 8am till 12 noon.

In my area, it is Western Power who do all these type of electrical supply works. Could be worth checking with regulator or even your electricity retailer (British Gas, E.On, NPower, SSE etc). They may give you impartial advice and it could well get you a free meal out. And why not?

I want to know why all bin collections start at 7am and end at 2.30 pm, but that is another story.

Got a note on Friday from our electricity co. to say the power would be off between 8am & noon today, 2nd July. (a frequent happening here)
Organised ourselves yesterday to make sure we were up by 7.30 so that we could at least have breakfast first.
As luck would have it I was up by 7am, made a coffee & settled down to watch the news. OH still in the land of nod.
7.10 am, off goes the power. :-0 :-0 :-0 :-| :-| :-|
Wonder what time we will get it back. I´ve arranged to go out for the morning, as has OH. Forward planning or what?
Will probably find it´s back on by 10am, so a morning wasted.