Cooking Oil dumped in GU Paddington.

[magnetman]

 

 

It is impossible for either of us to be wrong if there is a difference. Negligible or not. 

 

Even if the black radiator is 0.00000000000000000000001% more efficient than the white radiator it is still more efficient. 

Edited February 29 by magnetman
edit for lighting

[Momac]

 

On the canal oil thing clearly some commercial operation is putting waste oil into a drain which they should not be doing at all (even if its a foul sewer) . The sewer may  be blocked by the fat and if its a very old sewer there may be an overflow into the canal. Or maybe they are using a surface water sewer which is even worse.

 

Any oily contamination like this will easily be spread by the wind and by any flow, however small that flow may be,  in the canal. 

 

Hopefully the source of the oil will soon be discovered  by the relevant authorities.

 

[magnetman]

I once saw a coal Boat who offered lavatory pumpout which shall remain anonymous discharging via a hose to a large drain beside the A406 aqueduct. 

 

Because of the food factory there I associated this with effluent flow from the industrial premises but it could easily be unrelated and it is the other side of the canal. 

 

It must be fairly easy for someone from the EA to spot the source using a bit of common sense. It appears to be too much to be container dumping. 

The bread dumping in there is pretty terrible as well. I saw someone park up and empty bin liners full of bread into the canal. The birds don't want it. 

 

 

 

 

[Steve Bassplayer]

On 28/02/2024 at 23:11, MtB said:

Must have taken a lot of effort to dump it over a six mile stretch. Is it deliberate vandalism? 

 

 

 

Maybe the BBC are that desperate for a new story?

 

Edited March 1 by Steve Bassplayer

[David Mack]

2 hours ago, IanD said:

 

Anyone remember the experiment from chemistry where you spread a drop of oil on the surface of water and looked at the pretty colours and how far it spread?

 

A very thin layer forms, which means a small amount of oil spreads an awfully long way given enough time... 😞

I was thinking of that too. The teacher told us that if there were no constraints the oil would spread out until the layer was one molecule thick. By estimating the drop size and then measuring the extent of the 'slick' we could calculate the size of an oil molecule.

[IanD]

Just now, David Mack said:

I was thinking of that too. The teacher told us that if there were no constraints the oil would spread out until the layer was one molecule thick. By estimating the drop size and then measuring the extent of the 'slick' we could calculate the size of an oil molecule.

That's exactly the experiment I was thinking of. You have to dilute the oil (in alcohol IIRC?) to get a small enough quantity, otherwise one drop spreads *way* too far -- a layer one molecule thick is *very* thin... 😉

[Momac]

20 minutes ago, magnetman said:

 

 

It must be fairly easy for someone from the EA to spot the source using a bit of common sense. 

Depending on the sewer network the source could be some distance away.

[magnetman]

8 minutes ago, Momac said:

Depending on the sewer network the source could be some distance away.

Its come into the waterway and dispersed. I think they will be able to work it out pretty quickly. 

 

If it is ongoing then it may just be a blockage or a broken pipe somewhere. 

 

One hopes it is not something more sinister. There are a lot of different waste products associated with food production. I bought a Boat from a gentleman who worked for the EA in pollution control and he told me about a major problem with spoiled duck eggs being dumped in a watercourse and causing significant issues for the local ecology. It went to court and the offender was prosecuted. 

 

 

 

 

[matty40s]

3 hours ago, Jon57 said:

Kyle 😁

Ta

[ditchcrawler]

1 minute ago, matty40s said:

Ta

 

1 minute ago, matty40s said:

Ta

Brian's boat, he was connected with the RN manufacturing company.

[matty40s]

25 minutes ago, Steve Bassplayer said:

 

You mean one that doesnt start with...."yes, he was wrong, and has had the whip removed..."

[Steve Bassplayer]

9 minutes ago, matty40s said:

You mean one that doesnt start with...."yes, he was wrong, and has had the whip removed..."

 

TBH, I'm surprised dumping of cooking oil into the GU around there doesn't happen more often. Anyway he might not want to have the whip removed.. 😕

 

I hope all is well with you both Matty. Currently trapped between 3 stoppages. I'm more worried about that TBH. 

[Iain_S]

2 hours ago, magnetman said:

I once saw a coal Boat who offered lavatory pumpout which shall remain anonymous discharging via a hose to a large drain beside the A406 aqueduct. 

(snip)

Fair enough if it was a foul water drain. (If not, NOT!)

[TheBiscuits]

9 hours ago, magnetman said:

All I remember about physics was being told again and again that a white radiator was more effective than a black radiator. I was stubborn about the black radiator being more effective. 

 

Teachers constantly told me that the white radiator is more efficient. I never believed them and had x marked on my tests. 

 

 

 

 

Hah!

 

I did the same on a physics paper.  I answered the question as written, then underneath corrected the question and answered that too.

 

Yes, a black radiator is more efficient at radiating.  Most heat output from a domestic "radiator" on a central heating system is via convection though.

[IanD]

11 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Hah!

 

I did the same on a physics paper.  I answered the question as written, then underneath corrected the question and answered that too.

 

Yes, a black radiator is more efficient at radiating.  Most heat output from a domestic "radiator" on a central heating system is via convection though.

If you're being picky, a black radiator is more efficient at radiating in the visible spectrum and at high temperatures  -- meaning, hundreds of degrees. At typical domestic radiator temperatures where radiation is in the far infrared all colours have very similar emissivity, so are just as efficient at radiating -- which is to say, not very... 😉

[Mike Todd]

9 hours ago, IanD said:

That's exactly the experiment I was thinking of. You have to dilute the oil (in alcohol IIRC?) to get a small enough quantity, otherwise one drop spreads *way* too far -- a layer one molecule thick is *very* thin... 😉

And could not be thinner . . .

[Ronaldo47]

One sunny easter morning after overnight rain, the first lock we went through had freshly-painted wooden balance beams, black with white ends. The black parts were bone dry and slightly warm to the touch, while the white ends were still covered in rain drops and were icy-cold.  Which to me conclusively  demonstrated that black bodies are significantly  better absorbers of radiation than white bodies.  Logically, the same ought to apply in respect of radiation emission, which is certainly what I was taught at school.  

[Midnight]

22 hours ago, Jon57 said:

Kyle 😁

 

Naw, he only uses it to fry his chips and to wax his beard 😆

[Jon57]

3 minutes ago, Midnight said:

 

Naw, he only uses it to fry his chips and to wax his beard 😆

Brian not Jimmy 👍

[MtB]

9 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

One sunny easter morning after overnight rain, the first lock we went through had freshly-painted wooden balance beams, black with white ends. The black parts were bone dry and slightly warm to the touch, while the white ends were still covered in rain drops and were icy-cold.  Which to me conclusively  demonstrated that black bodies are significantly  better absorbers of radiation than white bodies.  Logically, the same ought to apply in respect of radiation emission, which is certainly what I was taught at school.  

 

 

Same here. I learned the same and it seems intuitively correct. Similarly as a heating bod my experience is that radiators DO radiate heat but people seem to get so desperately aerated about this when I say so and insist they only convect! After decades of experience commissioning new central heating systems I can stick my head around a door and look at a rad on the far side of the room and usually tell from that if it is hot or cold, before walking across the room the feel it. Am I telepathic or am I sensing the heat radiation on my face? Answers on a postcard....

 

 

 

[Arthur Marshall]

5 minutes ago, MtB said:

! After decades of experience commissioning new central heating systems I can stick my head around a door and look at a rad on the far side of the room and usually tell from that if it is hot or cold, before walking across the room the feel it. Am I telepathic or am I sensing the heat radiation on my face? Answers on a postcard....

 

 

 

Maybe you are subconsciously sensing the visual changes caused by the heat rising off the hot one? It can't be telepathy unless the radiator is alive, which even with AI getting evetywhere, would be a slightly worrying thought. Although, with St Pat's night coming up, of course, it's worth noting that the writer of Danny Boy was quite aware of plumbing's powers of communication.

[Tacet]

10 hours ago, Ronaldo47 said:

One sunny easter morning after overnight rain, the first lock we went through had freshly-painted wooden balance beams, black with white ends. The black parts were bone dry and slightly warm to the touch, while the white ends were still covered in rain drops and were icy-cold.  Which to me conclusively  demonstrated that black bodies are significantly  better absorbers of radiation than white bodies.  Logically, the same ought to apply in respect of radiation emission, which is certainly what I was taught at school.  

Agreed.  But the radiation relates to the fourth power of the temperature - and as the balance beams were being warmed by the sun, the fourth power is a very big number.  When considering wet panel connectors and the like, the phenomenon is very modest between colours.

1 hour ago, MtB said:

 

 

Same here. I learned the same and it seems intuitively correct. Similarly as a heating bod my experience is that radiators DO radiate heat but people seem to get so desperately aerated about this when I say so and insist they only convect! After decades of experience commissioning new central heating systems I can stick my head around a door and look at a rad on the far side of the room and usually tell from that if it is hot or cold, before walking across the room the feel it. Am I telepathic or am I sensing the heat radiation on my face? Answers on a postcard....

 

 

 

Would you have half an idea before you enter the room?  If so, you probably have guilty feelings about awkward pipe runs that may prove awkward to bleed etc.

 

More possibly, you might be able to see the air currents rising from the rad due to the difference in densities?

[IanD]

48 minutes ago, Tacet said:

Agreed.  But the radiation relates to the fourth power of the temperature - and as the balance beams were being warmed by the sun, the fourth power is a very big number.  When considering wet panel connectors and the like, the phenomenon is very modest between colours.

Would you have half an idea before you enter the room?  If so, you probably have guilty feelings about awkward pipe runs that may prove awkward to bleed etc.

 

More possibly, you might be able to see the air currents rising from the rad due to the difference in densities?

 

It's not just the temperature -- as you say, radiation increases *very* rapidly with temperature, which is why domestic "radiators" dissipate something like 90% of their heat by convection.

 

It's to do with infrared emissivity (same as absorption in reverse) -- for visual light and near infra-red (short wavelengths) which is what the sun puts out, colour makes a big difference, hence the white vs. black difference on sunny balance beams. But for the far infra-red which is what low-temperature bodies like radiators emit, colour makes little difference, all painted surfaces have very similar (and high) emissivity. What is *really* bad is polished metal...

 

https://www.thermoworks.com/emissivity-table/

 

Most common materials (including paint of all colours, wood, brick, concrete, fabric, ice, plaster, rubber, soil, tile, water...) are in the range 0.84-0.97, meaning they only radiate between 3% and 16% less than an ideal black body -- the differences between them are small, especially when only a small fraction of the total heat is radiated anyway (e.g. "radiators"). This is why there's only a *very* small difference in heating performance between black and white radiators (see earlier link which quoted 1%) -- and measurements back this up, it's not just some arcane physics theory with no relevance to the real world... 😉

 

Polished metal however is *really* bad at radiating/absorbing infrared (polished brass is 0.03, copper 0.05, chrome 0.1) so this is the worst possible finish for radiators -- even if it's trendy... 😞

Edited March 1 by IanD

[peterboat]

On 29/02/2024 at 08:54, magnetman said:

Not sure about the engines but I would like to experiment with drip feeding used cooking oil into the woodburner.

 

It Clcould be interesting if done right. Lots of calorific value. 

 

The sunflower oil left in a tin of mackerel goes off like a bomb when dropped on a hot fire ! 

 

A day tank with metal pipes and a tap. Bulkhead fitting through top of the fire. 

 

Might work I have heard of it being done with old lube oil but it must make a mucky flue and stink a bit outside.

It does

[Ronaldo47]

Your sensation of comfort is determibed by the balance betwern the heat radiated from your body and the radiant  heat received from your surroundings. My first house was a 1920's-bulit end terrace  with solid brick walls where the living room was next to the outside wall next to the side entrance. When I redecorated the living room, before applying the woodchip wallpaper that was all the rage in the 1970's, I lined the wall with the thin expanded polystyrene plastic that used to be available in wallpaper-sized rolls before the potential fire risks associated with polystyrene wall coverings and ceiling  tiles was appreciated.  I found that after applying the polystyrene  wall covering and before applying the woodchip, on entering the unheated room from the unheated hall, I immediately felt much  warmer.   I assumed that, because the surface layer of the expanded polystyrene was extremely thin, and underlain by insulating pockets of air it had a very low thermal mass. It could therefore quickly be heated by heat radiated from me and reflect heat back to me. Once the woodchip paper had been applied and painted with emulsion-paint, the sensation of warmth in the unheated room, vanished.

 

So I can quite understand why you would be able to detect the presence of a cold substance such as a cold radiator. 

Edited March 1 by Ronaldo47
typos