January 2015 - Helpful Colin

A North Norfolk Railway Journey

The North Norfolk Railway Poppy Line

The North Norfolk Railway (NNR), known as The Poppy Line, runs from Holt to Sheringham via Kelling Heath Halt (for Kelling Heath Park) and Weybourne. A total distance of 5¼ miles. It runs along the eastern section of the North Norfolk coast but stays inland from Holt to Weybourne at the western end. After Weybourne it runs nearer the coast on its way east to Sheringham. See a map of the line here. This has been made available by www.strollingguides.co.uk. The line is also highlighted here on a Google map.

My wife, our dog Leo and I road the rails there and back from Holt on 10^th April 2014.

Below: You can see No.76034 having recently arrived at Holt. (Also shown in the featured image.)

north norfolk railway — No.76034 having recently arrived at Holt.

Mira Shower Thermal Switch Replacement

Introduction

This article advises how I have replaced a Mira Shower thermal switch in a MIRA Sport 9kW Thermostatic Shower on several occasions.

Originally I installed a MIRA Sport 9kW Thermostatic Shower as part of a new bathroom and had it tested and certified by a qualified electrician on 1^st May 2007. I was very pleased with it and it worked well for three years until June 2010 when it developed a fault.

I found that in the middle of taking a shower the water would go cold for a few seconds and then get warm again. On the first few occasions I wondered if cold water being drawn off by other taps and appliances was lowering the water pressure to the shower and so causing it to operate incorrectly (although the low pressure light was not illuminating). As the days went by the problem got worse and my wife ended up washing shampoo off with cold water. I knew then that I would be in bad books until it was fixed.

I had to determine if this fault could be fixed or if I would have to replace the entire shower unit. For this I needed to take a look inside the shower unit.

Tiled Bath Panel Construction

Preface

I could write an article about Building A Bathroom or Tiling A Bathroom but I have decided to just cover a Tiled Bath Panel in this article even though some detail of the tiles on the walls is mentioned. Bath panels can easily be made from painted hardboard or plywood, or boards, but a tiled panel can fit in with the rest of the bathroom very well when all the walls are tiled.

Dishwasher Rinse Aid Dispenser Catch Repair

Introduction

It must be nearly two years ago that I first had a problem with my Dishwasher Rinse Aid Dispenser Catch. The tab that has to be pushed towards the top of the door to open the rinse aid dispenser, so that more rinse aid can be added, had somehow broken and disappeared. I found I could continue to open it by pressing the remaining catch towards the top of the door using the handle end of a teaspoon.

Since refilling the rinse aid dispenser doesn’t happen everyday I was happy to continue with that opening method indefinitely. However about six months ago I found the entire catch was missing leaving the rinse aid dispenser door flapping in the breeze. I searched inside the dishwasher and found the plastic part of the catch but not the coil spring. Also when I inserted the catch its retaining clips no longer wanted to spring outwards and perform their retaining action. The whole plastic catch appeared to have been eroded by the dishwashing process. I noticed that the dishwasher liquid dispenser catch looks similarly eroded, but that works on a different principal and is still O.K. The detergent and rinse aid compartment covers are made of a different plastic which has not shown signs of erosion.

After several months without using rinse aid I decided I should take action to fix the catch.

Select Posts by Category?

My Latest News

3rd June 2019: I’ve had a go at making testimonials look better. The previous method was a mess so I’ve used the Kadence Testimonials block to produce a testimonials page with two neat columns which are now accessed from the Posts menu since they all originate via Post Comments.

1st June 2019: Continuing to edit using blocks I have changed to a Kadence FAQ block to display Frequently Asked Questions and their answers. I spotted a problem with the accordion block and Ben Ritner has very kindly edited the block to resolve it. There has been some editing of the Qs & As and you might find I mess with it some more.

I have also begun using the Contents Table block by Ultimate Addons for Gutenberg to show the contents of my posts. I am inserting this block after the Introduction. If I put it first as it would be in a book it causes some issues:

In my list of posts that is shown in reverse date order I only want the Introduction or part thereof to be seen. If I put the contents block first that will be seen. It will take up a lot of screen space and won’t be very interesting.
The contents block links to all the headings used in the post but that doesn’t work when it’s viewed in the list of post snippets described in 1 above.

1st February 2019: I have just deleted a file named wordfenceScanner.php.bin from my PHP .opcache folder on my server. Wordfence had detected it contained the TimThumb script which is considered to be unsafe. I must look into methods of cleaning my PHP cache. It looks as if it contains some outdated files.

2nd January 2019: Again I couldn’t get my WP v5.0.1 to update to v5.0.2 so I followed Wordfence’s instructions and upgraded it manually. I made a good job of it and searched for the cause of the problem. It turned out to be caused by the plugin DGXPCO which is designed to improve Core update security.

Hopefully if the Core updating server got hacked and a false Core program was sent this plugin wouldn’t allow it to be applied due to manual intervention. Well that manual intervention failed to allow valid Core updates through so I have deactivated that plugin for the time being.

Continue to My Latest News Archive.

Site Construction

The site helpfulcolin.com was originally built in September 2011 by Digitalog© using the Side Blog theme and handed over to Helpful Colin by his mentors (see their links below) in December 2011. It was changed to a ‘Twenty Fourteen’ child theme in February 2014 by Helpful Colin.

The latest major change took place in December 2015 when WordPress version 4.4 became active and Helpful Colin changed the theme to the ‘Twenty Sixteen’ theme which is designed to look good on all screen sizes. Although this may have improved the blog for mobile users it has removed some functionality available in ‘Twenty Fourteen’.