Category: Patrick Dunford

  • Is Commercial Toilet Paper Cheaper? [2]

    Well it’s a bit of time since the first part of this series was written, but Blog is pleased to have waited, since Consumer recently published a report on domestic toilet paper including the cost per metre, which is the only reasonable way of comparing products. The Tork Jumbo Junior roll has a length of…

  • Is Commercial Toilet Paper Cheaper? [1]

    One of the features of the pandemic has been an obsession by some members of our community with having adequate supplies of that most basic and lowly domestic commodity, toilet paper. Much publicity has accompanied the sights of people stacking vast quantities of toilet paper into shopping trolleys and attempting to get these through supermarket…

  • Historical Christchurch In Aerial Photography [0]: Introduction

    This month the blog is starting a series of posts on the history of Christchurch as seen in aerial photos. The Department of Lands and Survey, commonly known as L&S, which was the old government department responsible for maps, and which is now called Land Information New Zealand (Linz), and its predecessors began using orthogonal…

  • Steam Mopping Vs Chemical Cleaning [2]

    In Part 1 I wrote about my purchase of a steam mop. Since then I have also continued using string mops and recently purchased a wringer bucket from Bunnings for $42 to use with string mops. I can tell you that I think folding foam mops are largely a waste of time because the foam…

  • Brief History of Fisher & Paykel Top Loading Autowashers

    It’s been decided this post fits better on NZ Techonverse so the series has been moved over there, the first part is now up and the other parts will be progressively added.

  • A Tale Of Two Electricities

    This post is about electricity and how the Government has taken a cavalier approach to it in the last 30 years or so in NZ. Firstly in electrical safety, and secondly in the provision of electricity at a cost that people can afford. So let’s look at electrical safety. We can remember Consumer magazine reporting…

  • Home Heating: Radiant Vs (Oil) Column Vs Convector

    I’ve always had predominantly or exclusively electric heating everywhere I’ve lived. There are quite a few different types of electric heaters available out there. The three types listed here are the best ones, in my view. I’ll briefly discuss the reasons for excluding other types: Fan heater. The cheapest models seldom last more than one…

  • Time To Reconsider Need For Facebook

    On this blog and others I write, I have criticised Facebook on numerous occasions. The reason for this is simply that Facebook has become so huge and dominant that they are becoming bullies who suck vast amounts of information out of us without our consent and impose very draconian and tyrannical controls over the use…

  • Philips LED Light Bulbs

    Any electronic geek such as myself knows that LEDs used to be these little red, green or orange pilot lights on electrical appliances, just a little speck of light that would tell you a device was powered up or maybe your radio was tuned in correctly. Seven segment displays was another major application of LEDs…

  • Make Your Own Yoghurt

    I’ve always loved having yoghurt in my diet, but for a long time I bought the varieties that have sugar and flavouring added to them, whether it was in a six pack of the small pottles,or a larger 700 g to 1 kg pottle for a few servings. In more recent times looking at healthy…