To ask what you should know but don't

[Donotunderstandmyhouse]

I have a thread (embarrassingly) atm about the the fact that I have no clue about my own boiler and heating system. Please could I ask you to make me feel slightly less inept as a parent to be and an adult by asking what you do not or did not know that you should ? I'm talking things like one of my friends knew nothing about council tax when we first moved out of our parents homes 🙈

It IS 'termeric' isn't it?? Anyone saying 'tumouric ' has just got it wrong ...??

@WhiteDust same! 🙄

I don’t understand how energy supply companies work.

Where do they keep the energy? How do they know which is theirs?

Coffee, any of it, I don't drink it, Starbuck's menu might as well be a book of spells from Hogwarts.

@peanut2017 - me too! I have the worst sense of direction in the world. I’m almost constantly lost. All roads look the same to me.

Ditto restaurants/toilets. Once on a night out I went to the loo in Mcdonalds, got lost and ended up wandering back through the kitchens 🙄

I could never work in a hospital or anywhere with lots of rooms/floors. I’d never find anywhere.

Where do they keep the energy? How do they know which is theirs?

They don't keep the energy anywhere. Producers put energy in to the national grid and suppliers monitor and charge you for how much you take out, passing (hopefully most) of that to the producers. Sometimes it's the same company, but often it isn't.

Think of it like a bucket with holes in the bottom. Producers pour water in to the top. Your energy supplier keeps track of how much is coming out of each hole and charges each customer for their little stream of water. They then pay the people who pour the water in at the top for how much their customers have used. When you switch suppliers it just means a different person is monitoring your little hole and passing your money on.

Thank you Cordelia but I still just can’t get my head round it 😳

How electricity works!

Do you mean in terms of how it comes into your house and powers things?

You can think of it like water coming through pipes, and switches are like taps.

The reason it comes by high voltage cables and pylons, etc, is because if they transmitted it at 240v, like your house, the overhead wires would get so hot they’d melt, plus the heat would waste vast amounts of the energy. So it’s HV until near to your house, then stepped down.

I dread anything happening to the car when I'm driving it. I have breakdown cover, but I can see the breakdown van appearing & the mechanic asking me to 'just open the bonnet', whereupon I burst into tears, as I don't have the slightest idea how to go about this. I can't do bending and lifting so I have left all basic car maintenance to DH to sort out. I think I'm doing well to change the time on the clock.

@Rumbletum2

Electricity doesn’t get stored anywhere, if that’s what’s confusing you?

It’s produced at the same rate it’s being used. Power stations are ramped up and down according to how much demand there is.

It’s a bit more complicated - you can’t easily switch some types of power generation on and off. But there’s a central team monitoring power usage, likely surges - advert breaks in big TV shows when everyone boils the kettle, for example - and they tell the stations what to do.

I dont understand much about modern technology. How to listen to a podcast? How to tweet/ Twitter? How to follow people? I have fb but that's about all. What echos/ dots/ spotify/ clouds etc are or do? Not sure if I'm missing anything but I'll probably have to try to work it out if only to have some control over dc in future!

How to figure out whether I'm being taken for a ride. Especially by car mechanics. Of course I can get a second opinion before having anything major done, but I seem to get lied to over minor stuff too.

I would actually be willing to pay considerably over the odds for the privilege of just being able to trust that they are telling me the truth.

Anything to do with the Solar System is a complete and utter mystery to me despite countless attempts by my husband & son to explain it

American football rules.

I realise when in the cleaning aisle in the supermarket I don't know much at all about properly cleaning.

My product go tos are a bathroom spray, polish and zoflora. Maybe some bleach for the toilet and antibac wipes for a quick spruce.

Dew and condensation.
How breastmilk is made.
Why bridges don't fall down. And aeroplanes.
Phones.

I never have been able to understand who's fighting who and why and who I should be supporting and who are the "baddies".

You probably shouldn't be supporting anyone. In most cases there are only "baddies". "Goodies" tend not to have armies. I can't think of any conflict going on in the world at present that could be construed as good guys vs bad guys.

House prices or even how to buy a house.

I rent and have no chance of buying well unless something huge changes. So when people talk to me about a house and say "guess what its selling for?" Or "its x amount" I have no idea if that's cheap or not as it all just sounds like a crazy amount of money. This is probably because my bank hasn't hit £1000 in about 3 years.

@FluffySocks123

It's the BRAKE. Not break.

HTH 😡

@sanityisamyth

Oh sorry grammar police! Was typing the reply at 1am half asleep ....

Makeup I have never worn it and have no idea what the hell people are talking about. Lipstick and mascara are all I know. I'm sure if one day I ever decide to wear it I would probably look like a three year old putting on their mums. My mum never wore it either so didn't go through that stage.

the clyde tunnel works like the channel tunnel it is basically a large concrete tube under the river/sea bed it goes through the rock under the river/sea, it does not sit on the bottom of river/sea with water round it

so from the surface of the river it goes
river clyde
bedrock
tunnel
more bedrock

Thank you @FluffySocks123

I will try to remember CBA - same as 'can't be arsed' .