Things that used to be common place in people’s homes

[adrock1976]

Unsure if it has already been mentioned, but I have not seen a hat and coat stand for a good number of years.

 

[PG]

Not sure Lemon Puff biscuits have been mentioned until now. I've never been much into biscuits, other than those you pair cheese with, but I used to like these.

I'll confess a liking for Lemon Puffs so I was delighted to find them on sale in Home Bargains and Morrisons

No longer made by Jacobs but by the Irish firm Valeo Foods although the biscuits are branded as Bolands and manufactured in Portugal!

 

[Paul Jones 88]

Not sure Lemon Puff biscuits have been mentioned until now. I've never been much into biscuits, other than those you pair cheese with, but I used to like these.

There's loads of them available in Pound Stretcher, or so I'm led to believe.

 

[Lucan]

I have not seen a hat and coat stand for a good number of years

I have one, and could really do with a second one for all the coats Mrs L has hanging on it. What else do you do with a wet coat when you come in from the rain?

 

[takno]

I have one, and could really do with a second one for all the coats Mrs L has hanging on it. What else do you do with a wet coat when you come in from the rain?

Soak up the excess moisture with lemon puffs, and then put it away in the cupboard

 

[birchesgreen]

Unsure if it has already been mentioned, but I have not seen a hat and coat stand for a good number of years.

My office bought one a few years ago, fell over the first day

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Unsure if it has already been mentioned, but I have not seen a hat and coat stand for a good number of years.

My office bought one a few years ago, fell over the first day

Sounds like it wasn't adequately weighted at the base.

Once moved offices in Central London over a weekend and ascertained on the Monday morning that the coat stand had been left behind at the old place (several hundred yards away). So, me and a colleague were tasked with retrieving it.

It was decidedly heavy!

 

[birchesgreen]

Sounds like it wasn't adequately weighted at the base.

Indeed i think the guy who built it missed a few bits out, funnily enough his code was often like that too.

 

[swt_passenger]

My office bought one a few years ago, fell over the first day

My dentist has virtual coat and hat stands, they’re painted on the room walls, and are basically just drawing attention to a few normal coat hooks screwed into the walls…

 

[Busaholic]

There's loads of them available in Pound Stretcher, or so I'm led to believe.

Thanks, I'll go take a look before my local branch closes down!

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Anyone on here remember Lanry bleach?

 

[Busaholic]

Anyone on here remember Lanry bleach?

Wasn't he a Danny la Rue impersonator?

 

[AY1975]

Radio alarm clocks
Dancing sunflowers
Dvd player
surround sound system with 5 speakers
Gas fire places
Electric carving knife or tin opener

I still have a radio alarm (I don't use it much any more, though), a DVD player and a gas fire place.

I also still have a normal battery operated alarm clock, and the clock itself still works OK but the alarm seems to have stopped working so I mostly use the alarm on my mobile phone (which I suspect is what a lot of people do these days).

 

[Howardh]

I still have a gas fireplace which needs a service, thinking it could come in handy over the winter as to heat the living room using the radiator means another in the hall has to be on the same temp as it controls the thermostat, so surely there's a waste there, but the gas fire is independent so could replace using the central heating.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I still have a gas fireplace which needs a service, thinking it could come in handy over the winter as to heat the living room using the radiator means another in the hall has to be on the same temp as it controls the thermostat, so surely there's a waste there, but the gas fire is independent so could replace using the central heating.

Get a wireless thermostat, put it in the lounge and turn the hallway radiator off. The mind boggles as to why people recommend putting thermostats in the one part of the house where nobody cares what the temperature is - the room you spend most time (the lounge) is where it makes sense to have it.

Assuming your boiler is a reasonably modern condensing one, it'll be more efficient than a gas fire where a load of the heat will go up the chimney.

 

[Jimini]

I still have a radio alarm (I don't use it much any more, though), a DVD player and a gas fire place.

I also still have a normal battery operated alarm clock, and the clock itself still works OK but the alarm seems to have stopped working so I mostly use the alarm on my mobile phone (which I suspect is what a lot of people do these days).

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We've got one of these. The wife uses the light settings to wake her up early doors, and I use the radio settings to wake me up with actual music about 30 mins later

I've had a radio alarm for as long as I can remember, from analogue models back in the '80s through to all the bells and whistles DAB options we have these days.

If only Chris Tarrant was still on 95.8 to keep the nostalgia going

 

[Howardh]

Get a wireless thermostat, put it in the lounge and turn the hallway radiator off. The mind boggles as to why people recommend putting thermostats in the one part of the house where nobody cares what the temperature is - the room you spend most time (the lounge) is where it makes sense to have it.

Assuming your boiler is a reasonably modern condensing one, it'll be more efficient than a gas fire where a load of the heat will go up the chimney.

I've just contacted my boiler service engineer, I'll discuss that with him when he comes round to look at the fire. Although it's fixed to the wall, I think it is wireless, but need him to advise.
The boiler is less than 5 yes old and is an expensive Worcester, paid for itself already considering the old one it replaced!!

 

[trebor79]

Get a wireless thermostat, put it in the lounge and turn the hallway radiator off. The mind boggles as to why people recommend putting thermostats in the one part of the house where nobody cares what the temperature is - the room you spend most time (the lounge) is where it makes sense to have it.

Assuming your boiler is a reasonably modern condensing one, it'll be more efficient than a gas fire where a load of the heat will go up the chimney.

The radiator in the hall will not have a thermostatic valve. That's important. If you turn that off, and rely on a room thermostat in the living room then if the thermostatic valve sites on the radiator whilst the room thermostat is still asking for heat, there is no flow through the boiler. The boiler then likely trips save requires resetting.
If you're going to do that you need to make sure they isn't a thermostatic valve on the lounge radiator (just unscrewing the thermostat from the valve body will do).
Agree the boiler (even hearing the hall and lounge) will burn less fuel than a gas fire.

 

[Paul Jones 88]

Dignity, respect and common sense are extremely rare just now.

 

[takno]

Dignity, respect and common sense are extremely rare just now.

We still have all of those things in our house, but I guess if you've got teenage kids then it might be a struggle

 

[Bletchleyite]

The radiator in the hall will not have a thermostatic valve. That's important.

Actually it's not. What's important is whether the radiator has a bypass or not. In a modern installation all of them will, if it's an old installation it may not, in which case you'll notice the system not working and can turn it back on and reset the boiler by pressing the reset button. Though I'd consider it worth getting a plumber to install a bypass on it if there isn't one; having the "primary" radiator and thermostat in a place you don't spend any time is just incredibly poor system design and worth paying to fix. You only need a very low level of heat in a hallway to take the chill off. It should be in the room where you spend most time, which for most households is the lounge.

There is no need to remove the thermostat from the lounge radiator, just turn it all the way up which will leave it on all the time.

 

[Howardh]

Dunno if this has been mentioned earlier, I still have, and use, a cassette player. However it's on it's last legs and all the tapes I wanted have been transferred on to MP3. Does appear that cassete decks as part of a unit can still be bought, even new??

I inherited reel-to-reel tapes of music from the 50's/60's and 70's and the tape recorder I recovered just about played them, seemed to be nothing special on the tapes so the lot got binned. I was hoping that somewhere my parents and grandperent's voices would be on; but no.

So does someone still own a reel-to-reel tape recorder I wonder?

 

[najaB]

So does someone still own a reel-to-reel tape recorder I wonder?

My father does, but it's been in the shed for several years so likely doesn't work any more. I must take a look the next time I'm home (probably not until next year).

 

[pitdiver]

Dunno if this has been mentioned earlier, I still have, and use, a cassette player. However it's on it's last legs and all the tapes I wanted have been transferred on to MP3. Does appear that cassete decks as part of a unit can still be bought, even new??

I inherited reel-to-reel tapes of music from the 50's/60's and 70's and the tape recorder I recovered just about played them, seemed to be nothing special on the tapes so the lot got binned. I was hoping that somewhere my parents and grandperent's voices would be on; but no.

So does someone still own a reel-to-reel tape recorder I wonder?

Decent Reel to Reel tape recorders are quite expensive. What make have you got?

 

[Howardh]

My father does, but it's been in the shed for several years so likely doesn't work any more. I must take a look the next time I'm home (probably not until next year).

The spool drivers (an elestic band!) and head seem to be the most common issues, getting a replacement head would be very difficult I would imagine. A job for Techmoan (an internet/youtube vlogger who can fix all this stuff!!). It would be worth getting it out and having a go at cleaning it up; if it does work to a degree then someone on e-bay might snap it up.

One thought, we have a load of antique warehouses round here (Botany Bay alas is no longer with us) so might have a look and see what's available. Bet there's a demand and if they have any there will be a high price tag on them!!

Decent Reel to Reel tape recorders are quite expensive. What make have you got?

Stella (???) or something like that. Gone now, did it's job. wasn't in any condition to sell on or even give away.

 

[dgl]

My father does, but it's been in the shed for several years so likely doesn't work any more. I must take a look the next time I'm home (probably not until next year).

go to the vintage radio forums (vintage-radio.net) and they will tell you roughly what to do before even applying power and should be able to help get it working again.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Seems to me that the rapidly changing methods of recording media is likely to mean that it will soon become increasingly tricky, if not almost impossible, to listen to, or view, sound recordings/photographs/film footage taken only a decade or three ago.

Super 8 video cameras / Betamax video cassette recordings / Zip drives / eight track tapes anyone?

 

[Western Lord]

I came across a full page Grundig advert in an old Evening Standard on a newspaper archive. two thirds of the ad were for three different reel to reel tape recorders. The rest was for a couple of portable radios and a radiogram (i.e a radio and a record player in a piece of furniture the size of a sideboard). I checked the price of the radiogram on a inflation adjuster and it came out at £3,500 in today's money!

 

[WesternLancer]

My father does, but it's been in the shed for several years so likely doesn't work any more. I must take a look the next time I'm home (probably not until next year).

Yes, my father still owns one too (late 1960s sony reel to reel player IIRC) and has a lot of stuff on reel to reel tape (mostly recorded off the radio - but a modest amount of family stuff) - luckily my teenage nephew is into electronics and audio so dug it out a couple of years back to see what state it was in - the only problem with it was that the drive bands were perished - but these were an easy fix to swap for new ones - and it had not been stored anywhere damp so worked OK, as nothing else was degraded.

My nephew then proceeded to connect it up to his lap top and copied the tapes with the family stuff on them to digital recordings - both so they could be easily listened to and also to help back them up in case of any magnetic deterioration of the reel to reel tapes. Used freely available software on the web to do this, including improving the quality of the original recording I think.

He also commented that the general size of the thing meant that working on fixing it was a lot easier than trying to fix things like perished drive bands on smaller cassette tape recorders - which were sometimes impossible to get to and renew.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I recently came across a Commodore Vic 20 computer at a village sale in which there was a 16K ram pack installed. It had a power supply unit, a printer and a multitude of the £1.99 games such as RIP. I gave it to one of my twin sons to see if was something my grandson could tinker with.