Saturday, 11 July 2020

Makita Cordless Strimmer (DUR187LZ) - Review

Ah! Strimming the Garden. One of Life's simple pleasures. And it is a complete, joyful pleasure using this Makita  DUR187LZ Strimmer Brush Cutter. This is one of the most pleasing tool purchases I have made in the last year.



This strimmer works with the familiar bump line head, which you might find a wide variety of 2 stroke powered strimmer and brush cutters. But things are quite different in all other respects.


At the "top" of the strimmer, where the motor normally goes you have the battery housing, and I suspect the motor controller. A small fan keeps this cool I think which is activated when you pull the trigger. The battery is an 18v LXT battery, which can power around 100 different tools (drills, lawn mowers, even vibrating concrete pokers).

The battery will last a good 20 minutes. And that can be doing heavy brush cutter type work (long grass, herbaceous species (cow parsley, doc), and thing woody suckers such as ash saplings. 


The control are simple, yet offer good variety you have 3 speeds to choose from, and also an automatic speed controller, which speeds up and down automatically depending on the type of work you are doing. This function is demonstrated in the video at the bottom of the page. 


The handle is simple in design, and can be held easily. The strimmer comes with a shoulder strap, which I do not use. Some have said this stimmer is very light. . .  I would not agree, it is probably as heavy as my 22cc 2 stroke (husqvarna) strimmer. 


The strimmer comes supplied with some 1.5 mm cutting line, which is fine. Shown here with stihl 3.3mm line. One of the best bits about this strimmer, is that I have not had a single snapped line in the several hours I have used it. My petrol strimmer had a tendency to rev up, to extreme speeds causing the line to snap, when hits a solid object. 


The strimmer head will take commercial grade line, and can handle the implied work load. In use the torque is very high, and especially with a battery >50% charge, will mash up just about any vegetation. 


So to conclude the strimmer is excellent. I can't really remember when I purchased a piece of equipment that I was so pleased with. There are no fumes, when you use it. No need to buy or mix fuel. No starting issues.



Makita also offer, some more powerful strimmers based on the LXT batteries. Which take 2 batteries upping voltage to 36v, likely to allow for higher wattage motor. Whilst I would of course be interested to try one of these more powerful strimmer / brush cutters, this DUR187LZ model provides plenty of power for me, whilst remaining fairly light weight.


Scientific Web Content

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Saturday, 4 July 2020

Noggins / Noggings & Floor Joists (Strutting)

Noggins / Noggings & Floor Joists (Strutting)


In the UK, my 77 year father calls the strutting between floor joists "noggins" this is also spelt noggings in some circumstances. Trying to search for spacing for noggins, is tricky. You may have more luck with "strutting"


So I found the below table on NHBC Campaigns Website , which gives spacings fro strutting as follows:


I also found NHBC Standard PDF which give the same table:


As the below  image shows for me I needed a row of noggins or strutting in the centre of joists only. If you are using joist hangers however, you will perhaps need a row of noggins down each side. This is not always the case, but you may wish to check with building inspector, or building regs plans issuer. 


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construction environmental management plan