I too have a large shed that my dad and I built, but it's ONLY for his wood, tools, and pool shenanigans...

I wish though..

I too saw a Solar Paneled Flashlight, that charges up the batteries, but if you leave it in your drawer too long, it won't have enough charge, to power it up, so worthless IMO.

Solar powered items tend to work best when left in a sunny window, rather than a dark draw, but I bet you guys new that really already. Right?

I have to symphize with BrianG though; definately not into letting people poke around in my 'area', thats for me to touch and no one else....

Right, but if a emergency were to happen during the night, what are the chances that your flashlight was sitting right next to your window?

What if it was Winter, and there was rarely any sun?

In any case, kinda cheesy.

I wonder how some of the other posters will feel once they get their very own house. Unless they are slobs, I bet they will feel the same way with their kids.

My kids have their own space (their room), and I don't expect it to be spotless, but it sure better be at least somewhat organized. Wading through toys, clothes, dishes, etc is not something I tolerate. Not only is it not sanitary, it also does not teach them how to not be slobs when they finally do leave the house.

Back when my ex's brats lived here, their room was a pigsty. I told them over and over to clean it up. But, of course they didn't. Well, it took only one time with a Hefty bag to change that. From that point on, all I had to do was mention "trash bag" and they all scrambled to clean up. It's amazing how effective threats are when they know you'll follow through. :smile:

Ah, I see that my incredible crude joke was a bit too subtle.... (think about the area-touching part...) :whistle:

Thankfully though having my own flat, and being a bit of a tidy/OCD/perfectionist freak means that I keep my room & bench tidy- all my spares live in the shoe box stand, and everything else lives in plastic tubs in/on the cd rack tower thingy. I do hate slobbishness though; if its rubbish, throw it away, if its tiny and easily lost, then it needs to go in an organiser. If its big and gets in the way, it can go on a shelf or in a drawer- theres no reason really to have a million items of crap strewn across a room.

Like my feet.

You wanna hear something really funny though? In sunny old England, alot of councils have now started errecting solar & wind powered street signs (the illuminated kind). However, they have had to leave the normal mains powered ones in place incase there isnt any wind or sunshine to power the other ones. How fecking stupid is that?

Also, I read a while back that wind turbines (land based ones) only generate electricity 30% of the time due to lack of constant wind. That means you need about 3 times as many to generate the power you actually need.

The green party hippies really are a bit thick sometimes....

we all know there is a "workspace pictures thread" right?

+1 on BrianG...come on now guys...a messy room is a messy room and you like it the way you want it BUUUUT...if its house rules for a clean room..CLEAN IT!...trust me...you younger guys will understand once you own your first home.... :)

and my wife knows to stay away from the "man cave" and the garage....

Why not just modify the ones that are there with some solar panels? :neutral:

Its the way they are wired up, to take mains ~240volts, with bulbs to match. Kinda like the difference between cordless and mains powered tools. Would make more sense to have just the mains powered ones to save money, and fit them with more efficient bulbs like you get in homes these days. But, that would make sense wouldnt it now?....

I think it would still be less expensive to modify the existing lights with the panels. Even if they had to install an inverter to up the voltage it would still be more energy efficient than using power from the plant.