Services – Page 3

Streetlights and the council’s new website

Reporting faulty streetlights – spotted any more in need of repair recently? Also – Westmeath Co. Co. has a new website.

Westmeath Co. Co. has been made aware of the need to fix a streetlight outside #130 Ashefield. Update: Airtricity is expected to fix this within the next few days

Have you spotted any other streetlights in need of repair in the area? If so, please do add the details using the comments area below. If you can, please include the nearest house number and streetlight number. The streetlight number is located about halfway up the pole on a yellow or white sticker.

The council’s newly re-designed website is worth taking a look at. Thankfully, they have worked on making it easier to find essential information and services, and have included a handy map to help locate services like recycling facilities and libraries. A ‘tell us’ page was also added but does not include a specific maintenance report form for problems like faulty streetlights. However, it looks like they should easily be able to add this option.

Have you any suggestions for them to make it easier to find the information you need? If so, why not contact them directly or if you prefer, use the comments area below and we can pass them on to them.

Home heating oil prices for June, 2010

It may be the longest day of the year but having oil in the tank to heat your home during the inevitable shorter and colder days can’t be forgotten about. Since our last oil price check in April, the carbon tax for home heating kerosene kicked in at the start of May. This added an extra €43 to the cost of 1000 litres of kerosene.

However, even with the introduction of this tax and accounting for the rising oil prices, there has been a dramatic change in the oil prices per supplier. In fact, it’s quite an eye opener.

The most expensive supplier on June 21, 2010 for delivery to Mullingar town is Flynn Fuels (€740) and the least expensive is McGee Oil (€620) for 1000 litres of kerosene; a whopping €120 difference between the two. In this chart below, the April 1st prices are in blue and the June 21st prices are displayed in red.

Even accounting for the carbon tax on home heating oil and rising oil prices, we noticed wide variations in price increases by supplier between the period April 1 and June 21, 2010. As shown in the chart below, for 1000 litres of kerosene, Flynn Fuels increased their price by €140 whereas McGee oil raised their price by just €20; not even enough to cover the carbon tax.

*No updated information for Topaz Energy was available – they didn’t answer the phone despite multiple attempts.

Price differences by supplier between April 1 and June 21, 2010

*No information for Topaz Energy was available – they didn’t answer the phone despite multiple attempts.

As before, the prices quoted above should be considered valid for June 21, 2010 for delivery to Mullingar only and were based on the best cash or credit card price quoted. In this case, no differences between cash and credit card payment were noted.

If any supplier wishes to revise their prices downward, we welcome them to contact us at info [at] ashefield.com and we’ll note it here.

Bin wars

In what is being described as ‘bin wars’, the confusion over who legally owns the refuse and recycling bins originally given to local residents was addressed by the council recently. In this week’s Westmeath Examiner, they report that:

County Manager Danny McLoughlin said that 14,000 Blue Bins and 1,000 Brown Bins had been purchased by Westmeath County Council over the past six years and delivered to its customers for their use in the Council’s waste collection service, but having taken the decision to get out of the refuse service, they had legally sold them to Oxigen Environmental, as part of the public tendering process.

In addition to the bins, the database of customers was also sold to Oxigen. This explains why you might have seen their stickers plastered on the bins after leaving them out for emptying. However, the Westmeath Examiner also reports that someone from a refuse company entered private property during the night to place a sticker on a bin. This of course, is illegal so please do report any instances of trespassing to the Gardaí.

The situation seems to be somewhat clearer now. McLoughlin continues:

“…if people did not want to do business with Oxigen, they should phone the company and ask them to take the bins away: “People should give the bins back because they don’t own the bins, these bins were transferred to this company legally”

Read the full article

Both Allied Waste Management and Wallace Recycling will continue to empty the bins as normal. Unlike Oxigen, these are smaller local companies employing local people in a tough market so it makes sense to maintain your support for them. In particular, Allied Waste has been serving Westmeath for the past five years and are less expensive than Oxigen’s normal bin tag prices also.

Streetlights

Westmeath Co. Co. has been notified about the streetlight outside houses 207-208 that needs a bulb replacement. Airtricity has recently taken over the public lighting maintenance contract from ESB and there is a delay in getting these fixed at the moment throughout the county. Unfortunately, the darkness can attract opportunistic illegal dumpers. Please do report any such rubbish dumping to Westmeath County Council (more information) to help keep our estate tidy.

Update (24/02/10): Westmeath Co. Council has informed us that Airtricity has carried out the repair.

Tips for dealing with the freezing weather conditions

frozen pipe A number of houses in Ashefield are experiencing problems with frozen water pipes. If you are one of the unfortunate people, a standpipe has been made available outside house #35 – toward the Ashe road entrance to the estate (10am – 4pm). Update: this water should be available until 8pm.

Here are some tips for dealing with, and preventing frozen water supplies:

If the stopcock is frozen, open the stopcock chamber in front of your house.
Pour warm (not boiling) water onto the stopcock. This water may freeze quickly so try to use as little as possible.
Fill the chamber with fibreglass, rock wool or other non-absorbent insulation. Don’t use an absorbent material e.g. old rags.

More tips for dealing with the freezing weather:

In your attic, make sure that there is no insulation underneath the cold water tank. It can get extremely cold in the attic at night so allowing heat from below to rise up will help prevent the water tank from freezing.
If you have a 60W or 100W incandescent light in your attic, you might consider leaving it switched on. The heat from it may be enough to keep the temperature above freezing point.
Opening the attic trapdoor will allow heat from the main part of the house to enter and raise the attic temperature.
Set your heating to come on for a short time during the night e.g. at 4am.
For driveways, liberal use of dishwasher salt is proving to be a very effective solution. Driveways under snow and thick ice will need a lot of it though. Tesco own brand dishwasher salt is currently €1.25 for 3kg. Normal table salt is too fine for this job; coarse granules are required.
Don’t leave running cars unlocked or unattended while waiting for them to heat up.
Don’t use boiling water to defrost car windows; it may causing cracking or even worse, destroy the window.
If you have any elderly neighbours, please do check in on them to make sure they have heating and essentials.