Chimney

 

 For several years now our chimney has been crumbling. It was in a state when we moved in and one of the first things we did was have it re-rendered. This did not cure the water ingress which made a persistent damp patch on the spare bedroom wall upstairs, and within a few years the new render started falling off. Water was getting behind it, freezing, expanding and by last winter some chunks were falling off that were big enough to break tiles or kill the neighbour's cats/children so I thought we better do something...

 First thing was to recruit some labour. Luckily my brother likes demolishing stuff so he didn't take much persuading. He even carried on stoically after I bashed his finger with a club hammer.

A few of days of bashing, sweating, swearing and winching got us to this stage where we could see into the loft.

Having friends like Richard who lend you a winch comes in very handy. The entire chimney was winched to the ground without any major disasters.

 Just about ready to start rebuilding. The left flue comes from the lounge which is the only active fireplace. It has a stainless steel flue liner which has been temporarily removed because it was very in the way.

A section of wall plate was added and extensions were screwed to the rafters.

 Rich came and helped with the felt and battening and tiling as I think he figured it was easier than having me constantly pestering him for advice.

If the Victorians had stainless steel insulated twinwall flue I'm sure they would have used it. So much quicker and easier than laying hundreds of bricks. The base is screwed to the rafters and cemented in after attaching to the reinstated flue liner.

And there we are, job done! Thanks Niels and Rich.

Taking a Gamble

We here at Pleamore House have spent most of the last decade working to reduce the carbon footprint of what is an old Victorian farmhouse which was built with no regard for such things. The insulation we've installed has brought most of the house up to around the current standard of a new-build which has reduced our consumption of heating oil by at least a third. Further savings can be made by installing a modern condensing boiler but that is something for the future.

Having never really seriously considered the possibility of installing an array of photovoltaic solar panels due to the fact that we have no large areas of south facing roof, I recently reconsidered having seen several of our neighbors install panels and I did a bit of research on the potential of an east or west facing array. A reduction of 10-15% efficiency when compared to south facing would still make PV solar a very viable prospect, provided that it could be installed before March 3 which was the cut-off date for getting on the government sponsored 43p feed in tariff. We are huge fans of renewable energy and this suddenly seemed like a very exciting prospect.

We had a few quotes and only one company said they were able to install before March 3 so after a bit of a family conference, we signed a contract. From then on it was a very stressful saga of neanderthal scaffolders failing to complete their job on time, installers turning up without scaffolding to work on and things slipping ever and alarmingly closer to the deadline. Had we not submitted our paperwork to the electric company by 2 March, we would have been on a 21p tariff which would take twice as long to pay us back. There is still a chance this will happen as the government have asked the Supreme Court for permission to lodge a third appeal (they have lost 2 already) to allow them to retrospectively reduce the feed in tarrif (where domestic generators are paid 43p for every unit of electricity they produce) thus doubling the time this big investment takes to pay off for investors in renewable energy who had already bought in. If they get permission to appeal again and the win the appeal, then we're facing 12-15 years before our investment pays back the cost of the panels and installation, so that's the gamble we've taken. It is my belief that even if they are granted leave for another appeal, they will lose, and that this was more a cynical move to create uncertainty and dampen down deamand.

Thursday March 1st the scaffolding is up and the installation team is on site.

All but one of the panels are installed, waiting for the final panel to be driven down from Cardiff as one panel of the wrong type was accidentally supplied. The company issued our completion certificate and it was posted the day before the deadline.

This array of 21 PV panels produces up to 3.99kw of power. Anything over 4kw is classed as commercial production and we're not allowed to do that.


The PV panels produce direct current which this box called an inverter (situated in the loft) converts to alternating current suitable to use in the house and export back into the national grid. In addition to the 43p we'll (hopefully) get for each unit we generate, we also get 3p a unit for what we export back to the grid. Also, of course, we'll run the dishwasher and washing machine etc during the day so that we're using free electricity!

As I write this the time is 10.45 am, the sun has been in and out all day and we've already made 4.4 units of electricity today. Since it was switched on last Friday, we've made just over 20. Whatever happens with the tariff, it gives me great pleasure to reduce our consumption of non-renewable energy and we've surely made the house more salable and desirable in the long term.

What Happens When You go Away for 2 Weeks.....

You go off to Spain for a couple of weeks, spending much of your time open water swimming on the beautiful lake Negratin, and you come home.....

....to find your self buried under a mountain of beans.....

....and with a new addition to the family, Daisy.

Hole in the Wall

The wall before I started. It might look solid at first glance, but the cap is completely falling to pieces and once you start poking a bit, so is much of the rest of it.

Here's a prime example. A bit of poking and the next thing you know there's a hole big enough to conceal a gang of outlaws. Here I've dug out the bit between the wall and the slabs I laid last year and pummeled some hardcore down as I'm going to fill the gap with render and stones.

Even with Richard's cement mixer this is chuffig hard work, without it I think I'd be dead by now.
Thanks Rich.

The render is 1:1:6 cement: lime: sand which makes a lovely sticky render that you can flick into all the corners and it just stays there. Working with stones you get through an amazing amount of render filling all the gaps.

The Big Reveal

After another major drill bit stickage which took several more hours to extract, this blue pipe which is connected via a copper pipe to the plastic pipe upstairs, which in turn is connected to the cold water system in the airing cupboard, was inserted into the hole that took so much time, sweat and destroyed masonary bits to create...

emerging into this trench just outside the house (after another half hour of me smashing a large steel spike into the hole to yet further enlarge it)...

...which was dug this morning by these men, thus explaining the road closure! Our cold water main has today been replaced, ending almost a decade for us of low water pressure. Finally, I think we have found a plumber who knows his business. The old main was partly lead, partly very corroded galvanized steel. And best of all, the council had to pay for all this.

Wall

The wall at the back of the garden is falling down in places and needs to be fixed.

It has much wildlife and vegetation within its structure which will be either gently relocated (slow worms, spiders etc) or chucked in the garden waste recycling bin (ivy, dandelions, snails, bind weed etc). This has nothing whatever to do with the previous post.

Asparagus

I can hear the clattering of people falling off chairs across the globe at the shock of seeing a new post on this blog, the first since November. If we had planted asparagus three years ago, we'd be scoffing tons of it by now, but since I only planted it a week ago, we're not allowed to eat any at all this year.

The crowns went in thus, with lots of fresh home made compost which is extra lush due to the amount of chicken poo it contains!

Although we can't eat it, seeing the first spear emerge from mother earth was a great moment. We can eat one from each plant next year (according to Paula who is pretty hot on such things), but in 2013 we'll be feasting until we smell of it. Yummy!

Chicken Run (it's done)

Let's drag you up to date with the chicken run.

After putting in all the poles and planks along the bottom to prevent the chickens from chucking mud all over the paths, I wrapped the electric fence around, with some netting from an old trampoline around the top. I cleared the path all the way round, laid weed barriers and covered with gravel.

A chicken's eye view: Looks like a palace to me.
Thanks to Rich for the use of his post shovel.

Chicken Run

Greetings! Much time has gone west lately with one thing and another, but lots of progress has also been made on the chicken run.

These blighters lay lovely eggs, but will also trash the greenhouse given half a chance, and make dust baths in the flower beds, as above.

We need somewhere to lock them away when it suits our purposes, and it has been the plan for some considerable time to turn about a third of the top end of the garden where the vegetable beds are into a chicken run, fit for free-range pampered birds like ours.

Its really starting to take shape now, with the surrounding paths dug out giving access all the way around, and covered with old carpet and cut-up dumpy bags as weed barriers. We have a ton of gravel coming on Monday to make the path. Planks have been screwed onto the posts to lessen the amount of soil the chickens chuck out onto our nice gravel paths.

Happy Saturday

This weekend Arne was away at cub camp. J9 and I got going in the garden. On Saturday, the weather was perfect for lying in a hamock, reading a good book and sipping something long and cool, or if that sounds a bit lazy, perhaps a bit of gardening in a bikini. As for me, I was digging and sweating, mostly.

J9 was happy planting all her brassicas. Sorry about the rubbish picture, but the sun was so bright I couldn't see the screen on the camera.

This bee was happy gathering pollen.

And this Moth was particularly exuberant, performing aerobatics right over the garden!

J9's Good Books

That's what I hope to be in when she sees this. Bet she can't wait to get planting when she gets home tomorrow.

Despite my late night, I was up and at it early this morning, after my porridge and a quick fix of Thunderbirds on the plasma.

Got the last dividing path finished, laid the last few slabs along the back, and made the final raised bed. Now for the chicken run.....

Sweat and Dust

Today was just about as sweaty and dusty as days come. I've got dust in my teeth and everywhere else.

Got the fourth veg bed done though, and lots more bricks cleaned. I am now heading for the shower, and then off to be led astray by that naughty Richard.

Outdoors Again

Bit behind with my blogging again. I was working for a while on a Star Wars calendar, but have also been busy in the garden. I built a new compost bin because the old one was in the way of the chicken run I'm going to build.

It is made partly from bits salvaged from the old one, and partly from mesh that I've been meaning to take down for ages, as it was both in the way and an eyesore. I was busy with my angle grinder lots. It just needs a lid now.

In order to build the chicken run, I first needed to widen the path. For this, I had to clean up loads more bricks. I hate cleaning bricks.

Here's the first fence post for the chicken run. Also, you can see I'm edging the path with some nice stones properly set into mortar. One day I'll think of a less labour-intensive way to do something.

Mixing enough mortar to do this bit made me just about the dustiest, hottest, sweatiest dude this side of the Orion Nebula.

All the dog could do was bask in the sunshine. J9 and AJ are away for a few days so I thought I'd better post my progress each day so they can see I'm not slacking and being led astray by that naughty Richard.

This is he.

The Unexpected

Just when you think your chimney has stopped messing about with unexplained and seemingly unexplainable leaks, the flipping render starts falling off in large chunks. I think when Richard sees this he'll suddenly disappear off the face of the planet, as he likes chimneys even less than plastering. But he can't hide, wherever he is, I'll find him.

Detour Into the Past

This was the scene in summer 2002 at the south-east corner of the house. A rotting, leaking, corrugated plastic-roofed porch leading into what was then a small annex (now my studio)

One winter was enough. We knocked it down the following spring and Richard built a new one. It was the beginning of an ugly friendship. Timber frame construction, with a pitched tiled roof and 4" Celotex insulation right through.

Double glazed window and door, guttering, render and a few coats of paint later, and no more -8 in that corner.

Making the bed

I've been getting through some sun screen this week I can tell you. Its been glorious weather for sipping Pimms by the pool and reading a good book, but not so great for what I'm doing.

I should come up with a new index of pints of sweat per 100 bricks cleaned. Don't know what I'd score, but it would be a lot. Here is the historic moment when the corners of the path were joined up thus enclosing the area of the bed and enabling me to.....

...install the planks which will make the bed raised. These are old joists which we saved when we demolished what was in our opinion a ghastly pergola.

Sorry, it had to go. Here J9 admires it with its architect and builder when we first looked at the house in 2002. Actually, it looks surprisingly good here! The stone slabs you can see on the ground are also being recycled and will make up part of the paths surrounding our vegetable beds.

But the pergola was of no practical use whatsoever, unlike this lovely bed. You could snuggle down for the night in that no problem.