the daydream fund challenge thread

Rummer

LOL just as well I checked before covering my wildlife bit with hay! I might try the poppy seed trick for that area. We have run out of space in our compost bins and our garden bin is not collected often enough.

I think it is due to be a hard winter with loads of snow.

lostinrates

Rummer wrote: »

I think it is due to be a hard winter with loads of snow.

Oh good! I hope so.

I know that sounds mad to many but snow protects the grass and is great for health of feet. I may also sell some more hay if people haven't bought enough to cope with snowfall. I reserve the right to complain about being cold though!

choille

Oooooh I could put it down in my wildlife garden area! I have been trying to cultivate new things on that bit for years with out luck! I will use the shavings on the bed and the hay on the wildlife bit!

You don't want to make it too fertile the ground. Poppies like poor ground & they take a more than a year to appear after planting. The seeds lay in the ground, and can do for 5 decades or there abouts, and will germinate when the ground is disturbed. Hence the remembrance poppy.

Simon Fairlie is a great bloke & interesting. I met him at Tinkers Bubble over a decade ago. He is, well was then into low impact development. I have his book , 'Low Impact Development.'
I fancy this book on Meat - see his take on it.
I was veggie for a bit. Since moving to the Highlands I eat a lot more meat than I've ever done.
Went to a talk & there was a bit about extensive farming in Vietnam & they eat a lot of meat & fish. That diet is ideal for the hard work they were doing. A healthy diet is dependant on the type of work you do. That's not well put but I'm sure you get the drift.
There is a rumour that the EU may start to look favourably at indigenous species - let us hope so.

Very strong gales here - hardly slept last night & today came back to one of the heaviest hen houses on its back with a pair of the new hens cowering inside - thankfully unharmed.

lostinrates

choille wrote: »

I fancy this book on Meat - see his take on it.
I was veggie for a bit. Since moving to the Highlands I eat a lot more meat than I've e Simon Fairlie is a great bloke & interesting. I met him at Tinkers Bubble over a decade ago.

I use to live v. near tinkers bubble....its a nice place, has a good feel...

RAS

choille wrote: »

Simon Fairlie is a great bloke & interesting. I met him at Tinkers Bubble over a decade ago. .

I have only been in touch by e-mail; last one got the response "busy - hay-making."

Then he is the importer of Austiran scythes http://www.thescytheshop.co.uk/

He has a fair bit to say about TB, although he does not mention it by name. In part, I suspect that the inefficiencies of running a site with 20 acres of pasture which they rent out to a sheep farmer because they do not want to raise animals that are killed is part of why he left and behind some of his thinking in this book.

choille wrote: »

He is, well was then into low impact development. I have his book , 'Low Impact Development.' .

Still is, probably the most effective alternative planning "consultant" around. See here http://www.tlio.org.uk/chapter7/

I think he helped Law get the Woodland House through the system and has advised every successful low impact living group in the south get permission.

choille wrote: »

I fancy this book on Meat - see his take on it....
I was veggie for a bit. Since moving to the Highlands I eat a lot more meat than I've ever done.
Went to a talk & there was a bit about extensive farming in Vietnam & they eat a lot of meat & fish. That diet is ideal for the hard work they were doing. A healthy diet is dependant on the type of work you do. That's not well put but I'm sure you get the drift.
There is a rumour that the EU may start to look favourably at indigenous species - let us hope so.

I think the further north you go, the more sense it makes to eat meat, because you need the calories and the land grows meat better than carbs.

choille

RAS - That's a brilliant link. You always post really excellent links.

Funny Simon Fairlie selling sythes - what a small world & even funnier the guy who lives nearish give me a one handed sythe - like a long handled sickle the other day. I'd never seen one before.

Well the gales are still raging & our Heath Robinson stove chimney sounds as if it is about to be ripped out of the caravan's side. I hate the wind.

rhiwfield

With several of you building new or proposing to renovate your properties I'd be interested to hear your future space heating plans, as I've been thinking about what to do with ours for quite a while now. When oil went briefly to $140 and heating oil was in the high 70s per litre, our consumption was then a staggering 4000 litres pa . Our CH system is part microbore, we've concrete floors and 13 standard rads. No mains gas nearby, terrain wrong for a biomass boiler or GSHP, what to do, short of move house?

Well, oil plunged in price, but we put in a new very reliable boiler 85% efficient and embarked on a mad insulation and draughtproofing drive, and put in a woodburner. Glad we did as we just about ran out of oil in the big freeze last winter as oil lorries couldnt make it to us for weeks. So thats where we are today, but what now? The log burner gives security in case of leccy or oil failure and we wouldnt be without it. But with oil we're reliant on a fossil fuel thats likely to become scarcer and pricier and is not good for the environment.

ATM I'm looking at four options:
1) part conversion of oil boiler to run kerosene/biofuel mix. Might be worth doing if backed by RHI and would give estimated 30% drop in CO2 emissions. It would also be the cheapest capital option and avoid scrapping new boiler and tank early in their life and wasting the embedded CO2. Still leaves us dependent on oil and possible taking up land which could be used for food production.
2) air to water heat pump to tie in to existing CH system. Easily the most expensive option, also more likely to fail and need for high water temps would reduce efficiency
3) one or more air to air split HPs to supplement oil system which is kept in reserve, not likely to benefit under RHI but probably the most efficient way of using heat pumps.
4) Do nowt

I believe that we'll know detail about the renewable heat incentive next month (?) but what are you doing and what are your reasons?

choille

This storm is still raging the spindrifts chasing up the loch are amazing. hardly slept.

rhiwfield. We have quite a drop of water on the croft - the burn goes over a shelf & drops down into the gorge. We don't have a full mains leccy supply so we intent to supplement our house supply with a micro hydro supply - ( My brain isn't working coz of sleep deprivation today)
I want underfloor heating downstairs - that runs off the water. Wood burner for heat upstairs - shouldn't need it on that much as the SAp calculations for the house are super good. There has to be mega insulation in new build Scottish buildings now, same down South but not quite as much. Also you need renewables now up here - although our planning went through before that was brought in last month - we have always been into renewables - even before it was trendy!

Loads of insulation & loads of solar gain with quite large windows. I fancy a 2nd hand Rayburn in the kitchen but OH not too keen - mind you he wanted oil CH - he has quite a good line in patter about oil & it's availability & how it aint quite as bad as it's painted - but I just think it has blood all over it - but we can't agree on everything.

I think there is so much, 'let's chuck it out & get the green gadget that's come all the way from China' mentality about - If it aint broke don't fix it & you can't beat thick curtains & jumpers.

Lotus-eater

rhiwfield wrote: »

I believe that we'll know detail about the renewable heat incentive next month (?) but what are you doing and what are your reasons?

It's very difficult and we are in the same situ as you, I've been thinking about this on and off for a few years, ever since we moved in tbh (about 9 years ago).

About 8 years ago we installed a new boiler and it's still good, we get away with lower temps than you I suspect, as I sit here, its 15 degrees on the thermostat, but we are also younger. It does mean that our oil usage is about a 1000 litres a year, using the wood stove as well for heating.

The future? Number 4, wait and see.

Atm oil isn't over expensive, now that can change very quickly, but the technology I want to use for my heating just doesn't exist in the form I want atm. So I wait and see what happens in the future.

As long as what you have isn't falling apart and it doesn't cost a huge amount each year, then to change for changes sake, seems a bit silly.

Davesnave

rhiwfield wrote: »

With several of you building new or proposing to renovate your properties I'd be interested to hear your future space heating plans.

Well, at present we have inherited a mish-mash of:

• woodburner, which 'sort-of does' 8 rads (!)
• oil Aga, which heats water & house when it's on + cooks
• immersion heater
• gas hob
• electric oven

We used under 1500 litres of oil last winter, but the Aga's only on from December to some time in April. We are still fine on the woodburner atm.

We want to get into generating electricity and could put aside up to £30k to do this. Trouble is, we will probably be pulling the roof off the house, so the barn would be a better place if we decide to go ahead quickly. The barn also needs some remedial work, but the roof is OK. (Some have turbines near here, but not so keen on those, and wind speeds not good enough I read.)

Then, I suppose, we'd want to take oil out of the house altogether and maybe use some of the leccy we generate to do water and background heat.

We will always have a woodburner, and because the gas hob costs very little to run, I expect we'd keep one of those too.

Still a bit vague, I'm afraid!