the daydream fund challenge thread

Lotus-eater

alfie_1 wrote: »

iv had a very [very] large pimms for LOTUS EATER tonight. so consider yourself totally responsible for any misdamenours hereon in.....:D

You can blame me for anything you like

Monday morning and all seems back to normal, apart from the slight leftover from the overdose of wine yesterday

I managed to find time to harvest the squash this weekend, not a particularly good year tbh, about 14 from 6 plants.

I have a problem with rats eating my tomatoes, never had this before, I've caught two in the last week and I think I need to catch more. Horrible things, but better they are gone.

Davesnave

Just recovering from a 'heavy' day yesterday, when we made a trip from here to Birmingham & back in order to pick up a couple of leather sofas my DD1 had found for next to nothing, plus another one for herself. It's too complicated to explain, but we also had to pick up some other interesting items en route, so basically a day of sitting, sweltering in the van, with aches & pains to match.:(

Now it's catch-up time here , so I'll call back later.....:)

kazschow

lostinrates wrote: »

I'm meeting with a man who sells wood burning boilers...not pellets which we've ruled out but logs. I'm told they take about a wheel barrow a day to service a whole house which water and heating, and it can be soft wood. My concerns are mainly how often they have to be fed and how easy they'll be to relight when you miss refeeding them.

We looked into biomass wood chip boiler systems for our new build, but the 28k price tag more than knocked them out of the picture!!! Not to mention the fact they were so big and I needed to build a brick built outhouse to house it as a legal requirement!!!

So we've settled on good old oil fired, and the biggest multi fuel stove we could find to do the donkey work of heating the house instead

lostinrates

kazschow wrote: »

We looked into biomass wood chip boiler systems for our new build, but the 28k price tag more than knocked them out of the picture!!! Not to mention the fact they were so big and I needed to build a brick built outhouse to house it as a legal requirement!!!

So we've settled on good old oil fired, and the biggest multi fuel stove we could find to do the donkey work of heating the house instead

There are much smaller wood pellet boilers...as well as barn sized ones. The main advantage with the woodpellet is that it can be fed via a hopper so less tying. We're not looking at anything like 28K for ours, depsite this being a big old house!

The reason we won't be having pellet is because the pellets in many cases are shipped half way round the world. (many of them are from NZ, and packaged in europe). So oil price will impact on the cost, as will the fact that we will end up relying on producers. The logs, well...we can contribute to our own store, and can buy and have delivered for a choice of local suppliers. And it is going in the house, as would the pellet would have done I think.....I've certainly seen them in houses now....but perhaps chip is different to pellet? At no stage have building regs/planners/architect or anyone suggested this would be an issue...so now I'm panicking a little!

kazschow

It could be different because we're a complete new build not a renovation, when we first looked into the biomass boilers, we had thought on putting it in our very large double garage, of which half of it would be taken up by the boiler and hopper feed, our agri shed would be the main store for fuel for it, but we were told by the installers and building control this wasn't an option, it would need to be housed on a purpous built house a minimum of 4.5 meters from our outside wall. Even at that it all seemed great in theory, but tbh, the cost implications put it way out of our means. We were made all kinds of promises of government pay back grants for the next 25 years, and zero per cent loans to buy and fit it, but my fear on this front is if the government are happily cutting investment in pensions etc, will they in all honesty maintain their commitment to domestic renewable like this. way to big potential step down for me I'm afraid. My big mofo multi fuel stove and the doors open will hopefully do me, as our house has more kingspan than you could ever imagine in it, tbh, a couple of people sitting for any length of time will heat the place up heheheee

lostinrates

kazschow wrote: »

. My big mofo multi fuel stove and the doors open will hopefully do me, as our house has more kingspan than you could ever imagine in it, tbh, a couple of people sitting for any length of time will heat the place up heheheee

I think that's the real answer.....to need any form of heating less. we limped with the ancient oil sistem, and the last thre places my parent shave had were oil powered systems of various ages, and for us we were happy to riule it out. However in the depths of winter when I'm running out for my wheelbarrow of wood for the day I know it will feel like oil users are having the last laugh


We're having fires or burners in five of the down stairs rooms, underfloor throughout upstairs and some places down stairs....the extent is as yet undecided (depends on how good the concrete is ....we know its cruddy in some places but if its ok probably won't destroy to install.)

rhiwfield

I'm quite taken by the transpired wall collector. Just starting to be considered for domestic, but already operational for commercial and industrial premises. I know that there will be domestic trials in 2012.

If I was new building, or renovating, I'd give it very serious consideration, in the meantime got most of the bits for the solar air heater, need to sort out the garage to make a workspace to put them together

kazschow

Our architect is very involved in green technology, and has speced our newbuild as highly as she can to enable us to reach optimum u values. we have a nil vented property, fully insulated throughout with Kingspan, and vc foil inside and out. All potential air gaps that are too small to kingspan are filled with foam etc. I have to say the builders are very reluctant to do all this, and constantly berate the architect as a crank, as this isn't how they've built houses for the past x number of years in their experience, and is way more expensive than using good old faithful rock wool!!! I'm going to be very interested to see how this works out heating wise in the real world, but in theory we really shouldn't need much heating at all hopefully, I'll tell you how it goes when we finaly move out of the !!!!! caravan into it lol.

Lotus-eater

lostinrates wrote: »

I'm meeting with a man who sells wood burning boilers...not pellets which we've ruled out but logs. I'm told they take about a wheel barrow a day to service a whole house which water and heating, and it can be soft wood. My concerns are mainly how often they have to be fed and how easy they'll be to relight when you miss refeeding them.

I remember seeing a guy on tv who had one and it was stressed that he was out in the boiler shed, what seemed to be all the time, adding wood, or mucking about with it in some way.

I suppose it would be best if you could find someone with one working and go along for a look.

oldtractor

Can I join in? We have recently enlarged our allotment space in our field by 100% and am looking forward to next year already. Our apple trees hgave fruit for the forst time this year and they are delicious. I am looking for a cider recipe.