PV before the "deadline"

The panels arrived - Plan A was that they'd all be on the south facing roof. Plan B was to share them between the south and south-west facing roofs.

Plan B won.  I'm not sure I like the look of it so much and we'll loose a bit of light on the panels due to the trees in summer, but it means we got 13 panels on and I don't have to worry so much about the neighbour's hedge to the south.

We're signed up as generators with Good Energy and in the almost-2 months they've been up have generated about 98 kW hours.  Pretty much in line with the expected output.

Things should be looking up dramatically as the days lengthen and the sun climbs a little higher.

It was a bit last minute - the government brought forward the cut-off date for the generous feed in tariff from April to 12th December.

We were up and running and certified on the 8th thanks to Gavin and his team - who worked into the night to get us installed and generating for the deadline.

So here are some rather dark pictures of men at work.

Not forgetting that I still need to sort out the balcony rail!

..and then the solar industry took the government to court and won and now the government is appealing that decision so who knows where it will all end....

I'm planning the next post will show our energy usage for our first year.  And in the coming year it's just possible that we'll generate enough to meet all our needs. 

Last Autumn

 Confusing isn't it, I'm posting Autumn 2011 in 2012.

Looking back from these dark cold days it was surprisingly green.


The minimal pergola (with hidden gutter taking rainwater to water butt)  is finished and the grape vine on the left is romping away. Next summer, if the current frosts don't kill it, it should be up on the wires and doing its shady work.

It's growing in the old stone trough we unearthed when digging out for the house. The watering can hanging in mid-air is hanging from one end of the cross-wires on the pergola in a bid to straighten the wire out a bit. It didn't work.

I thought the wood cladding would fade to grey, if anything it's getting brighter,

and I still haven't reattached the slips at the back of the house.



 Must check the green roof for beech saplings in the spring.

 Most of the leaves are still to fall.

On the north west side of the house we've put a row of narrow water butts.

They are linked to each other and to a tap at the side of the garage, some 3metres lower.  I'd like to re-do them higher still so I can directly water the areas higher up the garden too.

After spending ages getting the empty butts perfectly level they all went wonky as each one filled in turn. A project for next Spring.

Up to May 2011

Well once again it's been a long time since I posted. So many jobs still to do but also some real progress - particularly in the back garden.

The wood that was lying in heaps all over the place has been chopped and de-nailed and stacked away - with great help from my father and sister. Thanks!

  After many days digging and raking and turfing. We've finally got some grass which has made a dramatic difference.   

 

The green roof is growing well too, although the balcony rail still needs sorting out. Oh, and the TV aerial hastily rigged on a Velux pole just before Christmas could be improved.

I'm not sure how but the picture above makes the garden seem far wider than it does in real life. The trees are back in leaf and the stone walls still looking good - apart from the bit where we planted the scaffolding poles (not shown!) that will need rebuilding. 

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Looking up the garden from the green roof. Our chopped wood is ranged along the fence on the left. I'll have to think up a way to shelter it or shift it before winter.

and the view from the sitting room. 

I've been making a wooden "aquaduct" that takes all the rainwater from the big south roof over to a water butt up the garden in the vegetable patch. It crosses from the roof to the fence and then runs along the fence to the water butt. There's a drop of about an inch from the roof to the water butt, it's a carefully worked out detail - that nearly didn't work out.

The aquaduct looks a bit odd on its own but there will be three matching pergola beams running parallel to it over the terrace. We've planted a grape vine but it has a few years to go before it covers the pergola.

I boiled the bit of downspout in a pan of water until it was soft enough to squish to shape to fit in the aquaduct. The aquaduct is lined with left-over damp proof course (DPC) plastic.

It's not finished, needs trimming, beautifying and strengthening but it's been working well for a few weeks. That's how things tend to get left at the moment, working but not quite finished. The garden was crying out for a bit of attention on the planting side. 

 The other sections of roof will all drain into a bank of water butts at the other side of the house. Once that's done all our rainwater will be captured.

Below the water butt is a tiny pond, in fact it's another water butt sunk into the ground. Our fish moved in at the beginning of May. They receive a lot of TLC and keep the cat entertained.

Also at the back, outside the sitting room we've had a narrow deck made - it's 600m off the ground - the levels match the floor levels in the house (where there are also three steps up to the sitting room). Partly because I liked the idea of matching the levels in and out and partly to soften the fall for anyone falling off the garden.

Raising it has also made it a sunnier spot. I want to recolour it so it doesn't look like part of the cladding.  We've planted a wisteria on the north side of the window - hoping it will be inclined to grow towards the sun and eventually frame the window.

 Earlier in the year we had pretty pear blossom and a new use for left over earth-wire sheathing as a soft plant tie.

A close up of the wood salvaged from the build. It could so easily have gone in a skip. It's all cut to length to suit the stove. The "grass" up at the top of the garden is in fact bluebells which should come back looking a bit better next year. 





At the front of the house things are looking better too.  I do need to be careful not to look at the garage door (a purchasing error -I hate the plastic-y faux wood grain) nor at the way the overhang was built too low (which induces rage - I really must not think about it). 

On the bright side, and it is nearly all bright, the wood cladding on the retaining wall looks good and the plants are starting to establish themselves.

The Robin Has Landed!

December 2010

We finally get it all together and move in. 101 jobs still to do but it's warm and dry and mostly working as it should. Below are a few pictures of the many changes since the last post in October. 

Before they fell the leaves turned wonderful colours ....  

and the cladding was finished - all but a bit around the balcony which needs revisiting.....and some leadworkwhere the sloped edge of the roof meets the cladding..... and some guttering.

 

The outside lights went up at the end of November along with the first snow.

A man came from BT to connect a phone line - but he found no telegraph pole close enough. "Shouldn't take long to get a new pole" he said and left.

The next week a new telegraph pole appeared opposite the house, the following week another one appeared up the road. You can just see the impressively big drill bit they use to bore the hole for it above the man's head.  Four weeks and two new poles later he was back and we were finally connected.

It seems there's a different "planning permission" system for telegraph poles. They planted the pole and attached a form saying if you have any objections to the pole write to BT and they'll consider your objection. Seems no-one did, fortunately for us.

Inside the house the pesky cork tiles finally lay flat, we had the kitchen and bathrrom tiled and I moved on to the laminate flooring that covers the ground floor.

 

 After a tricky start it got easier. The floors are far from flat and this made it difficult to interlock the planks. We left the skirtings off so I didn't need to worry about near edges agains the walls which speeded things up.

Then I plucked up courage to tackle the rather expensive oak floor for the sitting room.

I ran speaker wire where it can be concealed later. And shaped the planks to follow the uneven edge of the stone hearth.

After worrying about the variation in timber and spending ages sorting if for grain and  colour we think it looks great!  Dave couldn't wait to start filling the bookcase.  The sitting room started coming together. My desk was positioned to start sewing curtains and a month on there's still lots to sew.  



Elsewhere in the house I finally finished the wardrobe.... it looked really nice empty.

....I tiled the kitchen splashbacks and then gouged the grout back out and re-did it when I realised they looked much nicer with grey grout....

  ..and made a larder - here are the shelves, I'm not saying curves are better but they were more fun and I'm not great at straight lines. Des the carpenter had finally finished and all his wonderful tools left with him. And here's the larder insitu - not quite finished... it measures 1100 by 600mm and fits in a corner of the kitchen. There's a PIR light on the ceiling which switches on when you stick your head in for a look.

 

 

 

 

I put up the kitchen shelves... and we sorted out the cupboard handles after I took this photo... there's a mirror over the sink - it's intentionally directly opposite a window and gives a view up the garden.



   

..still plenty to do inside and out...

  I enjoy the way the light gives many shades of white across the kitchen ceiling, and the way the light changes with the weather and time of day.

The utility room, which shares the same high ceiling as the kitchen has seen some improvement with lots of the pipes and cylinders now hidden behind a curvy bamboo screen. Still plenty to do here too.

The washing dries well on an old fashioned Sheila Maid pulley up under the roof.

I've laid sisal carpet in our bedroom - landing and stairs still half done...



 

 ....Milly the cat is starting to feel at home relaxing on the window sill.

Dave finished (almost) his painting marathon and spent many, many hours cleaning and sorting everything and recycling lots of leftovers.  His work is vital but mostly unseen - apart from the paintwork of course.

Here he is bringing in some firewood, another great job. The garden is much improved by the dusting of snow.

We had a burst pipe - outside fortunately - the insulation had just fallen off - it was simple to repair and I've insulated it properly this time, I hope. With our thick walls there's no heat really emanating from the house to help keep it above freezing and bizarrely the only place to close it off is at the wrong end of the copper pipe - so it's always at risk.

Our man from Building control and Building Warranty man came round and both have signed the building off.  We had to replace a door to the store room with a fire door (fortunately it already had a fire-rated door frame - which implies a bit of confusion on my part) and we upgraded the intumescent strip in the fire door to the garage. Apart from that it seemed we'd done all the right things. It was a relief to get these passed, not least as our mortgage depends on it.

On the 13th December our removal men came and we finally moved in. Stuff everywhere! Too much of it says Dave.

 

Finally home and dry and warm and much still to do.