Paying the heating bill

[British Red]

I have to say I do too Tony! I've got a fun bit of video from some recent Willow felled the day before. Hang on, I'll host it - it should be funny

 

[Le Loup]

When we first moved to Wales all our heating was via a wood burning stove, I pent on average a day a week traveling, felling/cutting up, transporting, splitting and stacking. I have to say that I miss those times, now we have an ultra efficient woodturner in the living room, we're not dependent on it but it definitely helps out with heating.
We still get to process wood and I've a fair bit stacked but it's not like it used to be.

For your two weeks of work Red, I think it's well worth it

I spent a lot of my youth in South Wales Tony, I had family there. I do miss those days being up on the mountain in the clouds. Of course it was coal then, not wood, my Grandfather & Uncles worked down the coal mines. I guess it has changed a lot since those days.
Keith.

 

[swyn]

I agree re the insulation swyn, definitely worthwhile. The weather is getting hotter here every year now & we are wondering what else we can do to keep the temperature down in summer. I don't think there is much else we can do.
Keith.

The heating is 'on' pretty much all year. The insulation means I'm also cool during hot summer days. The masonry stores heat from the day and gives it back overnight. The floor sensors only switch on at temperatures below 18 degrees.
In Tas there was 'sisalation', silver foil-on-a-roll which was stapled inside and outside on your timber uprights. I used this in copious amounts.
In 1991 rigid insulation board simply wasn't available and if you asked you got a funny look! Perhaps it is more available now?

Perhaps with your wriggly tin-clad exterior (or is it upright timber, but still do-able) you could unscrew one whole flank wall and insulate with rigid and foamy glue? A wall a year to spread the costs. Carefully numbering each sheet as it came off so they'd go back using the same holes. Then of course there is the roof and you could hybrid this from the inside, filling in between the rafters and then another layer followed by plasterboard. Been there, done that and it is not so difficult and it makes a huge difference. Just need to keep the 'air-gap' between the felt & tin.

The Persians had a pretty good grasp of keeping their interiors cool;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher

With a young Architect in the family I am always interested if old ideas have modern uses. There was a BBC documentary in wind-towers and the fact that modern buildings have tuned away from free natural ways, instead slipping in a raft of 'heating & ventilating' construction regulations which stifle all the the older methods. Rather blinkered in my opinion.

Today I go to Travis Perkins and the sizes go from 25mm through to 150mm and 90% is in stock!
S

 

[Tony]

I have to say I do too Tony! I've got a fun bit of video from some recent Willow felled the day before. Hang on, I'll host it - it should be funny

 

[Robson Valley]

I have covered the west side of my house with grapes. 14' high and 40' wide and 2' out from the house wall. That's a big part of my summer cooling and many other values. I have seen +47C in the shade on my south balcony.

So, I open a little shaded window at ground level behind the wall of solid green grape vines. Upstairs, I crack open the hatch to the attic. There is a WHOOSH of rising air that empties my house.

Maybe we go picking and make dolmades with lemon sauce for supper? Says he, dreaming of July.

 

[Anglo American]

Most know we heat and cook on wood ( with propane backup)

This is our stove

Wood stove by English Countrylife, on Flickr

Today I was rendering a Willow tree into firewood

Willow logs by English Countrylife, on Flickr

It was big rounds so it was time to go old school

Log splitting tools by English Countrylife, on Flickr

Splitting wedge by English Countrylife, on Flickr


I thought it interesting, to work out what our year's heating and cooking "costs". Well, when we split wood, we season it in vegetable crates

Wood yard by English Countrylife, on Flickr

Each crate holds about 2 cubic metres of split wood up off the ground with room for the wind to blow through which is important for seasoning.

Log bin by English Countrylife, on Flickr


When full, we cover the crates with wriggly tin and let it season for two years

Wood yard by English Countrylife, on Flickr


Now that Willow filled one crate. A crate of 2m3 is half a cord (the standard measure of firewood). We burn three cords ( 6 crates or twelve cubic metres) of seasoned wood a year. Given that it takes two years to season, that's up to 36m3 of firewood in various states of drying.

How long this all takes is of course variable, but say a day to travel, fell, section and transport a big tree and another day to split, stack etc.

Let's say two weeks to prepare a Winter's worth of fuel. The wood is from dead, dieing and problem trees that are replaced and is very sustainable. With more land I would run a 10 year coppice cycle and produce the wood on site.

Rotten log by English Countrylife, on Flickr

Does it make sense?

I could go to work and make money to pay my heating bill - but does two weeks work cover heating?

I've certainly saved on gym fees, and honestly, although it's hard, sweaty work, it's still better than meetings

Red

Cost of heating has just jumped massively and is set to jump again in October just in time for winter.
Going to be a cold winter this year.

Meanwhile more oil and gas sit in the North Sea than we could ever use in a hundred years and more sits off the Falklands than we could ever use in a thousand years yet British people will die in their homes this winter due to a lack of care, dressed up as a lack of resources.

...I need to split more wood.