Too Busy For House Work?

Yeh, kinda.

But MeWally's been busy.

I came home one day to find the front garden full of scrap.

Stuff was bursting out of doorways.

The bathroom floor had grown a load of junk.

I heard some clanking sounds, opened a cupboard door, and found MeWally inside looking sheepish.

We no longer have a heating or hot water system - didn't work anyway. Definitely wont now.

Plan B - solar and electric system - one day.

Building A 'Trimetal' Shed - 7/8.4.12

Lovely cemented shed base and access ramp, care of the graft of MeWally and Derek last weekend!

Now we can spend Easter Weekend building our new shed.

It came in seven boxes. Lots of bits and pieces, all numbered - often wrongly.

With patience and two days of graft,

MeWally was able to

patch the building together.

Soon it was the trimmings

and the doors that made up the finishing touches.

Here we are then, one shed.

Time to fill it!

Shed Base 2 - 28/30.3.12

We have a shed load of junk.

NO:

Make that several shed loads!

This shed has had its chips, 

as has this other one.

We emptied them and knocked them down.

Next job was to put in the hard core - Ed came over and gave MeWally a hand. He's a good lad!

Kellaways offered the best deal on materials - even though they got the order wrong! We gave away the spare 8 bags of cement and third of a tonne of sand. That made up for the extra aggregate I had to rush off and buy at T.P. to replace the missing tonne.

First job, crack out the anchors.

Every shed needs security - so that valuables can be chained down. We put in two.

We added reinforcing on top of the hard core. This helps prevent the cement base breaking up. Cut up with bolt cutters - watch your fingers - don't be like me!

Get the skip of sheds and junk taken away,

because the space is needed for the cementing on Saturday and shed delivery next Wednesday.

Shed Base- Friday 16.3.12

Today I shifted a one tonne bag of sand.

I moved, two buckets at a time, from the front of a house to the back, via a neighbours garden.

Gerry and I had to stop for food, we were hanging!

Gerry kept mixing, tipping , refilling the mixer and levelling the cement.

Eventually we had a shed base laid.

We limped away to our homes. 

CREAM CRACKERED.

New Wood Store

I realized that I haven't shown you our new look front garden.



It probably doesn't look that different, but that's a new fence and it's hiding our new log store! Click HERE to take a look at how I built it all.



Even though the garden's shorter, it's a better shape; much more attractive.


 
Rather like a Duck gliding smoothly on the surface, but paddling frantically under water, our fence looks effortless on the other side, however, on this side it's a busy place. Our log store! Previous blogs have shown this space with wood stacked in it. Now it's so full we'll have to cut the wood into logs and split them- they take up less room that way! The pallet (now there are a couple here) is to keep the logs off the ground and a tarp has been attached to the fence to keep the logs dryer.


We are told we need 5 tonnes of wood a year to heat the house, cook and heat water etc. Well we only want to heat the house, but that's still a lot of wood for a small property to accommodate, especially as we scrounge around for wood and tend to have gluts. It's tricky trying to store one or two years worth of wood whilst trying to look tidy at the same time.


I hope we can achieve this aim!

Wood Stores

Been cutting down trees for a couple of weekends.

It's hard work,

and well worth it as we're getting a good stock of green wood

which we'll have to cut up and split.

All 4 wood stores are complete and ready to fill.  

It takes 5 tonnes of wood a year to  heat a house and water - we only need to heat the house so these stores should be enough for a years worth. 

Perfect.

Wood Store

This is the perfect time of year to build a wood store. 

We're sorting out green wood that we've had hanging about for some time. We can't burn it until it's seasoned, which can take up to 2 years. If we use it before, it can produce tar, which can condense onto the surfaces of the chimney/flue and, when the moment is right, catch light!


For that reason, we need to be clear about which is the fire ready wood and the fresh cut stuff. The store has a roof on top and the ends will be enclosed, which will help to hide the recycled timber I've used in the construction, and prevent this valuable fuel from rotting in the rain as it awaits its fate!. 


We will have 4 wood stores dotted around our place. So far we have 3. It has been a revelation to discover that the wood needed to heat a house for a winter, takes up a much larger area than we had allowed. By having several smaller stores, even a tiny garden, such as ours, can become a source of heating fuel, whilst still looking pretty. Heating our home with waste wood is cheaper and greener than gas and good for the body as we have to work fairly hard to prepare and stack it.

Fencing Practice

It's been unusually windy for almost a week. Sams fencing suffered badly, which meant a journey over to her place to fix it.

One new post and panel here,

and another here and then a complete repaint and the job was done. 

Amazing thing though, the blue panel on the ground POPPED clean out of its' framework! It was only 2 years old. 

Now that must have been a mighty BLAST of wind.

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