Nový Mlýn - green tech south bohemia

So… last night the rain started.  Why, when it has been dry and sunny for months on end, does the bad weather start as soon work on our roof begins.

We’re still without water - the pump went back to the shop (an hour drive away), but the owner of the shop is on holiday until next week - and back next tuesday. They found the fault with the pump, but can’t replace it without the say so of the shop owner. Can I just clarify - this is a brand new pump, which was faulty when we bought it, and under Czech law the businesss owner can take their sweet time fixing the problem.  Leaving us without water yet again. So… we now have a team of 6+ roofers on premises, with no supply of clean water.

Last night we managed to feed our 5 guests - and find an extra bed. The accommodation is basic: two rooms with two beds, two chairs & two lamps, but we also have a sofa bed in the kitchen and one further upstairs room. Everyone ate. We coped with washing up afterwards. Given the water situation, things are okay.  We thought that they would be here during the week and travelling back home at weekends, but they are working through the weekends for the next few weeks.

This morning they started work at 5.30 because the van arrived with the scaffolding. I wonder what hours they’ll work? It’s now 7.30 and I’ve already been out taking some last minute ‘before’ photos of the roof:

Sell photos on photrade | By EveryDayEnglish

Sell photos on photrade | By EveryDayEnglish

Sell photos on photrade | By EveryDayEnglish

Sell photos on photrade | By EveryDayEnglish

Today is the day the roofers arrive to replace our roof with a beautiful larch wooden roof. I need to remember to take some ‘before’ photos.

Wooden roofing is by far the most sustainable option - and unlike Cedar - is grown locally - so less embedded energy in shipping. The slats are hand split to make them naturally resistant to woodworm & other bugs.

The roofers plan to start with the roof of the front porch - that’s great because we will be able to see it immediately. Wish us luck!

ARGH!

We had envisaged a celebration of water on Saturday - in true catalogue style - happy smiling people running through sprinklers in the sunshine.  By 10.30pm - with the house in darkness, we stopped work. We’d achieved a hole, a tap and a pipe, and with friends and family had grafted all day…  with not a drop of a shower to show for it, let alone a sprinkle, or a shower.

We were so close to having water…  but the pump is faulty, therefore we spend 8 hours trying to figure out what the problem was - ruling out anything other than a faulty pump.  This will be returned to the shop, who may or may not make us wait 30 days for a repair (yes, on something that is newly purchased and faulty, and essential to our water supply - compared with the UK, the Czech customer is always wrong.).

It’s been such a long time the house has been dry… it’s been so limiting.

Today we chose the windows which will go in the south slope of the roof.  I would have liked to use Genersys Solar panels - they are made in Slovakia (the former partner of the Czech Republic) however I had the following problems:

1. The local supplier has not written back (to an email written in Czech by a fluent friend)
2. The cost
3. Time (we need an affordable solution now)
4. Materials (reuse is best as far as I’m concerned)

Instead we will install standard roof windows on the south side of the property, and under these place old radiators, painted black. Water coming into the house is at a constant 10°c.  In summer this is far below the ambient temperature. In the six months that the temperature here is above 10°c we will send water up to the roof to travel through a set of old radiators placed under the windows. This will raise the water temperature to 25°+ for much of the summer, even without heat from the sun.

The windows will provide a massive amount of light  in the attic - and we had planned to put windows in the roof anyway, and having all the windows in a south facing row will make the job of the roofers much easier. We are planning to add insulation under the attic floor & will monitor summer temperatures. We can always add a reflective film to the windows to cut down the amount of heat entering, or annex & ventilate that part of the roof if it really is too warm… but any additional heat in the winter will be very welcome.

In the winter, we will drain the system as soon as the temperature in the attic falls below 10°c. The reduced hours of light in winter months also means that any type of collectors would be less effective during this time. Happily this coincides with when our wood burning heating system will kick in. We are planning a range cooker in the kitchen with a back boiler to heat water & this will be on the go once temperatures fall in the autumn & winter months.

As well as fitting with the mantra of ‘reuse, recycle’ instead of always buying shiny, new things, our radiator solar collectors have the advantage of being elegant - ie completely hidden from view, as well as very easily accessible for maintenance. The radiators are to be located under 8 Roto windows (wooden frames inside, WITHOUT any special E glass) with dimensions of 740×1400 mm - which will cost the same amount as a single solar water heating panel.

I heard last night that our speedy project manager (8 months) has managed to get our permit to pump water sorted.  We were told it would take a month.  Recently I have been phoning him every day, and though he has never taken the call, this seems to have done the trick.

Unhinged bureaucracy has left us waterless since we bought Novy Mlyn over 2 years ago.  And the fact that the neighbour laid claim to the well supplying the property originally, and denied us access.  Our lawyer said it would be easy (and cheap) to put in a new well. It has been neither.  In short, dealing with the permit office, and various other service providers (such as the people who put a bore hole down 26 metres when there was water 8 metres down), the project manager who would never answer the phone,  the survey company who refused to help us with forms, but insisted we needed a survey (untrue) etc. has totally convinced me that it would be a nightmare to run a company in the Czech Republic. We are living in the wild west - honest business people are a real find - the general attitude is that cheating strangers out of money is what business is all about.  I hope that attitudes are changing, but this immature form of capitalism, with such short term vision, damages the economy from the grass roots up.

The market research industry gathers very detailed information about people’s lifestyles and habits on a long term basis, and loyalty card schemes have done likewise. Are medical researchers using this data to investigate conditions such as Dementia or Autism?

It’s been a very long time.

The learnit widget has been a strange time machine that has rushed us from winter to summer in the blink of a cursor:

In the last 4 month we’ve mostly been working 16 hour days, not on the house, but on the widget.  I’ve learnt so, so much.

I’m digging a trench. Not only that, but a trench through ground which is more stone than soil. I’ve been digging, hacking and thinking… about the nature of expertise. First, here are my 10 steps to a successful trench experience:

1. Gather together a pick axe, a shovel with a point, some work gloves & a large bottle of water.
2. How wide is your trench? If it is going to be any deeper than a shovel handle it will need to be the width of your body so that you can get into the thing.
3. Use a rope to peg out the trench (it is very easy to make a wonky trench, and difficult to set straight).
4. Remove the turf or otherwise mark the layout of the trench. Don’t use rope as this will get in the way if you leave it there.
5. Start digging. Do not dig downwards. If you dig straight down, it will then be difficult to dig along the trench and the hole you have dug will fill with rock and earth you’ll have to dig out again.
6. Dig at a gentle gradient - a concave with a 30% slope should do nicely.
7. Remember to drink the water
8. Dig and think. Digging is the ideal balance to mental work. In an ideal world I would work 50% on the computer & 50% physical labour.
9. On your first day, don’t dig for too long. Your muscles are learning a new trade, so a couple of hours is a good start.
10. Take advice from someone who has done this before. Anyone can write anything on the Internet. I’m just now digging my first hole, so why listen to me?

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We’ve been working on learnit lists 16 hours a day for way too long. The cats are bored, and we’re not getting enough sleep or sunlight.  So far, we’ve made about 27p - and that’s not going to change until we get our micro payment system installed (or I buy (or write ?) one of those e-books from a marketing expert - where, in point 3, they advise ‘make yourself an expert’. So irritating. I prefer my marketing experts CIM qualified.).

So… the roof is in hand, so to speak.  I’d love to put together a beautiful website for them & send lots of business their way (Cedar is so last year. Larch is local).  An architect visited the premises today to explore for the Ennsovi project. It’s very exciting that things are moving again, but we need to be out there, not messing around on the computers 16 hours a day - hence ghost blog. If it aint learnit, it aint work. Read the rest of this entry »