Nový Mlýn - green tech south bohemia

I have just finished a lesson with a student who is a wood expert. He has a firm selling timber & so we were discussing wood as he needs to learn wood related vocabulary. I was quizzing him about the house he is building. I love random things like this. Last week we were discussing the Czech economy amongst other things & he told me that in Moravia there is unemployment of 20%, whereas in South Bohemia it is 4.6%.  I asked him about using wood as a roofing material as I had seen what appeared to be wooden tiles on a church close by, I thought this was strange as I’ve never seen such a thing in the UK & was sceptical about whether it could be waterproof & long lasting. As it turns out…

He is using larch wood tiles on the roof of his 500 year old house. They are guaranteed for 70 years, and as they are hand cut larch, they do not need to be treated with insecticides & preservatives. This sounds to me like a brilliantly eco friendly roofing method. It is labour intensive, however the trees grow in a part of the Czech Republic where jobs are needed. I discussed this with M & we have decided to investigate using this material on our roof at Novy Mlyn. I wasn’t happy with the roofing materials which have so far been suggested - a plasticky slate (for some of the reasons discussed in my last post - how do we know how this material will perform in five decades of sunshine? Larch roofs have been used for centuries, it is solid technology) . I don’t want to be shipping genuine slate from China either - the embedded energy costs are too high just to make your house look pretty. I would be very happy to see if a larch roof would work with Novy Mlyn, and promote the craft to the UK.

I told you that teaching English was a really interesting job!

Right, so I’ve started researching into damp - and come across an interesting German site:

“Did your audacious restoration…of your historic building change to a disaster? Have you lost all your money and hope?”

It’s been machine translated into English, so the language is a little strange… but clearly passionate. The gist of the site is this: if buildings are to stand for hundreds of years, it is best to use methods that have been tested for hundreds of years. Many new building technologies are now on the market which may have been tested for a year or two, but then go on to fail within years or decades - and additionally, many ’solutions’ are being sold by cowboys.

So, an interesting (though a little ranty) page about mould: http://www.konrad-fischer-info.de/7mold.htm

Some advice about ‘the fraud of rising damp in old buildings’: http://www.konrad-fischer-info.de/2auffen.htm

ARGH!  Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve made an unfortunate discovery at Novy Mlyn. On the north side of the house there is a hole in the plaster & the bricks underneath are crumbly. Will bricks with the consistency of cheese hold up my house? And what do I do about it? Is it possible to dry them out some how. They are damp now when there has been very little rain over the last 3 months. Better do some research.

We went out to the house on Monday night & stayed over - just like we were planning to (for the last two years!). Yet again I am covered in paint - even after a long bath which did at least remove the dirt. Interestingly, the most effective way of removing oil based paint from skin appears to be baby wipes. God knows what dodgy chemicals they have in them … far easier than soap, water & scrubbing. Anyway, 3 fence panels later Mike arrived back from work - and was clearly horrified with how dirty I was - he said I looked like a coal miner/chimney sweep/street urchin.  Least I have the evidence that I did a thorough job. Read the rest of this entry »