Sell photos on photrade | By EveryDayEnglish

The water supply to Nový Mlýn was cut off by our neighbour. When he built his house, he simply disconnected the supply from Nový Mlýn and diverted it to his new home.  Our lawyer told us that it was a cheap and simple task to get a new well put in, so we went ahead with the purchase anyway. It took us 15 months to get the necessary paperwork to install a new well from our local council. The bore hole cost a bomb. Luckily, we had a lot of help with the necessary manual work (such as the metre deep trench to take water to the house).

So, now we have a tap installed on the outside of Nový Mlýn. With clean and plentifully available water. No more filling up the barrel and transporting it from town. No more plastic bottles. No more dependence on rainwater - which inconveniently freezes in the winter.

According to a UN report in 2000, half of the World’s population live without access to clean water.  Our experience over the last 15 months has given us a little insight into how the other half live.   Those who have water on tap in the west use it wantonly. It is not a precious resource & because it is provided at a flat cost for most people, no penalty for leaving the tap on while you brush your teeth or flushing drinking water literally down the pan.

So, here’s what we learnt:

1. Rainwater is really useful: flushing toilets, pre cleaning dishes, for all household cleaning tasks. If you’re not going to lick it, then does it need to be drinking water quality?
2. We used drinking water for personal hygiene, drinking & rinsing dishes.
3. Heat. A can of water is kept by the kitchen sink for washing dishes. You don’t need to heat water to wash dishes most of the time, the problem is that when it comes out of the cold tap it is normally as cold as the ground - ie about 10 degrees C. Raise this to room temperature and it’s good to go.  Try it. As a result for our future hot water supply we will divert the water supply into the attic to preheat it before it goes into the boiler. That’ll save us a good 15 degrees heating costs in the summer (when the back boilers aren’t functioning).
4. We have a composting toilet outside as well as a liquid only loo inside. We reduced the quantity of water needed to flush the toilet by putting rocks in the bowl. This also served as a visual reminder for visitors of the rock bog.  Two litres instead of five makes a huge difference if you have to go fill up buckets with rainwater to flush. I’m really not keen on the idea of ‘mellow yellow’ - it’s not so mellow when you’re female. You have to flush it away before you go so you don’t get splashback. We will hook up the toilets to a rainwater tank in the attic when we get the guttering replaced.
5. In the bathroom we had the following: baby wipes (which were washed out and used for domestic cleaning & insulation at a later date) , an alcohol hand gel (for more paranoid visitors), liquid soap and a mister (a water spray with a pump to add pressure). The mister allows you to wash your hands etc very easily with a very small amount of water which you can turn on and off.
6. Solar water heating - those inexpensive 20 litre bags, with the shower attachment are surprisingly effective.  I don’t know why solar water heaters are so expensive. We are putting double glazed windows in the south side of our roof & will use this light to heat water before it goes into the boiler.

Our next step will be to get the water inside… then we will be working on the first new bathroom - the accessible shower room.

Sell photos on photrade | By EveryDayEnglish

Sell photos on photrade | By EveryDayEnglish

Early July is a very fertile time. Walking through the forest this weekend we were able to gather bilberries (the British English name for blueberries), Chanterel & Bolete mushrooms. It’s a beautiful place to be… wondering in the woods… just far enough from the racket from the roofer’s radio. Czech radio… so much to answer for. It went into the 80’s and never left.

Currently, the roof at Nový Mlýn is being replaced. We had expected the roofers to be here on weekdays, but they are working through the weekends during all daylight hours. So… we have 4 permanent guests. Seeing as they are working 16 hour days we are cooking them an evening meal & providing beer.  The food has been quite a challenge because now is not the time to introduce them to contemporary English cooking. We’ve had to search around for Czech recipes & make meat and potato type meals.

The cats are totally freaked out. Two unfortunate events coincided. Last week we installed the new cat door - to stop the neighbour’s cats coming in, making stinks and eating all the food. The new system is controlled by magnets. The magnets are worn by our cats. The full implications of this did not become apparent until we’d put the collars on them. The magnets are very, very strong. The cats now stick to things. For example we have a metal kitchen (a communist throwback), the cats had metal feeding bowls & the table & chairs we brought with us from the UK have metal legs.  Suddenly, as well as having to wear a stupid collar, the cats were clanking onto everything they walked past. Plus, they gather bits of rusty old metal.

Pavouk hid under the woodpile all night in protest. They have made their best efforts to scratch up the collars… which are now very tatty looking, but still attached to the cats.  And then the roofers arrived. People. Clanking. Banging. Stuff being thrown about. Pavouk moved from behind the woodpile to under the duvet, and stayed there for three days. We had to bring her food and water up to the bedroom, but realised just to late about the metal bowls, and the clank sent her scurrying off back under the duvet.

Sell photos on photrade | By EveryDayEnglish

The first weekend in July is when the dark cherries are completely ripe and the bright red cherries just getting there. We have masses, and masses, and masses. So… I invited some people to come over for a cherry picking day on Saturday. The cherry glut is a new problem for us because a late frost destroyed most of the fruit before it set in last year.

I haven’t yet worked out which are the cooking cherries and which are for eating. There is general disagreement with the neighbour saying one thing, and the roofers saying another. I find it difficult to tell because they are all beautiful. In the UK, cherries never seemed to get that ripe - so were normally somewhat sour.  So… I have picked as many as I can, and given them away to neighbours, students and friends.  When we have water I will be able to make jam. When we have water…

It’s a delicious problem… what to do with so many cherries.  You can take a cherry diet day, for example. Simply, a day on which you eat nothing but cherries. It’s said to be very cleansing. Cherries are certainly a wonder food - they release their energy much slower than many other fruit - they have a low GI index. Friends have also suggested making cherry soup (a sort of juice with other things in it which can be stored for a long time)  and my neighbour in Tabor made a beautiful cake using some of them. In the mean time, I have pickled a good few kilos in vodka. Some with their stalks, some without.

To take the stones out of the cherries, you can use a hair pin. You stick the u shape into the stalk hole from the cherry and hook out the stone. It’s very effective.

I have cut back one of the trees somewhat - the tree is huge with many branches that will always be out of reach - next year the cherries should be less and larger.

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

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!

Sell photos on photrade | By EveryDayEnglish

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.

Sell photos on photrade | By EveryDayEnglish

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.

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?

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.