Hot stuff
April 27th, 2008 - Posted in self-sufficiency - by Sarah|
An important part of self sufficiency is learning to grow the things that you like to eat. With this in mind I planted a wide range of chillies this year and we got a bumper crop.
Brendhan harvested them last weekend as we thought it unlikely that they would continue to ripen on the plants now that the weather has turned colder. It was left to me to do something with them before they all went mouldy. I decided that it would be a good opportunity to try out the food dryer that we found in a 2nd hand shop about this time last year. I have left some whole but have de-seeded and sliced the majority as they are medium to hot varieties such as Hot Cherry, Cayenne and Ancho St Louis.
The dryer has 5 trays (expandable to 15) which stack on top of each other and warm air is blown through and out of a hole in the top. Yes, it uses electricity but if we decide that the process is an effective way of storing fresh produce then we could either get more trays so it’s drying more food in one go or we could make ourselves a solar dryer like this one.
For now we have lots and lots of chillies to keep us going over the winter. The only thing I’ll do differently next time is to wear gloves while chopping and de-seeding. My fingers have been tingling for 2 days!
A room with a view
April 18th, 2008 - Posted in eco-building - by Sarah|
We’ve made lots of progress this week despite getting 106.1mm of rain (as of 7pm this evening). We have finally reached the point where we can get on with things regardless of the weather.
After finishing the wrap we started to attach cavity battens which will create an air gap between the inner and outer walls. This is something that was added to our design to satisfy the council as they just couldn’t understand that lime plaster was not the same thing as stucco (cement plaster). It has increased the cost of the building significantly as we have had to get stainless steel cavity closure flashings as well as the extra timber etc. required. All our external flashings have been specified as stainless steel -we were told by our architectural designer that this was a regulation because we are only a couple of km from the sea. Talking to neighbours is beginning to cast some doubt on the veracity of this though so we will double check before we build the house (assuming we ever get consent – 4 months and counting). Stainless steel is more ecologically sound (infinitely recyclable, less chemical input) than colorsteel or galvanised but is also a lot more expensive.
We had a particularly successful day today. We started off by cutting the hole for the window, adding the necessary flashing above and below and then setting it in place. It will have to come out again when the next layer of wrap goes on but for now a) it’s out of the way and b) we have a window! Then we had an insulation frenzy and filled all the gaps in the framing with our Terra Lana R2.2 wool/polyester batts. This was an incredibly quick, easy and enjoyable job that would have been horrible if we’d used the standard glass fibre insulation.
We also had the 3rd electrician round to quote for moving us from temporary to permanent supply and signing off the wiring in the workshop. We should hopefully have the quotes in some time next week and be able to get that moving too.
Earlier in the week, on the one fine(ish) day we had, we attached the first of the gutters. These are colorsteel to match the roof. We have not been able to avoid PVC droppers (the piece that links gutter and downpipe). The outlet is temporarily linked directly to our land drain sump until we get around to connecting it to our water tank and adding an overflow pipe.
