Bio Mass Part 1

Been offline for rather a long while, mum has been very poorly in hospital and as you may or may not know she lives over 300 miles away. So we have been up and down like yoyo's. Problem is, now hubby has semi retired, we don't have the budget that we used too. Normally my sister and I visit alternate months, so one of us sees her each month, so far we have been up 4 times in 5 weeks!

Anyway mum came out of hospital and we stayed till she was settled and all was well, then had to come home as we have alot of work to do.

We are getting rid of our Solid Fuel Rayburn!

In fact when we made the decision it was sold in May and is awaiting removal, when it will be going up to Scotland. I will be very sad to see this go as we have had 22 years of good service from it. In someways I am in two minds about whether we are doing the right thing but we are not getting any younger!

So how this came about........

the power kept tripping in the kitchen and it got so bad we had one electrician in, who tried to solve the problem, which then got worse. Then I managed to get hold of  WEC's top guy who has done alot of electrical work here over the years and he knows are old quirky house. Anyway to cut a long story short, he found the problem and sorted it, during which we got chatting about heating our hot water in the summer. Darren suggested we visited there showroom, where he could explain how things worked.
We did, where all his technical jargon whizzed over my head, but hubby got the gyst.

In the corner of the showroom I saw a bag of wood-pellets and asked about them. About 10 years ago we tried to get more info on this as we are very conscious our carbon footprint is ENORMOUS with the fossil fuel we use. So we had the blurb, they sent us a quote, we went back with loads of questions, got more blurb and then decided to go for it.

Basically the main reasons for going ahead with this for us are:
1 More environmentally friendly
2 Easier to manage as we get older
3 Cheaper to run
4 We can load it and it will stay in for 2 weeks!
5 Less ash
6 Flick a switch for instant heat
Plus a few more which don't come to mind at the mo!

So we had to organise a builder to come and sort out the exterior work and obviously WEC for the boiler. The start date was due to be August which gave us 3 weeks to prepare ourselves. Last thursday we had a phone call asking if they could start Monday. 3 days definitely focuses the mind!

So having started to organise the inside, with the help of K's boyfriend we chose the hottest day of the year, to start dismantling the coal bunkers.

This is how it looked when we started, we need to move the first 3 bunkers as this is where the biomass boiler and hopper will be going.

I know it looked better with the 2 small ones furthest away but we needed a bigger one for the 'cat house' to stand on. Especially as my cats love it so much and they are 15 years old.

The middle, double bunker is proving to be the most difficult, hopefully we should finish it today. We are having the wall rebuilt between ourselves and our neighbours rebuilt as the old one is made of horrible grey breize blocks and has an almighty crack through the middle.

This is the boiler that is to be installed outside

with a flue and then a hopper next to it in a purpose built shed!

Next instalment very soon!

Comparisons

To see what was going on in the garden last year compared to this year.

2012

2013

The Hardy Banana, 2012

and this year

mmmm, not alot going on there!!!

The T-Rex last year, big leaves and lots of new ones too.

This year, taller, but struggling to get going...

Ensetes. last year, just getting ready to be planted.

These are the Ensetes this year, this is only the 2nd day they have been out of the greenhouse. Its still too cold at night for them to stay out. The weather forecasts says a low of 5C tonight, we will get lower as we are so rural.

They have thickened out. I did have 5 but I lost one over winter.

I am starting to get a backlog now, the tomatoes really need to go into the growbags, but I don't have room till I get all the bananas out. I have started to remove the bubble wrap insulation, so hopefully in the next few weeks I can get things planted in there rightful places.

Come on Weather!!!

Well I am getting a bit fed up with this weather now, for goodness sake its the middle of May!!!! The T-Rex is only just bursting into life.  The Hardy banana is looking decidedly dead, but when the weather warms up it should start poking through.

The Rheum down by the pond is enormous and is already beginning to flower. This gets bigger and bigger each year.

The Gunnera on the other is struggling!!

This is part of the Bronze bed. Isn't the Heuchara gorgeous.

This is another part of the bronze bed that needs rescuing!

Meanwhile in the greenhouse the banana's which I started on the 1st April are not going as fast I would have expected.

The Bougainvillea is flowering still.

Don't you just love watching seeds bursting through

It still amazes me how a large leaf can come from such a tiny seed.

It looks like an alien, about to emerge from the ground!

I'm sorry I can't help putting  photo's of Darcy on here, he makes me laugh. How he makes himself comfortable when the sun comes out!!!

I do hope the weather bucks up, I'm getting bored stuck inside!!!