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Green Living: My Green Living Journey

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    • CommentAuthorowlman
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2020
     
    We grow Globe Artichokes and eat them fairly regularly in season. They are also quite decorative if you let a few go to seed and watch the thistle head develop.
    We also grow first and second early spuds, and this year we've experimented with bog standard supermarket ones as seed, rather than buying dedicated seed. They're due for harvesting any time now - fingers crossed.
  2.  
    Looks like I'm 'on trend' with my edible garden, at least with Treehugger:

    https://www.treehugger.com/edible-landscaping-plants-4859239

    Posted By: owlmanWe grow Globe Artichokes and eat them fairly regularly in season. They are also quite decorative if you let a few go to seed and watch the thistle head develop.
    We also grow first and second early spuds, and this year we've experimented with bog standard supermarket ones as seed, rather than buying dedicated seed. They're due for harvesting any time now - fingers crossed.

    They have globe artichokes in that treehugger article. I didn't realise how nice they looked when they flower. Thanks for mentioning them - a new addition to the garden next year! :)
  3.  
    Small update as I've somewhat ground to a halt with the various renovations. After such a big push in the winter and spring months I'm distinctly lacking in motivation over the summer.

    I have managed to sort out the woodshed so that it has racking for the logs (and kindling above) and also a separate space at the back of the woodshed for a new chest freezer that was supposed to store our allotment bounty but actually stores pizzas and such. We didn't have much of a harvest this year and tended to just eat stuff when it was ready. As we expand the allotment (and edible garden), I'm hopeful of filling both the freezer and pantry with our produce.

    There is also racking on the right hand side of the woodshed that receives sunlight through the woodshed planks and I have all the freshly cut timber from a downed tree donated by a neighbour and some branches that I cut from trees along the stream. Hopefully these will be dry enough to burn by this time next year. All the pallet wood leaning against the right side racking is going to be used as fencing along the next set of gabions I install on the streambank (January/February 2021's job!!).
      woodshed.jpg
  4.  
    I've also done a very slight amount of work with the external vent for the woodburner. I'm now using external air for my woodburner!

    I also cleaned the top part of the wall and plastered a parge coat on the bottom of the wall. The woodburner vent will be boxed in, together with a radiator. The whole lot will be surrounded with insulation (behind the radiator!) and covered with woodwool boards, lime plaster and a suitable radiator cover.
      woodburner vent.jpg
  5.  
    This is the cleaned up wall, now free of the 'dot and dab' plaster that held on the plasterboard. Also now free of any damp!

    I've pointed it with lime plaster and we will either fit some oak shelves with hidden brackets or just put some pictures up there. This wall is a party wall with the annex on the other side. All of the internal walls of the annex were internally insulated, so this wall essentially has EWI. The wall on the right of the photo is an external wall and I'll be removing the cement pointing and then putting some IWI insulation on there. I'm looking at 50mm Calsitherm climate boards (calcium silicate) as this is the ground floor and as we have an issue with drainage on the lane outside, I don't want to fit woodfibre. I will be fitting a french drain out there and doing remedial drainage work but that won't be a for a good while.
      feature wall.jpg
  6.  
    A bit of an update. I have had the radiator fitted and I boxed it in and surrounded it with insulation (above, back and sides) and then covered with a grill and fitted shelving. I then had to remove a lot of the insulation as the intake pipe for the wood burner (the orange pipe) was getting covered with condensation. I fitted an insulated foil duct over the top of the original intake pipe and it solved the condensation problem. We are happy with the overall effect and we have turned a cold and damp corner of the room into a bit of a focal point. The shelf on top of the radiator cover is a kitchen worktop that was cut in half to also form the wall shelves above the radiator. I now need to complete the wall on the right of the picture with internal insulation and lime plaster. The radiator cover will also have a skirting board attached at the base.
      Rad1.jpg
      Rad2.jpg
      Rad3.jpg
  7.  
    The other work we had done was to seal up a double doorway into our living room that entered into the centre of the room, bringing cold air right into the heart of the living room. The entrance to the living room meant walking down a narrow corridor, past a staircase (that leads up to the third floor).

    We decided to open up a new doorway at one end of the living room, which was much nearer the staircase down to the ground floor. This meant that we could also turn the middle floor bedroom into a bedroom/en-suite by adding a new stud wall across the hallway, meeting the wall where the old living room door used to be.

    We have noticed a significant increase in comfort levels in both the living room and in the bedroom by having the doors moved and the stud wall creating. It's interesting to note that creating a comfortable home isn't just about insulation and glazing, it can be as simple as moving a doorway.

    The attached pictures show the floorplan with indicators showing where the old and new living room doors were positioned. I've also added pictures that show the the new stud wall that created the bedroom/en-suite (from the hallway and from within the bedroom). Other pictures show the blocked up living room door and how the bedroom looks now (we also added bamboo flooring - chosen because it's a renewable product, hard wearing and cheaper than oak!
      floorplan.jpg
      ensuite3.jpg
      ensuite2.jpg
      ensuite 4.jpg
      Ensuite1.jpg
  8.  
    My next project (apart from filling/caulking the above plaster work, skirtings, door frames and architrave) is to fit heat recovery ventilation system into the house. It's not hugely airtight, but as we slowly work through the renovations, it is getting more so and the amount of damp/condensation is increasing. We've therefore reached the point where we need to ventilate the house before we continue sealing it up.

    Another on-going project is the continuation of the allotment build. Photos to follow.

    p.s. The Jerusalem Artichokes we put in last year in the 'edible garden' were absolutely awful. They gave us dreadful stomach aches, so we threw them away. Maybe in that part of the garden we will have some decorative plants that attract bees and other beneficial insects. :bigsmile:
    •  
      CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeMay 4th 2021
     
    Posted By: Pile-o-Stonewe also added bamboo flooring - chosen because it's a renewable product, hard wearing and cheaper than oak!

    Looks good. We're very pleased with our bamboo flooring too. It doesn't seem to have faded where it gets full sun either. I would thouroughly recommend it to everybody :bigsmile:

    We've therefore reached the point where we need to ventilate the house before we continue sealing it up.

    I'm impressed by the logic. :cool:

    Excellent project, very inspiring! Keep it coming.
  10.  
    Thanks djh, both for your kind words about my mini-blog but also for your reassurance about the bamboo flooring! The spare bedroom has a north facing window so no worries about sun damage there, but we are considering using it throughout the whole of the middle floor, so it's good to know that it'll continue to look good for a long time.
  11.  
    Hot couple of days in the garden. Last year we planted an apple tree and two pear trees. This year we are planting soft fruit bushes under those trees. I like the idea of forest gardens, and although we don’t have enough land for a forest, or even a wood but I thought I’d give it a go in our small plot.

    To start, we cut a large circle in the lawn under the pear tree and after digging in some manure (and digging out a lot of stones, we planted 4 bushes in the circle. We have a red currant, black currant, amelanchier and gooseberry. Once these are established I’ll add another layer to the ‘forest’. I covered the ground with cardboard and then put bark on top.
      00746184-330C-450C-AE6E-7B85CA54A48C.jpeg
      E6289AB0-A1E9-4902-829D-64181D274ADE.jpeg
  12.  
    I’ve also extended the vegetable patch to include a couple of small poly tunnels.
      AC3A88F4-1DDA-4830-86BB-74C8F0DE3F1B.jpeg
  13.  
    It's been over a year since my last entry so I thought I'd bring the blog upto date. Not a massive amount of work to report on as we have been painting and decorating and such that aren't really relevant for this blog, but I do have a couple of things to mention.

    The first one is that in July 2021, I fitted a 100w solar panel kit from Bimble solar, attached to a water pump, so that I could pump water from our stream to water the garden and wash the cars/motorcycle.

    I attached the 100w solar panel to the potting shed roof. As the roof slope is north facing, I attached a batten to angle the panel so it picked up more sun. When I photographed the panel for the blog, I noticed how dirty it was, so using the pumped stream water onto it and scrubbed it with a cloth. Another benefit of the pumped water :)
      solar panel.jpg
      cleaned panel.jpg
  14.  
    The Solar charge controller, water pump and battery are held within the potting shed (battery not shown), with the inlet pipe in the stream with a filter on the end:
      solar charge controller.jpg
      water pump.jpg
      inlet from stream.jpg
  15.  
    The water pump connects to a hose that goes into the garden and is normally coiled up out of the way on a fence post. To water the allotment, where the potting shed is located, we just use water directly from the hose. For the remainder of the garden (mini-orchard & herb/flower garden) we use watering cans that are filled from water butts. The water butt in the allotment is filled using the pumped stream water.
      wound hose.jpg
      water butt.jpg
  16.  
    I checked our water bills and we have made a decent saving in the amount of water we use, with a welcome reduction in our water bill. I checked the bill for the same period over past years and they are all pretty much in line with each other. The bill for this year (second photo) is reduced by quite a bit.
      water bill 1.jpg
      waterbill 2.jpg
  17.  
    Potential improvements in this system that I'm considering is to add a second 100w solar panel onto the shed roof so that I can run the pump longer and recharge the battery quicker, fit some automatic irrigation in the allotment and attach a much longer hose onto the pump so that I can reach more of the garden (watering with a can is a bit of a faff).

    I'm chuffed with the reduction in water use/cost as the ROI (Return on Investment) in the solar kit should be pretty quick, though I enjoyed putting it together so wasn't really concerned originally with the ROI. Plus the garden is being watered using soft stream water (and some rainwater) rather than tap water, and that's got to be better for the plants.
  18.  
    The second update is that our small orchard/food forest is doing well. We dug out the original turf under the apple and pear trees (and used this elsewhere in the garden) and then planted various fruit bushes underneath. These are now established and growing well with a fine crop of fruits.

    We are continuing the work and we have just created an area around an apple tree, ready for planting some more fruit bushes.
      FF1.jpg
      FF3.jpg
      FF2.jpg
  19.  
    Potential improvements in this project (apart from completing the planting around the apple tree) will be to extend the 'woodland' garden by removing a part of the driveway (we have large area for car parking that we never use and so I'd like to put this area to some use ) and planting another fruit tree, surrounded by fruit bushes. I'm also looking at various options for other plants at the foot of the trees. We already have some everlasting/perpetual spring onions that are growing well under one of the pear trees and I'd like to add other plants.
  20.  
    Finally, here is a sneak peak of the MHRV project that is consuming a lot of my time....
      MHRV.jpg
    • CommentAuthorRobL
    • CommentTimeJun 27th 2022
     
    Lovely work!
    Same mvhr we have, in same gable end location. Only mistake I made was to plumb the condensate straight outside. Every few years it froze up for more than a day causing a mini flood in the attic. Oops. I re-routed it into an internal waste pipe, which was a faff, but worth it.
  22.  
    Posted By: RobLLovely work!
    Same mvhr we have, in same gable end location. Only mistake I made was to plumb the condensate straight outside. Every few years it froze up for more than a day causing a mini flood in the attic. Oops. I re-routed it into an internal waste pipe, which was a faff, but worth it.

    Hi Rob, It's good to know someone else on here has already installed this, just in case I have any questions! I also considered just plumbing the condensate through the gable end, but it's four stories up and very exposed, so I thought it best to attach it internally to the bathroom plumbing.

    On its way to the bathroom, it passes by the hot water expansion/header tank, which does currently have the overflow going out through the gable end. I was considering connecting this overflow and the condensate pipe into a larger pipe and then connecting both to the bathroom waste pipe. Aside from not really knowing if my water tank is overflowing, does anyone know if there is a downside? (and is the not knowing it's overflowing a major issue?)
  23.  
    Are you routing the intake and exhaust through the roof? (or up the chimney?!)

    I was toying with the idea of the intake sucking air directly from the well-ventilated loft space, so saving one hole through the roof, and getting some free solar heating, but am unsure if is too dusty up there.
    • CommentAuthorbhommels
    • CommentTimeJun 27th 2022
     
    Posted By: Pile-o-Stone
    Posted By: RobLLovely work!
    Same mvhr we have, in same gable end location. Only mistake I made was to plumb the condensate straight outside. Every few years it froze up for more than a day causing a mini flood in the attic. Oops. I re-routed it into an internal waste pipe, which was a faff, but worth it.

    Hi Rob, It's good to know someone else on here has already installed this, just in case I have any questions! I also considered just plumbing the condensate through the gable end, but it's four stories up and very exposed, so I thought it best to attach it internally to the bathroom plumbing....

    My MVHR condensate runs from the loft down in the bath. I made it so that I can put a container under the pipe: a free (winter) supply of practically demineralised water
    • CommentAuthorowlman
    • CommentTimeJun 27th 2022 edited
     
    Posted By: WillInAberdeenAre you routing the intake and exhaust through the roof? (or up the chimney?!)
    I was toying with the idea of the intake sucking air directly from the well-ventilated loft space, so saving one hole through the roof, and getting some free solar heating, but am unsure if is too dusty up there.





    Will; Can't you create a simple intermediate plywood box with some filter medium on the intake. The 2 intakes on my A/A ducted system have filter mediums in the grilles I occasionally inspect and change them. The stuff is cheap enough by the roll. If you put low density stuff in it wouldn't impede airflow significantly I guess. After a year or so you'd get an idea as to how dusty or not the loft space is.
    •  
      CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeJun 27th 2022 edited
     
    Our condensate drain goes into the bathroom soil pipe. One point is to make sure to use a dry trap (hepVO or similar) since there are long periods with no condensation and there's no easy way to top up a wet trap.

    I think expansion tank overflows need to be visible. They're ideally supposed to terminate outside in a visible place and failing that then like ours they need to go to a heat resistant (if hot water) tundish inside so they make noise and are easily visible. We had a ballvalve fail and the overflow was immediately noticed.

    Dust in intake ducts can be dealt with by the correct level of filtering. That's the main reason we stick with the manufacturer's recommendation to change (or rather wash :) the filter every three months. The dust in our case mainly comes from the fields I think. If the intake air came from a loft (we don't have one so it can't) then I'd put an auxiliary filter right at the start of the intake duct to collect most of the dust and insects, as well as the one inside the MVHR unit. I'd be concerned about the temperature of the air in a loft in summer though - it'd be nice to have warmer air in winter but it would be a disaster in summer, I think. Cool air from outside is a big help in keeping the house down to a reasonable temperature.

    edit to add: +1 for buying the filter material by the roll or large piece. Make sure to get an MVHR that uses filters that can be washed and where the filter element can be replaced.
  27.  
    Posted By: WillInAberdeenAre you routing the intake and exhaust through the roof? (or up the chimney?!)

    I was toying with the idea of the intake sucking air directly from the well-ventilated loft space, so saving one hole through the roof, and getting some free solar heating, but am unsure if is too dusty up there.

    I'm routing the intake and extract through the gable end of the building, at the loft floor level between the joists that go into the gable end. The intake and extract are just about 2m apart, which is the minimum advised. I could have had them further apart, but I already had an extract vent in the gable end so I took this out and replaced it with a larger bull-nosed vent. Much easier than having to drill two new vent holes further apart and fill in the old vent hole. In the above photo I took of the MHRV, you can see that I have connected two insulated ducts to the unit. These go to two bull-nosed vents attached to the gable end of the building (see pic below). The ducting is 200mm in diameter, reducing down to 180mm when they go into the MHRV, so the bull-nosed vents are 200mm and so quite large! They were originally stainless steel (see second pic below), but I thought that they might look unsightly on the side of the house (plus as its a listed building, the council might get involved if they stand out too much!), so I had them powder-coated at a local firm.

    I would not advise having the intake vent in the loft as the loft will be warm in summer, just when you want to be bringing in cool external air. 'Best practice' is to have the intake valve on a north facing wall so that the intake is not impacted by the sun hitting it. Our intake is on an east facing wall, so not ideal but I didn't have any other reasonable options. The other reason I wouldn't have the intake vent inside the loft is because they suck in a lot of air (especially mine as it's a high-flow MHRV) and all that air has to come from somewhere. I'd be concerned that air would be pulled either from the main part of the house, which would be taking heated air from rooms making them colder, or it would be sucking cold air into the loft from outside, lowering the temperature in there and potentially causing problems with freezing water pipes or from bringing in moist air from outside into the loft space (it's very wet in winter here in the pennines).
      gable end.jpg
      bull nose vent.jpg
  28.  
    Posted By: djhOur condensate drain goes into the bathroom soil pipe. One point is to make sure to use a dry trap (hepVO or similar) since there are long periods with no condensation and there's no easy way to top up a wet trap.

    I think expansion tank overflows need to be visible. They're ideally supposed to terminate outside in a visible place and failing that then like ours they need to go to a heat resistant (if hot water) tundish inside so they make noise and are easily visible. We had a ballvalve fail and the overflow was immediately noticed.

    Thanks for the info, especially about the hepVO trap. I have decided to route the MHRV condensate pipe in a different direction in the loft and have it come down a stud wall behind a wash basin in one of the bedroom en-suites. It should be a much easier job that way. As to the expansion tank, I think I'll tackle that another time - I have plenty on my plate at the moment and I think it needs more consideration than I can give it at the mo.
  29.  
    Posted By: bhommels My MVHR condensate runs from the loft down in the bath. I made it so that I can put a container under the pipe: a free (winter) supply of practically demineralised water

    That's a good idea.

    After the success of reducing my water usage with the solar stream pump, I was looking at rainwater harvesting sites yesterday. One of the solutions is 'gravity fed', where a tank is in the loft and it feeds the toilets and washing machine. I pondered whether it would be possible to feed the condensate into the rainwater loft tank, so it just doesn't get wasted down the drain.
    •  
      CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeJun 28th 2022
     
    Posted By: Pile-o-StoneAfter the success of reducing my water usage with the solar stream pump, I was looking at rainwater harvesting sites yesterday. One of the solutions is 'gravity fed', where a tank is in the loft and it feeds the toilets and washing machine. I pondered whether it would be possible to feed the condensate into the rainwater loft tank, so it just doesn't get wasted down the drain.
    I suspect you might have trouble getting the levels right to allow the condensate to flow down to the top of the rainwater tank, but that will depend on your layout. I thought about incorporating such a rainwater header tank when we built, using a hand-operated bilge pump to pump water up to it from a collection tank nearer ground level (not too onerous if the pump is near the loo). But I gave up because of the labelling requirements and the need for a mains supply into the tank (in case of no rain) with a large vertical gap because of water regs but still float-controlled somehow. It all seemed too difficult :(

    There shouldn't be that much condensation, I think. The internal RH is a long way off saturation so conditions for condensation in the heat exchanger should be fairly rare. But I have no real idea.

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