Look, no moat

Now that the interior is finally habitable, we were able to turn our long-overdue attention back to the exterior last week.  We really need to get the rest of the wall plastered and rendered before the winter really kicks off. Unfortunately, the winter chose last week to really kick off.

Donald spent last weekend filling in the trenches around the base of the house with the soil rock-hard and the stones frozen together.  It was so cold that the exposed wood fibre board was covered in a layer of ice that didn’t defrost all day. This meant that there was no way we could apply the plaster. We had to wait not only for the walls to defrost but for the temperature to rise above 5 OC. Below this the plaster will crack as it dries.

We’ve been watching the forecast closely and yesterday (Sunday) was predicted to rise to the magic number. So Donald rounded up an assistant – a friend from college – to come over and do the mixing while he plastered.

The day dawned cold, there’d been a heavy frost overnight, but Donald was optimistic. With his faith in the Met Office, he defrosted the car and set off to collect Andy. They set to work as the sun struggled up and very gradually began to melt the ice. They managed to get the last fiddly bits done just as the light dwindled, then settled down with well-deserved beers and hoped there would be no frost. And do you know, the weather actually co-operated for once.

We are now, completely, weatherproof. The plaster needs a week to settle before we can apply the render (which isn’t temperature-senstive) and then we’re all done outside. That’s if you ignore the fact that the garden is still a building site. But somehow we manage to. Time enough in the spring.

Donald plastering

Donald and Andy mixing it up

- ‘My Dad built this house from scrap’

- ‘What does that mean?’

- ‘He built it from stuff he found lying around’

: )

We can now make a cup of tea in our new kitchen without having to traipse up and down the stairs. We would be christening the induction hob this evening but y’know, it’s been a long week, and we’re tired – it’s take-out tonight. Will keep you posted.

Of course we installed only energy efficent lightbulbs. It’s been interesting to see how dramatically they’ve come down in price. When we bought our first one, about 12 years ago, it cost nearly a tenner. It’s still going strong – we’ve brought it with us through four house moves (well, at that price it’s an investment piece). Recently, we thought we were doing well with Morrisson’s selling four Phillip’s bulbs for £1. Then Tesco had an offer on their own-brand eco bulbs – 5 for 40p! Then our electricity supplier sent us a couple in the post – for nowt.

It’ll be interesting to see if our electricity usage will go up now that we have power in both halves of the house. We’ll be keeping a close eye on our energy monitor. But tonight, we’re just happy we don’t have to pee in the dark anymore : )

As you can see, our Ikea units are installed - minus a few door fronts because they made some mistakes with the order. Which we would have rectified sooner if we’d been ready to put the kitchen in when it was delivered. But we weren’t, so we didn’t. That meant that by the time we realised they had given us extra drawers instead of doors, the kitchen we had chosen had in fact been discontinued. While Ikea are more than happy to replace them, they will have to be custom made to match the existing ones so it will take another four weeks before our kitchen is complete. Oh well, we’ve waited this long.

There was a positive to come out of the door debacle - Ikea had given us so many extra bits that I was given a big fat refund voucher to spend. And spend I did. It meant we were able to get our temporary worktop for nought. How’s that for low cost? And by temporary I mean it’s going to be a long time before we’re in a position to order the custom recycled glass counter top of our eco dreams. In the meantime, we can live with free.

One other thing we are without at the moment is electricity. By the time we were all fixed up and ready to go, our electricians were in the middle of another job. Tomorrow is the big day though. I am so looking forward to having all my kitchen in the same place. At the moment, the new bit is plumbed and has the sink in it. But no power, so I have to run up the stairs to the old bit to cook. Then down to wash. And up to put away. It’s a tad annoying but it’s keeping me fit. We have light via a precarious network of extension cords. Hopefully, this will all be a thing of the past very shortly.

The heating issue has become less pressing as the new kitchen gets lived in more. Honestly, the herd of six year olds made a big difference. Now the air has warmed up, the walls are keeping the heat in and we can sit comfortably in the kitchen with no heat. Not quite ready to forgo the cardy though.

Well, here it is – our almost-finished kitchen. Our ‘kitche’, as it were.

Up until this week, our evenings were spent shivering in blankets due to the lack of a heating system. The old part of the house (with the draughty windows) has radiators but they were all covered with furniture so weren’t much use heating the rooms. The new build will have Thermaskirt heating but we’re not quite ready for installation yet. Though the extension is well-insulated, as it’s not being lived in yet there is no residual heat to keep in. Insulation isn’t ‘smart’ – it is good at keeping a consistent temperature, so if the extension is generally cold, the insulation will keep all that cold air in.

We had resorted to a plug-in oil heater, which means we were alternating between watching our breath or overheated, dry air.  While this is not exactly comfortable, the biggest problem is the energy it uses. We installed an energy monitor in June and have been watching our energy use rise and fall depending on what appliances are on. Most of the appliances we use during the day are fairly low consumption – phone, modem, computer. The TV, which is of the old fashioned cathode ray variety, doesn’t use very much. Our lights are all A rated energy savers so they hardly register on the monitor. The biggest jump is in the evening when we cook dinner. Baking uses a phenomenal amount of energy. Microwaves use comparitively less but not all food lends itself to microwave cooking. Basically, the hotter an appliance gets, the more energy it uses. Our little plug-in heater sends the monitor all the way to 11!

Most people probably aren’t aware of the energy it takes to heat a house but this is probably your single biggest energy cost. With energy prices going up so dramatically this winter, hopefully awareness will increase and consumers will try to reduce consumption to save money. ‘Insulation, insulation, insulation’ may be an eco build cliche but it bears repeating. If your house isn’t insulated properly you are paying to heat the cold air outside. Investing in this will not only save you money in the medium term but it will also reduce demand on energy sources that are rapidly diminishing. Check out if you are eligible for any of the grovernment grant schemes http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/What-can-I-do-today/Energy-saving-grants-and-offers or contact your energy supplier to see if they have any incentives for reducing energy.

One of the fundamentals of our current energy economy is the imperative for profit. The way the market is structured, all the big energy companies, though theoretically in competition with each other for the benefit of the consumer, in reality offer little choice in price and the benefits are all for their shareholders and directors.  As your energy bills go up, no corners are being cut on executive salaries – their profit margin is well-insulated. So it’s not really in their interest to supply affordable or renewable energy. Though we are on a green tariff which means we pay for energy from a renewable source, our bill will be going up the same as yours. Let me repeat, savings are not passed on to the consumer.

The government is relunctant to address this issue and appear anti-competitive but some countries have attempted to introduce renewable energy supplies at a local or community level and fallen foul of EU anti-compeition laws. Apparently, because these schemes are cheap to run and will provide energy that is essentially free once the start-up costs are recouped, they will not be attractive to investors so therefore are anti-competitive! The consumer would be laughing though. Not to mention the planet.

And after that rant (if you have made it this far) some good news – the kids’ rooms are now floored and habitable (with the assistance of extension cords) so their furniture has been moved in, which frees up space in the older rooms so we can use our radiators. Woohoo. And yes, Mr. Wicander, we’re very happy with the cork flooring. Check it out:

Top bedroom with cork flooring

It really feels like we’re on the homestretch now. We’ve even been to our friends’ garage to reclaim our flatpacks, which now sit in a cluttered heap in the new kitchen, waiting for us to find time to assemble it. Our cork flooring arrived yesterday and now sits in the bedroom, waiting for us to find time to lay it. Time is at a bit of a premium now that Donald is back at college. Let’s just say we have many frenetic weekends to look forward to.

A kitchen-to-be

The result was a pleasant surprise – and an eco/budget triumph. The stairs that he built during the summer are now guarded by some very lovely rustic bannisters, handmade by my (seemingly limitless) talented husband. Allow me the proud wife moment. I’ll be back to cracking the whip shortly. 

Handmade from waste timber

What ensued was one of those classic self-build moments when you realise that you have just made life unnecessarily hard for yourself and that something you thought was straightforward is going to be a time- and labour-consuming pain in the arse. We tried sawing off the top corner of the door – it still wouldn’t open enough for us to reach the screws of the hinges. We hacked it with a chisel, we whacked it with a hammer, we tried to remove the glass panel, we cursed and swore. To no avail. We were trapped in a Three Stooges scene of our own making. Some time later we hit on the idea of drilling a lot of holes close together around the hinges. It seemed to be working up until the point the drill died. We waited for it to charge up and tackled it again. One hinge came off, the other remained stubbornly in place. The drill bit broke. We swore again. We yanked and gimmied and rattled the door but could not unhinge it. A good kick would probably have done it but we were standing – one at each side of the door – at the top of the stairs, so that wasn’t an option. Another tap with the chisel and hammer and it was, finally, off.  Woohoo!

The plumber arrived on Friday to hook up the heating, water and waste pipes so now all that’s left to do is… clear Donald’s workbench and tools out of the room; sweep up all the dust and rubble; paint the ceiling; seal the plasterboard; clean, sand and re-stain the new door; lay the flooring; install the kitchen units; put in the thermaskirt heating and switch on the electrics. Nearly done : )

But we have pretty much accomplished our aim. We have a habitable extension built with sustainable materials in a low impact way. We have a super-insulated building that will be energy efficient and cheap to heat. We have achieved this on a tight budget while maintaining high standards and it looks pretty good. Though we’re behind schedule we are still way ahead of the extensions on the road which predated our build.

We may not have a kitchen installed yet but we’re close. The plumber is coming tomorrow, the electrician next week and Donald’s Dad will lay the flooring the following weekend. Then we can retrieve our appliances and flatpacks from our friends’ garage and, finally, put our kitchen together. Minus the counter top, but that’s another story.

Regrets, we’ve had a few…

Obviously, we’re not happy about the zero decorating budget. Having put so much effort into constructing an eco home it would have been nice to reflect this ethos on the interior. The recycled glass counter top will remain the stuff of dreams for now. And the kids’ rooms are a delightful shade of grey (plasterboard).

We’ve written about some of the compromises we’ve had to make, such as the floor, but we can live with those. We’ve had to forego the downstairs toilet / utility room but we’ve never had either of these before so we won’t know what we’re missing. The big regret is that we have no budget to work on the old part of the house. So we’ll be spending another winter with draughty aluminium windows, a white PVC front door and our old radiators. I anticipate we’ll be spending most of our time in the cosy new bit.

And what of the blog? Well, we’ll keep posting until the building is well and truly finished. And then we’ll morph into an eco-decorating blog. On a budget. On a very tight budget. On a down-to-one-income budget. Expect creativity, imagination, auctions and freecycling. Lots of freecycling.