Cloudy Thoughts

[Cloud]

I'm Cloud (short for Cloudy Thoughts) Not my real name of course, but 'Steve' is boring.

I currently live with my partner in a 1969 three-bedroom semi-detached house in middle England. We have two cats. I have a science and engineering background, but nothing that in any way to saving energy or being self sufficient. Howverm, I am recycling this post, so if anyone thinks it sound familiar it might be that you're read it on the imeasure forum.

We hope to be moving to a 'new' but old house in a village very shortly. This will be pushing our disposable income to the limit. So we suddenly became very money conscious and dropping our fuel cost without dropping our life style became quite interesting. My partner is also getting the bug for growing our own food, and chickens have been mentioned more than onec.

We've now manage to drop our Electricity costs by half over the last few months, just by doing the sensible things like turning of the TV rather than leaving it on standby, etc. Our new place will be an old stone house in a village with no mains gas. Cost are bound to go up, but we hope the more we learn now about how to keep our usage low the better we will be able to cope come winter time.

I hoping to explore the likes of wood burning stoves and how to improve insulation. I'd like to look at solar too, but that might be a challenge as the building is listed. I do like the sound of ishiness. That sound like me to the tee.

Cloud

[red]

welcome

[Millymollymandy]

Hello and welcome Cloud - yes there are already quite a few Steves registered here! Good luck with the move and hope you can find the info needed on Ish.

[Green Aura]

Hi Cloudy Steve, and welcome

[Clara]

Hola!

Chances are your nice new old house will have a pantry (or a room that used to be one), use the pantry and you've no need for a fridge - mucho dinero saved - perhaps get a small chest freezer if you must.


You might also be interested in these articles from the main site for non-electric cooling
and cooking

[wolfsong]

heya, watch out for heating bills, old stone houses, especially up north, like to be kept dry, in modern times this has been remedied by keeping the heating on, but that is budget-braking, and not very environmentally friendly.
Its worth investing in log burning systems, they are carbon neutral, cheap (if you make a habit of bying your local trader a pint of bitter every now and again) and can be almost as good as oil, gas or the zappy electric stuff! just to name drop, Jøtul and Rayburn are two good brands for different uses.
We've had a Jotul here in france for 5 years, and in winter it gets down to -15, even -17 this year! its all th heating we have, except for an electric heater once in a while in the kitchen, but it'll heat a very large room. Try looking at... the ducting / flue stuff, the name escapes me atm, that channels hot air from behind the stove to other rooms.
Happy hunting, happy living!

oh yeah, and they're not cheap, but...

[Cloud]

Hi, everyone. thanks for the warm welcome.

Hola, Clara. Yes, I'd love a pantry but no luck. Our current 1969 house actual has a thrawl, but lack of space meant it has the built in oven resting on it. Our new old house neither. But it does have a well and a converted stone cow shed. Y, ahora no tenemos mucho dinero, así que debemos ahorrar mucho.

@ wolfsong, We would love a wood burner or two. Chimney sweep is on the to do list and hope that will keep the core of the house warm. Might need to snuggle under a warm blanket for the next few winters though. We have two cats - that should help.

[Zaf]

Hi from another newbie :)

[Clara]

Check out ebay for woodburners, we got a jotul no. 1 for 150 quid, not as snazzy or efficient as a modern model - but really kicks out the heat and clearly far more efficient than the open fire we had, heats the main living space (45m2) beautifully.

[Cloud]

150 quid.

That I could afford, just. But didn't it cost lots to have it installed and flue fitted etc.? I'm a real noob when it comes to all this. Learning fast, but still very wet behind the ears (note to self - do penguins have ears???)

[Clara]

150 quid.

That I could afford, just. But didn't it cost lots to have it installed and flue fitted etc.? I'm a real noob when it comes to all this. Learning fast, but still very wet behind the ears (note to self - do penguins have ears???)

erm...I live in spain....buy tube, stick up chimney here...I bet there are regulations in the UK though!

[Cloud]

Regulations!!! you wouldn't believe the regulations here in UK, it has got absolutely ridiculous.

Our new old house is listed. So I'm predicting even the red tape will have red tape

When ever we talked to people here in the UK who have has a wood burner installed they have advised us to put aside another £1k for the flue. A friend told us she had to arrange for the building inspector to visit, and that cost several hundreds of pounds. Eventually she found an installer that could self certify, but still got charged a cancellation fee by the county council.

[wolfsong]

When ever we talked to people here in the UK who have has a wood burner installed they have advised us to put aside another £1k for the flue

Sounds about right, burners have a nasty habit of setting fire to your chimney, even with flues if they're badly cleaned! you can't pin a price on safety and warmth, a burner is a worthy investiment by all standards, the good ones cost more than a car, but are about as useful!
but then again, if you really don't have thousands to spend, then good, seasoned oak or ash thats been under cover for a few years burns like a treat in the cheapest of burners.
I was shocked last year to find that upon arriving at my fathers house in Yorkshire, he was burning freshly cut oak! thats a shooting crime!!!

[Cloud]

Is there any merit in burning wood in a good old fashioned open fire place, or is that a shooting crime also? New old house has three fireplaces with chimneys - it would be nice to make use of what we have. Still like to get the wood burner, but we need the money, and new old house might have lots of other things we need to fix first.

The kitchen might have a flue already installed. Previous owners got rid of the Aga for an all electric Esse - now that's a shooting crime. And the boiler's 10 years old, so maybe a new Aga boiler should be higher on our priority list.

So many choices, so little money left

[Clara]

open fires look pretty but massively inefficient which means you'll have to buy more wood - i reckon our jotul uses about 1/3 of what we burnt in the fireplace. Most wood burners have a glass door so you can see the fire for cosy effect, ours is a solid door which hinges at the bottom and can be slid completely underneath if we want an open fire moment!
And you can shut them down at night so they tick over and it's warm in the morning and you can get it going again very easily.