… as you can see in the pic. The only part that remains to be done is the bit to the side of the chimney and seeing as we have to get up to there to treat the woodwork (we are very generous) and put slates down the sides, that bit can wait til we have the scaffolding around there.
The aluminium troughs you see on the roof are the mountings for the framework for the solar panels and we should be fitting them tomorrow if all goes well. 800 watts near enough if all goes well and with that I shall be certainly ready for action. And if Terry is feeling up to it we may even have a go at putting the wind turbine up too.
By the way, do you like the ridge tiles? They are the ordinary plastic slates scored down the middle with the groove filled with contact adhesive. They were screwed onto the front of the roof with the stainless steel screws and silicone-backed washers and left for a few minutes to catch the sun. Once the sun had caught them they were easy to bend over the apex and screw onto the back of the house. Those silicone-backed washers were quite a find, I can tell you.
After Terry had gone I noticed that the water I had in the black plastic container covered with an old caravan window had reached 35 degrees. Cue the 12-volt shower (not the OUSA Executive Committee – the xylophrene for disposing of nasty little pests will take care of them) and I had a gorgeous scrub of my dirty bits. Following that I crashed out for an hour (it’s wearing me out all this work) and then tidied up my room so I now can sit comfortably in it.
In other news, Gilles came round this morning and had a guided tour of the works. He’s just finished renovating his cottage at La Cellette and he’s organising a barbecue for a week on Friday for all of us. I like Gilles and he did help me out when a solar panel needed fixing after a gale that we had in the winter so I shall be delighted to go.
This is an isolated rural area here with houses few and far between yet I’ve engaged in much more socialising and made many more friends than I ever did when I lived in Brussels.
