Tag Archives: solar shower

Thursday 24th June 2010 – So as I said last night …

kwikstage scaffolding barn roof les guis virlet puy de dome france… we finished the erection and we started on the stripping.

We had enough scaffolding left over to do another three bays and so it goes right round the corner and halfway along the short wall where I’ve done the car parking. In fact, we reckon that with another half-a-dozen 3-metre uprights, some more planks and some 4-foot cross pieces we could even do a full half-size of my barn – a run of about 23 metres.

kwikstage scaffolding stripping barn roof chevrons les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo once we had the scaffolding up we ripped off the slates – not that they needed much help from us, it has to be said, and then had a go at the laths. The laths were mostly in reasonable condition but we ripped them all off on this one side, but some of the chevrons are horrible and I’m surprised that they have lasted.

But stripping off the roof revealed the usual mouse nest complete with mice, and this time the added excitement was due to uncovering a pair of wasp nests. And they weren’t too pleased either.

Tomorrow we’ll take off the chevrons on the roof this side, and see how far we get fitting the new timber. Saturday we are chantiering, Sunday we are preparing our radio programme so it won’t be until Monday that we can start putting the roof covering back. I bet you any money that we’ll have torrential downpours all through the weekend.

frog barn les guis virlet puy de dome franceWhile I was wandering around checking on what had been left out I came across this beastie. He was clearly hopping mad at the work that we were doing and he didn’t like the broken slates at all. In fact at one stage he was trying to climb up the scaffolding pole but he was experiencing something of a difficulty getting his leg over.

He’s clearly an armed serviceman type of amphibian (“a frogperson?” – ed) in his camouflage clothing.

And that reminds me from back in the mid-2000s when I went to Cosford Air Force base with a friend. Standing guard on the gate was an airman in full camouflage kit – with a high-visibility jacket. Why didn’t he just take off the camouflage gear?

But I’m not going to be up long. I’m aching all over, partly due to this heavy cold that I’ve managed to catch and partly due to climbing around all over roofs. Mind you, I did manage my first solar shower today (well, a solar hair wash actually) as my hair was full of dust from the old slates.

And I was thinking too. Last year when we did the house roof it was glorious weather for most of the time and my boulangere had gone on holiday. This year we are starting the barn roof, a full two weeks earlier than last year’s house roof, yet we are now having glorious weather and my boulangere has gone on holiday.

I suppose that must mean something, but I’m blowed if I know what.

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Wednesday 19th August 2009 – WELL, HERE WE ARE ….

rainwater harvesting guttering lean-to les guis virlet puy de dome france… one roof, all duly finished.

Well, not quite.

You can see that the guttering isn’t attached correctly, but that’s due to the lack of bits at Brico Depot the other day. When they get those in, I can fix the guttering correctly.

I haven’t fixed the facing tiles for the rear side of the roof either. The scaffolding didn’t quite reach that far and I didn’t fancy a full-stretch leaning over the side. I’ll hack down the brambles in due course and put a ladder up to do them.

I’ve dismantled the scaffolding and done some of the tidying up but it got to 17:30, the water in the solar shower bucket was at 39.4 degrees, and there was some alcohol-free beer in the fridge. So I called it a day. I reckoned I deserved it.

And right on cue, we had a thunderstorm – one of these summer storms that we have quite regularly. In 10 minutes or so, 2mm of rain fell. I couldn’t resist going outside to watch the water cascading down all the guttering and off down the hill.

By my reckoning, 2mm of rain over a footprint of 49 square metres is just about 98.0 litres (thanks, Krys). Now before I had my guttering, all of that would have fallen to the ground at the foundations and soaked into the walls. No wonder this place is flaming damp. But wait another year or two when I have my rainwater tanks installed.

But talking of cubic metres, I am reminded of the two Irishmen talking on a building site.
“What’s a cubic foot, Mick?”
“Dunno, Paddy. But claim for it anyway!”

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Tuesday 4th August 2009 – A PHOTO FROM A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT ANGLE TONIGHT

painting facade kwikstage scaffolding les guis virlet puy de dome franceand if you look closely you will notice that the facade of the house has been painted down to the level of the decking on the scaffolding.

That was this afternoon’s task – the morning was taken up in cementing underneath the rest of the eaves. It wasn’t easy without a bricklayer’s trowel, that it until I tried out a piece of recycled plastic slate. What a good finish you can get with a few offcuts of those!

Lunchtime involved a visit to the bank at Pionsat. The temporary insurance certificate for Caliburn has run out
and they haven’t sent me a new one yet.
“Well, you haven’t sent us the log book” was their story
“You didn’t ask for it” I replied. “You just asked for proof of Caliburn’s new registration number and I dropped off the certificate three weeks ago”
“Yes, but we still need the log book”
So GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR to the Credit Agricole! I wish they’d make up their blasted minds!

And it was so hot today that the 15 litres of water in my mini-heat-exchanger was scorching. So I took advantage of that and had another shower. Two in a week! I’ll wash myself away at that rate.

I also connected up the fridge. I’ve decided just to run it during the daylight hours in sunny conditions. I have to do something with the excess solar charge seeing as how the batteries in the house now top out after just 30 minutes and isn’t this a change from a short while ago? I’ve filled it full of these ice-packs so that it should retain the cold for a while and I’ll have nice cool orange juice for breakfast.

After the shower I xylophened the two planks that I’m going to be using for the fascia boards on the house, and put the first coat of wood preservative on. I’ll do the second as soon as I wake up and then put the second coat on the house under the eaves while the planks are drying. When they are dry I’ll fit them and then fit the guttering. After that, the scaffolding will come down another level.

And in other news, I had a phone call from a guy I met in the Auchan. He wants to come round and talk Solar Energy so we’ve arranged for Saturday at 18:00. Good job it looks like we’ve been working around here. I’d hate him to think that this total disorder is habitual.

Perish the thought, hey?

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Thursday 30th July 2009 – THE HOUSE ROOF IS ALMOST FINISHED …

ASPIRE RECYCLED PLASTIC ROOFING SLATES les guis virlet puy de dome france… 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.

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