![\"solar](\"http:\/\/www.lesguis.com\/images\/foto2010\/1007004.jpg\")
<\/a>This morning we put up a small scaffolding at the southern end of the barn and while Terry was drilling and screwing into the wall for the mounting brackets I was sawing and cutting scaffolding pipe to make a framework to mount the solar panels that are on the roof of the Luton Transit.<\/p>\n I’ll be fitting them permanently onto this end of the barn along with the wind turbine that we took down from the north end of the barn.
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But we were defeated by that most unusual phenomenon – overheating batteries. When they went flat in the Hitachi SDS drill (and what a good purchase that was!) they were too hot to take a charge. Mind you, it was only 37\u00b0C today – the hottest of the year.<\/p>\n
“What’s the fourth class?” asked Terry<\/p>\n But having seen how dry the house walls have become since I put guttering up, then my barn will have it too. I’m sick and tired of being up to my neck in mud. But I’ll have to wait a bit for the drains though. The chevrons are much too short for the roofing (I went for a long overhang) and so a fascia board is out of the question but they did have at Brico Depot yesterday some galvanised straps with the facility for a sliding attachment. If you bend the straps so that the sliders are at about 60\u00b0 there’s still a good 9 inches or so on the straps and they fit nicely onto the chevrons and you can bolt the gutter mounts to them and they are then perfectly vertical.<\/p>\n We did what we could bearing in mind that we had no joints (moving the scaffolding out to give us clearance was fun) but by 15:00 it was no longer possible to work up there. The combination of a searing hot metal roof, blinding sunlight and tools too hot to touch made us call it a day.<\/p>\n I did a little some while later and then history was made by my not only having a solar shower \u00a0(and this LIDL garden shower thing needs some attention) but a solar shave as well. And no surprise – the water temperature was a phenomenal 46\u00b0C<\/p>\n We had a barbecue round at Clare’s tonight. Esther hosted it and very kindly invited me, and of course Strawberry Moose<\/a> met some of his admirers. James and Julianna drew some good pictures of him too.<\/p>\n But by 21:00 we were having thunder and lightning and we even had some rain. But nothing like as much as we need. And right now the sky is a clear cloudless starry night promising much more sun for tomorrow. I have to go to Commentry to look for joints and downpipe and then it’s a toss-up as to whether I come back to do the guttering or go for a swim.<\/p>\n We shall see.<\/p>\n<\/a>Not to be outdone however we started on the guttering of the barn as you can see. I told Terry that there are four classes of people in France<\/p>\n\n
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