Roy is grappling with the question of how to control the heat pump system. This involves talking to about four different people: Mary, two separate heat pump specialists, and Alistair Fraser (about which more very soon). It seems a good idea to be able to turn off the floor heating in places where it is not always necessary: for example, in the sitting room when the stove is on and in the study when it is being a bedroom. It is fairly important to do this as a heat recovery system is essentially just another way of heating your house with electricity - not the cheapest of fuels; though, if properly generated, one of the least damaging to the planet. But control involves taps or switches - those things that tend to go wrong on radiators every autumn. Anyway, he is dealing with it.
The real news is that, in the course of conversation with Alistair, he discovered that we very nearly have a roof. What a surprise. Although I have been intellectually aware that things must be moving on in their own mysterious way, it is hard to believe, when the only pictures to keep looking at are the ones we took nearly a month ago.
I have been using a couple of days away from court to think more about kitchen furniture. I rather dislike Units and things made of chipboard; and we felt that the estimate provided by Mary's kitchen designers was perhaps a little pricey for what is, really, a pis aller; but it is quite hard to come up with an alternative that will look right in this very simple and undecorated house. So I have a fairly nice plan from Jonathan Avery, a very expensive one from Plain English, some ideas related to Magnet kitchens, and a fallback involving Ikea. Today I am going to speak again to Real Wood Kitchens. I feel I ought to be able to find a wonderful local joiner, but so far that hasn't happened.
As for other matters: I have started to wonder if Alistair has remembered to make a channel for the gas pipe; so after waking up in the middle of the night a couple of times I have rather shamefacedly asked Mary's assistant Robert to put my mind at rest. Now I have started wondering about the air vent for the stove; but I haven't had the nerve to tell him about that yet.
And finally, I am still trying not to think about the planning issue. As reported (I think), we are having to get the planning application amended to deal with the change of location. Or at least that is what we originally thought we would have to do. But it turns out that we needed a whole new application. So we are doing that terrible thing: building without planning permission. Diana sucked her teeth and sounded tremendously doubtful when I told her. Mary says it should be all right, even if it means going to appeal. We will know sometime in the New Year. Taking the long view, perhaps it is just another of those things that take a couple of years off one's life and give one something to tell people about afterwards. A little positive thought from everyone might help, though.
Oh - and the water men have not come yet. I am a bit loath to predict evil, but this may be the next thing to worry about.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Monday, November 05, 2007
Siwan and the Nymphs; or: We have a sewage treatment plant
We went to the Wood today; and Livy took lots of photographs which will be here soon. The moraine forming the road has solidified beautifully and seems to be taking construction plant with little difficulty. It was also resisting a very determined and heavy West Highland downpour.
The house site has also hardened, and the foundations have been filled in with concrete. There are drain holes; there are electricity cables, which seem to have been laid underground to the foot of the nearest electricity post; there is a sewage treatment tank with a natty domed green lid right in the foreground of the view from the side window in the sitting room; there is a track of extremely deep mud leading away from the sewage tank to the west burn, where the clean water discharge pipe comes out; there is a lot more peaty mud heaped in terraces behind the house; there is what may be the track of a buried telephone cable; there is a sort of grotto to the east of the house which is where we understand the water drilling may be taking place in due course, in which case it is most definitely the nymphaeum.
The house looks both rather big and quite small, depending on where one is looking at it from. We haven't walked into it, of course. It sits very neatly into the land, and the steps down to the sitting room seem to make sense. The views will be pretty good - better than from the earlier site.
I am now beginning to plan how to turn the acres of waterlogged peat heaps into a landscape again. At present, great areas of it simply cannot be walked on because one just sinks into it, when there is no mat of vegetation to hold one up.
The house site has also hardened, and the foundations have been filled in with concrete. There are drain holes; there are electricity cables, which seem to have been laid underground to the foot of the nearest electricity post; there is a sewage treatment tank with a natty domed green lid right in the foreground of the view from the side window in the sitting room; there is a track of extremely deep mud leading away from the sewage tank to the west burn, where the clean water discharge pipe comes out; there is a lot more peaty mud heaped in terraces behind the house; there is what may be the track of a buried telephone cable; there is a sort of grotto to the east of the house which is where we understand the water drilling may be taking place in due course, in which case it is most definitely the nymphaeum.
The house looks both rather big and quite small, depending on where one is looking at it from. We haven't walked into it, of course. It sits very neatly into the land, and the steps down to the sitting room seem to make sense. The views will be pretty good - better than from the earlier site.
I am now beginning to plan how to turn the acres of waterlogged peat heaps into a landscape again. At present, great areas of it simply cannot be walked on because one just sinks into it, when there is no mat of vegetation to hold one up.
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