Experiments with sustainable technology in South Bohemia, Czech Republic. A British couple renovating a country house & thinking about our environment.
When I was small my mum bought a spinning wheel which was sent in a box from New Zealand. We learned how to card wool (to straighten out the fibres so it can be spun) and used all sorts of things to dye the wool after we’d spun it… we saved our onion skins for months, and experimented with spice. The result of all this was somewhat uninspiring turmeric scented browns when our friends wore Cerise pink and electric blue.
The spinning wheel is now on it’s way to Novy Mlyn – and is in need of a bit of repair. I was telling our neighbour about it (I say ‘telling’ and mean performing – I have at my disposal simple words and acting out – rather than the word for spinning wheel in Czech – kolovratek). His reaction was way more interest than I expected (another strangeness from the strange English couple in the village) & he explained that he’d actually had to throw wool away in the past as nobody wanted it. He has sheep for flavour, not for wool, so the strands aren’t very long, but I am very happy to try it out – if it’s unsuitable for producing yarn, I will certainly be able to use it for felt – and I can experiment with different natural dyes as well.
While I’m working on the house I’m also thinking about activity holidays at Novy Mlyn… as well as knitting we now have the potential to take part in the whole process… a knitting holiday could involve meeting the sheep whose wool we will spin, dye and knit. Now… I wonder if I can persuade our neighbour to adopt some Alpaca.
For May, it’s surprisingly warm. We spent today working outside as much as possible. But on a really hot day, water is essential. Our swimming pond is still at the stage of pre-construction, so we have to find other means to ends…
The drainage from the house has stopped, and so we’re back to using the outhouse while we get the necessary permit to fit a new water treatment system (envi pur is a company originating from our local town). The problem is that, if our 18 months waiting for a permit for our well is anything to go by, it could be a very long time before we have the right paperwork. I have contacted Envi Pur to see if they have a turnkey solution – ie they handle all that as well as fitting the system – however I’ve had no response to my email written in halting (or perhaps failing) Czech.
Our neighbour said that there has never been a water treatment system at the house (though we did wonder if he’d simply diverted it – as he did with the water supply). It’s horrible that even the bath and sink cannot be used in the bathroom for the time being – the water drains straight out of the top of a pipe by the back porch. JD, our builder, thinks that this could have been deliberately blocked – just to inconvenience us.
JD gave us a cast iron bath a few months ago when he was refurbishing the bathroom in his cottage. He has a place on a hill about 7 miles away – with fantastic views. JD is the hoarder I aspire to be… nothing is ever wasted. He decided that what we needed was a free standing cast iron bath. What could I do but agree. Though it was in a bit of a state, like everything in my life it was nothing that a bit of elbow grease and Hammerite couldn’t right.
Due to the dire drainage situation we decided to set the bath up in the garden. Today we positioned it in the middle of the lawn where it would get the sun all day, filled it with water, covered it with clear plastic sheet and waited.
After a day of pottering, rather than hard graft, with a bit of flopping about in the sun thrown in for good measure, just as the heat was getting unbearable, I was able to sink into our luxuruiously long & deep bath, containing water warmed by the sun. We had a good old splash about (we being Misha -2.3- and I) and after lay in the hammock strung between the apple trees to dry off. Absolutely the best bathtime ever.
While our roof was being replaced, a large amount of stuff went missing from our attic and back work room.
The individual value of each item would not have been high – an antique mangle for squeezing out washing, various mechanical parts from vehicles and from the old mill – these items were part of the history of the house. I imagine that they have been taken for their scrap metal value, without a consideration that we would have put things back together, or wanted to use tools that were so old.
We have not reported this to the police because we are not 100% certain what was taken by whom. However I am not going to be recommending this firm to others. This is a massive shame because the work was excellent, and we now have an unsurpassably sustainable and ecological roof covering. I thoroughly recommend a Larch roof (like Cedar, but produced in Europe), but I cannot thoroughly recommend a firm to do it.
This experience leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and has rather dampened my spirit concerning the project.
I thought that we’d have a big celebration when we got water… so many of my sentences began with ‘when we have water, I’ll…’. But, to my own surprise, it doesn’t feel like such a big deal. And why? because we learnt to live without it.
The water supply to Nový Mlýn was cut off by our neighbour. When he built his house, he simply disconnected the supply from Nový Mlýn and diverted it to his new home. Our lawyer told us that it was a cheap and simple task to get a new well put in, so we went ahead with the purchase anyway. It took us 15 months to get the necessary paperwork to install a new well from our local council. The bore hole cost a bomb. Luckily, we had a lot of help with the necessary manual work (such as the metre deep trench to take water to the house).
So, now we have a tap installed on the outside of Nový Mlýn. With clean and plentifully available water. No more filling up the barrel and transporting it from town. No more plastic bottles. No more dependence on rainwater – which inconveniently freezes in the winter.
According to a UN report in 2000, half of the World’s population live without access to clean water. Our experience over the last 15 months has given us a little insight into how the other half live. Those who have water on tap in the west use it wantonly. It is not a precious resource & because it is provided at a flat cost for most people, no penalty for leaving the tap on while you brush your teeth or flushing drinking water literally down the pan.
So, here’s what we learnt:
Rainwater is really useful: flushing toilets, pre cleaning dishes, for all household cleaning tasks. If you’re not going to lick it, then does it need to be drinking water quality?
We used drinking water for personal hygiene, drinking & rinsing dishes.
Heat. A can of water is kept by the kitchen sink for washing dishes. You don’t need to heat water to wash dishes most of the time, the problem is that when it comes out of the cold tap it is normally as cold as the ground – ie about 10 degrees C. Raise this to room temperature and it’s good to go. Try it. As a result for our future hot water supply we will divert the water supply into the attic to preheat it before it goes into the boiler. That’ll save us a good 15 degrees heating costs in the summer (when the back boilers aren’t functioning).
We have a composting toilet outside as well as a liquid only loo inside. We reduced the quantity of water needed to flush the toilet by putting rocks in the bowl. This also served as a visual reminder for visitors of the rock bog. Two litres instead of five makes a huge difference if you have to go fill up buckets with rainwater to flush. I’m really not keen on the idea of ‘mellow yellow’ – it’s not so mellow when you’re female. You have to flush it away before you go so you don’t get splashback. We will hook up the toilets to a rainwater tank in the attic when we get the guttering replaced.
In the bathroom we had the following: baby wipes (which were washed out and used for domestic cleaning & insulation at a later date) , an alcohol hand gel (for more paranoid visitors), liquid soap and a mister (a water spray with a pump to add pressure). The mister allows you to wash your hands etc very easily with a very small amount of water which you can turn on and off.
Solar water heating – those inexpensive 20 litre bags, with the shower attachment are surprisingly effective. I don’t know why solar water heaters are so expensive. We are putting double glazed windows in the south side of our roof & will use this light to heat water before it goes into the boiler.
Our next step will be to get the water inside… then we will be working on the first new bathroom – the accessible shower room.
Early July is a very fertile time. Walking through the forest this weekend we were able to gather bilberries (the British English name for blueberries), Chanterel & Bolete mushrooms. It’s a beautiful place to be… wondering in the woods… just far enough from the racket from the roofer’s radio. Czech radio… so much to answer for. It went into the 80’s and never left.
Currently, the roof at Nový Mlýn is being replaced. We had expected the roofers to be here on weekdays, but they are working through the weekends during all daylight hours. So… we have 4 permanent guests. Seeing as they are working 16 hour days we are cooking them an evening meal & providing beer. The food has been quite a challenge because now is not the time to introduce them to contemporary English cooking. We’ve had to search around for Czech recipes & make meat and potato type meals.
The cats are totally freaked out. Two unfortunate events coincided. Last week we installed the new cat door – to stop the neighbour’s cats coming in, making stinks and eating all the food. The new system is controlled by magnets. The magnets are worn by our cats. The full implications of this did not become apparent until we’d put the collars on them. The magnets are very, very strong. The cats now stick to things. For example we have a metal kitchen (a communist throwback), the cats had metal feeding bowls & the table & chairs we brought with us from the UK have metal legs. Suddenly, as well as having to wear a stupid collar, the cats were clanking onto everything they walked past. Plus, they gather bits of rusty old metal.
Pavouk hid under the woodpile all night in protest. They have made their best efforts to scratch up the collars… which are now very tatty looking, but still attached to the cats. And then the roofers arrived. People. Clanking. Banging. Stuff being thrown about. Pavouk moved from behind the woodpile to under the duvet, and stayed there for three days. We had to bring her food and water up to the bedroom, but realised just to late about the metal bowls, and the clank sent her scurrying off back under the duvet.
The first weekend in July is when the dark cherries are completely ripe and the bright red cherries just getting there. We have masses, and masses, and masses. So… I invited some people to come over for a cherry picking day on Saturday. The cherry glut is a new problem for us because a late frost destroyed most of the fruit before it set in last year.
I haven’t yet worked out which are the cooking cherries and which are for eating. There is general disagreement with the neighbour saying one thing, and the roofers saying another. I find it difficult to tell because they are all beautiful. In the UK, cherries never seemed to get that ripe – so were normally somewhat sour. So… I have picked as many as I can, and given them away to neighbours, students and friends. When we have water I will be able to make jam. When we have water…
It’s a delicious problem… what to do with so many cherries. You can take a cherry diet day, for example. Simply, a day on which you eat nothing but cherries. It’s said to be very cleansing. Cherries are certainly a wonder food – they release their energy much slower than many other fruit – they have a low GI index. Friends have also suggested making cherry soup (a sort of juice with other things in it which can be stored for a long time) and my neighbour in Tabor made a beautiful cake using some of them. In the mean time, I have pickled a good few kilos in vodka. Some with their stalks, some without.
To take the stones out of the cherries, you can use a hair pin. You stick the u shape into the stalk hole from the cherry and hook out the stone. It’s very effective.
I have cut back one of the trees somewhat – the tree is huge with many branches that will always be out of reach – next year the cherries should be less and larger.
So… last night the rain started. Why, when it has been dry and sunny for months on end, does the bad weather start as soon work on our roof begins.
We’re still without water – the pump went back to the shop (an hour drive away), but the owner of the shop is on holiday until next week – and back next tuesday. They found the fault with the pump, but can’t replace it without the say so of the shop owner. Can I just clarify – this is a brand new pump, which was faulty when we bought it, and under Czech law the businesss owner can take their sweet time fixing the problem. Leaving us without water yet again. So… we now have a team of 6+ roofers on premises, with no supply of clean water.
Last night we managed to feed our 5 guests – and find an extra bed. The accommodation is basic: two rooms with two beds, two chairs & two lamps, but we also have a sofa bed in the kitchen and one further upstairs room. Everyone ate. We coped with washing up afterwards. Given the water situation, things are okay. We thought that they would be here during the week and travelling back home at weekends, but they are working through the weekends for the next few weeks.
This morning they started work at 5.30 because the van arrived with the scaffolding. I wonder what hours they’ll work? It’s now 7.30 and I’ve already been out taking some last minute ‘before’ photos of the roof:
Today is the day the roofers arrive to replace our roof with a beautiful larch wooden roof. I need to remember to take some ‘before’ photos.
Wooden roofing is by far the most sustainable option – and unlike Cedar – is grown locally – so less embedded energy in shipping. The slats are hand split to make them naturally resistant to woodworm & other bugs.
The roofers plan to start with the roof of the front porch – that’s great because we will be able to see it immediately. Wish us luck!
We had envisaged a celebration of water on Saturday – in true catalogue style – happy smiling people running through sprinklers in the sunshine. By 10.30pm – with the house in darkness, we stopped work. We’d achieved a hole, a tap and a pipe, and with friends and family had grafted all day… with not a drop of a shower to show for it, let alone a sprinkle, or a shower.
We were so close to having water… but the pump is faulty, therefore we spend 8 hours trying to figure out what the problem was – ruling out anything other than a faulty pump. This will be returned to the shop, who may or may not make us wait 30 days for a repair (yes, on something that is newly purchased and faulty, and essential to our water supply – compared with the UK, the Czech customer is always wrong.).
It’s been such a long time the house has been dry… it’s been so limiting.
Today we chose the windows which will go in the south slope of the roof. I would have liked to use Genersys Solar panels – they are made in Slovakia (the former partner of the Czech Republic) however I had the following problems:
The local supplier has not written back (to an email written in Czech by a fluent friend)
The cost
Time (we need an affordable solution now)
Materials (reuse is best as far as I’m concerned)
Instead we will install standard roof windows on the south side of the property, and under these place old radiators, painted black. Water coming into the house is at a constant 10°c. In summer this is far below the ambient temperature. In the six months that the temperature here is above 10°c we will send water up to the roof to travel through a set of old radiators placed under the windows. This will raise the water temperature to 25°+ for much of the summer, even without heat from the sun.
The windows will provide a massive amount of light in the attic – and we had planned to put windows in the roof anyway, and having all the windows in a south facing row will make the job of the roofers much easier. We are planning to add insulation under the attic floor & will monitor summer temperatures. We can always add a reflective film to the windows to cut down the amount of heat entering, or annex & ventilate that part of the roof if it really is too warm… but any additional heat in the winter will be very welcome.
In the winter, we will drain the system as soon as the temperature in the attic falls below 10°c. The reduced hours of light in winter months also means that any type of collectors would be less effective during this time. Happily this coincides with when our wood burning heating system will kick in. We are planning a range cooker in the kitchen with a back boiler to heat water & this will be on the go once temperatures fall in the autumn & winter months.
As well as fitting with the mantra of ‘reuse, recycle’ instead of always buying shiny, new things, our radiator solar collectors have the advantage of being elegant – ie completely hidden from view, as well as very easily accessible for maintenance. The radiators are to be located under 8 Roto windows (wooden frames inside, WITHOUT any special E glass) with dimensions of 740×1400 mm – which will cost the same amount as a single solar water heating panel.
