Dome, Dome on the range!
Some one seems to have put a heavy foot on the accelerator pedal. The week has sped by and it's Sunday again and I'm knackered. With the cold but dry days we’ve managed to get a lot done so the idea is to have a bit of a rest today. So taking the week backwards; today we went shopping online to get a fire bowl for the newly created fire pit. A local guy creates them from old commercial truck wheel rims. Due here in a week or so.
We also purchased a bed and mattress for the Hafod dome and also some additional outdoor seating. That was the easy bit of today. We then moved a dollop of stone (boulders) down the field for K to continue her creation around the garden dome. And lastly I spent some hours fruitlessly trying to work out how to put up curtain track in the Hafod dome.
Katherine has built some heavy duty steps from the garden dome down to the fire pit using some railway sleeper sized timber I aquired some months ago. Beside the fire pit will be a bench seat or 2 made up from other sturdy timbers that I've had in stock for a while.
We began the week by putting up “der shed” or bathroom; which we erected on its trailer base which I finally got jacked up and level. We’ve done the floor, walls and roof panels but are waiting for a nice warm day before nailing the felt on the roof. The days have been bright and clear but the last few nights we’ve had heavy frost, too cold for trying to unroll roofing felt.
Mid-week I was across the field and unwrapped 2 large packs, one for the silver foil insulation for the dome and the other being the outer tent cover. It took a couple of hours to ease the foil cover over the frame on my own; it then took K and I a further few hours to get the heavy cover onto the dome. In the instructions (such as they are) a team of 6 people are seen in action pulling the shaped cover over the frame. We did it with 2 people and judicious use of Mr Tirfor (the winch), last seen pulling the bathroom trailer into place.
The cover has to be accurately positioned on the frame so the doors and window line up with the appropriate frame. Then having got the cover on it has to pulled down onto the bottom base bars to tension the cover and remove the wrinkles. The foil insulation is made as a complete dome so once fitted it has to be trimmed back at the door and window opening. A trip on to the top of the dome via a long ladder was made to install the solar powered extractor fan.
There now remains the installing on the inner tent skin which is decorative and needs to kept nice and clean. And once that’s in place we have the floor finish to fit and the wood stove before the rest of the internal fit out can be started on. Oh yes plus, plus and plus again.
Across from Janes field is a line of old oak trees and every year the Red Kites nest there. This week we've had a regular sight of up to 6 of these beautiful creatures effortlessly riding the winds above the tree lines. No doubt the're sussing out the plans for this years housing. The crows always cruise the same lines. In the summer there are arial fights as the crows try to pick of the eggs or nesting chicks. But for now just red kites witha mouthful of twigs. It's a shit view from my office window eh.
I see we’re forecast some wind in the middle of the week but see how the whole house is now powered by the sun (free) and should remain so until the end of September. I had to fill in a form recently and was asked for a utility bill as a form of ID! What’s one of them says I, ha ha.
Solar PV 63.26Kw
Wind Turbine 3.08Kw
Power Created on site 66.34KW
