Winching away in Janes Field

As hoped for the week started of cold and crisp so on Monday we ventured out and hooked the big trailer on to the little quad. The trailer was loaded with some of the bathroom building and total weight was well over the quads technical towing capacity but as I was only going a 100 metres or so and mainly downhill or on the level it wasn’t going to trouble the quad once put into low ratio gear; and so it proved. Due to the slippery ground we did go through one gateway a bit sideways but shortly had the trailer close to its final resting place. Albeit at the bottom of the slope.

Amongst the kit I have accumulated over the years is a medium sized Tirfor winch capable of shifting 1.5 tonnes or double that when used with a snatch block. I use the winch for raising and lowering the wind turbine for annual servicing, mind, the winch and wire rope weigh about 30 kilos so I used the quad again to fetch it across the field along with a 20mtr chain.

I got the chain secured around the base of a convenient hazel tree then attached the winch to the chain with a steel shackle and feed the wire rope through the winch and down to where the trailer was sat. The winch is operated with a meter long lever and is fairly effortless. The beauty of it is that if you stop levering the winch locks so there is no danger of the load ever slipping

It took about 10 minutes to get the trailer to the top of the slope and a further half an hour to turn it through 90 degrees into its final resting place. It now need jacking up to be set level on blocks so it is safe and secure.

Through the rest of the week I’ve been getting on with putting up the framework for the Hafod dome tent. It’s been slow partly due to lots of heavy rain and partly due to lack of instruction book, as the company had forgotten to send any with this tent and were on holidays until tomorrow. Luckily I still had the instructions for erecting Norwegian Wood which are broadly the same although this tent will have 2 separate doorways which require significant amendments to the build process.

Hafod will have a solid back door leading to the bathroom and a round doorway leading out into the field. The steel tent poles that have to be assembled in the correct order or all the angles come out wrong and quite a bit of trial and error and redo from start was required but finally this afternoon it was possible to finally tighten up all the nuts and bolts and secure the 15 base plates down to the deck. There just remains adding in the frames which secure the solar fan, flue for the wood burning stove and an opening window then we’ll be ready to put on the covers.

Just to add to the weeks excitement the main controller for our heating system decided that 20 years was long enough to give perfect service and blew it’s internal fuse. After a couple of hours investigation I could not find any fault so replaced the fuse and the heating came back on for an hour or so; until pop and the smell of burning electrics could be heard!!. This time the boiler fuse had blown and the heating controller had melted it’s little socks. Luckily the boiler has not suffered any damage and a new controller should be here by mid-week. I still can’t see any other fault so just hope that the controller is or was the fault and not some other external component or the new controller might go pop as well.

I already have plans for a major overhaul of our heating system this summer to incorporate an air source heat pump and solar water heating as I have all the kit here waiting to get done. So I don’t really want to get involved in a heating plumbing job at present, but Hey Nonny No, you have to deal with the balls that get bowled at you!!

Now on Sunday we always have a roast dinner in the evening and tonight its organic free range chicken, so that means chicken Korma for Monday evening is already sorted. A bottle of white is now chilling in the fridge and so another week is wiped out. I think a sous cent of Steve Earle and « guitar town » may fit the bill tonight, before crashing out in front of the TV. So I had better go and cook the vegetables (not the MP's!)

Solar PV 12.46Kwhr

Wind Turbine 15.78Kwhr

Power Crfeated on site 28.24KW