rebuild the kitchen to get free energy

I remember my mum once telling a visitor that the reason they were insulating the loft was because the garden was falling into the river.

It’s logical really - let me explain.  My parents had chosen to buy  a house with problems, and a large garden, rather than a perfect house with no garden. ( See? it runs in the family). The problem their house had was the retaining wall had been washed away by the small river next door, and the garden was falling down into it.  In order to rebuild the wall they had to dig out the fallen garden. In order to dig out the garden they had to get a hired digger on site. In order to get the digger in, the garage had to be knocked down. Before that happened, they had to empty it of all the stuff that seems to come with you when you move house.  The only place to put it was in the loft.. which had to be floored before the stuff could be stored there.. and before that it was logical to put the insulation down…

Well I think that’s the story.. but hey, I was five. Anyway, my point is, how one job always leads to many more.

Which is why we are going to rebuild yet another wall in our house, because himself wants a wind turbine.

Here’s the logic: Sitting on the hill looking at the moors, himself declares he wants a wind turbine.. free energy and all that.  Boring of me, but I felt obliged to point out a few priorities.  Solar heating was a much more logical way to go, and  more likely to get planning permission (or maybe not even need it with the recent change of rules?), but even better than that is to up the insulation in the house. We have ample loft insulation, but the windows are only single glazed. We are working on that one, hunting down a solution, but it is going to cost.. so saving is what we are doing about that.  Next to that is not wasting energy.. and here the rayburn.. mains gas, is guilty.  Great in the winter, with that on idle and the woodburner we rarely use central heating.  But the summer months and it is a problem.  We turned it off last summer and we will again.. if nothing else it makes the kitchen too hot on a sunny day.  But.. it is our only oven and only hot water supply.  So yes, solar panels would get us out of one problem, but there is no point in getting them if we turn the rayburn on now and then to use the oven.. as it makes hot water as a side line.  So we need to install another cooker which that is on my list of not resolutions for this year anyway. We have another cooker - as we brought the one from the last house… but no where for it to go. 

Major kitchen remodeling. Always difficult doing any work in the kitchen, as you still have to use it. And being frugal/green we are recycling the kitchen we have into a more appropriate set up. Which is a good idea, but there is no buying and putting together of units .. instead its cutting up the ones we have and rebuilding parts. We took down a wall unit, as part of this plan, and behind it found.. vertical counter attached to the wall. Why? because the wall is unable to support a wall unit.. in fact it is barely able to support the revolting blanch mange pink wall paper.. it wobbles with just a tentative prod.

Oh yes. more hardboard.  A little peek behind reveals.. there is no wall. Getting deja vu here.  Not entirely sure what we are dealing with yet.. we need to scrape the terrible tiles off the vertical counter… and take the vertical counter down too, and then peel back the hardboard.  The good news is at least this time it is not a supporting wall (oh no: the death watch beetle eaten beams are what are stopping us arriving in the kitchen whilst still in bed.. the fast way)  - and will be a doddle compared to the last one.

so, because himself wants a wind turbine, we will get solar first and install another cooker, for which we have to remodel the kitchen, which has revealed another wall that needs rebuilding.

I expect we will find something else while we are there. Meanwhile we wreck each and every room in our house.. then go outside as the rain has stopped and the veg must go in now…