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Living With a Log Burner

11/28/2012

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We have had our little 1410 Morso Squirrel stove for just over a year now and I can safely say having it fitted was one of the best things we have done to the house so far. I am a total convert to the log burners! As I might have mentioned before our little cottage is just that...little, fairly easy to heat you would think. Yet the first winter in here we very nearly froze to death. Several things count against us when it come to heating our place, first we are an end of terrace, although we are south facing (which is a blessing) the back of the house being North facing get very little or no sun light, making the kitchen and our bedroom at the back of the property cold.
Another issue is the amount of drafts we have to deal with, much of this problem is down to UPV windows which are falling apart, all the units are blow and in several case the vents are rusted constantly open so they are always letting in a gale (they are on the list to be replaced next spring), we are trying to solve the problem with thick curtain lining and putting up a heavy door curtain over the front door. So far this has worked fairly well, but I some how think we would still struggle to maintain bloody temperature if it wasn't for our trusty Squirrel! While searching google earlier I came across this interesting article from the Guardian in 2011:

We were contacted by a retired 66-year-old retired academic who worked at a London university. She spent half her working life caring for her children and doing voluntary work, which reduced her pension, so she now makes an effort to keep her heating bills down. She has taken rationing her energy use to a new level, and she wanted to share her methods.

"I am a pensioner, at home and with the computer on most of the time, who pays well under £100 for my annual, total, combined gas and electricity bills. I have worked out gradually how to do this, and now find it so easy it is automatic.
"Although I am very lucky in my housing and neighbourhood, at least some of my savings could be made by anyone. A few ideas are fairly costly to set up, but they could be paid for many times over in savings on later annual bills – especially given that carbon fuel prices are only going to keep rising. 
"My main heating is a wood-burner, and for that you have to have a chimney or some kind of wall outlet. My burner, with installation by a plumber, cost about £500. Even a large room is fine with a small burner, and they last forever. 
"The other expenses are logs – about £200 a year. So that does bring my fuel bills up to nearly £300, and you do need somewhere to store the logs without having to carry them far. There is very little ash, which only needs clearing out into a small bag about once a month. The annual chimney sweep costs about half the price of checking the gas boiler.
"You can get burners with in-built boilers, which heat radiators and water tanks. Instead, I always keep a filled kettle on my burner, and add that hot water to pans or to an electric kettle whenever I need boiling water. I slow-cook stews on the burner, after heating them on a hob, and you can hang clothes around for very quick drying.
"My glass-fronted burner is a beautiful companion. Throughout the year, I collect twigs and lumps of fallen wood in nearby parks to use for kindling and to start a quick blaze in the morning. 
"Maybe you are thinking that a good quality of life demands several warm though hardly used rooms, plenty of hot water on tap, and lots of electric equipment on standby. But think about all the things you could buy instead of burning money on fuel bills."
What a smart Lady, if you fancy reading the whole article its here.
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Given that its that time of year again, when we all dig out our jumpers and long socks it nice to know that for once something that looks beautiful and gives us some much pleasure is at the same time saving us money, a rare thing in this day and age. To anyone considering a stove in the near future, I would say go for it. If nothing else your cat will love you for all eternity!
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11/20/2012

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As of yesterday we have been in our little cottage on the out skirts of Bath in the South West of the UK for two years! So sorry to bore you all but I feel in the mood for a little re-cap of what we've been up to in that time...


Junked the old cooker...

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Ripped out the old inefficient boiler...
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Said goodbye to the old gas fire that smelled like burning cats...
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When from no loft insulation...
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Rewired the whole house and sistered up the bowing joists...
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Sanded off 100 years of crap...
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Put tones of stuff in storage...
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Ripped out a grease old stair carpet...
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Built a chicken coop...
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Tried to tame a huge garden...
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Sorted bad drainage...
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Put up lots...
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Repurposed quit a bit of old stuff from junk shops...
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Replaced old bits of furniture...
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...and brought a lovely new one (about two weeks before Christmas).
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...and replaced with a 90% efficient condensing one.
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...and said hello to the Morso Squirrel log burner that smells like Christmas.
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... to lots (and a very itchy Rich by the end).
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...and have only just finished patching the holes.

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...and then put new crap back on top.
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...and brought tons of stuff back out again.
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...and replaced with cheerful stripy rugs.
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...which metamorphosed into a log store.
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...and kind of succeeded.
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...by fitting water-butts.
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...and lots of new shelving.
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...which was loads of fun!
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...with vintage classics.
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And of course brought a fair amount of cool stuff from second hand shops and car boot sales, some useful, some...not so much!
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We have worked our sock off over the last 24 months, we have managed to do some jobs and not got round to others, mostly pressure of holding down 4 jobs between the two of us and lack of funds has slowed us down but we are still in love with our tiny home and everything  little job we do makes it more ours. Happy house birthday to us!
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Where Does The Time Go?

11/14/2012

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Yet again we are hurtling toward the end of another year and yet again we are rushing around frantically trying to get various project finished (not to mention tax returns...grrrr!). I have various Christmas craft shows coming up so much of my time is spent glued to my desk cutting and sewing.

We  did managed to get a few little jobs done over the weekend...
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Can you believe we still haven't finished all the patching up after doing the electrics! To be honest I have got so used to living with bare wires on show I think I had stopping noticing, anyway the last few chased out walls have finally been patched and are ready for painting.
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We are all stocked up with wood ready for the cold weather thanks to the lovely Sarah who I work with and her very kind husband Pete who gave us a car full of off-cuts. This should keep us toasty for a while.
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And we finally painted and put the shelf up in the office, I've had this shelf for about 2 months and been dying to find time to get it done. We are in constant need of more book shelf space.

Another long overdue thing we have finally got round to is ordering the new toilet and sink for the Bathroom, this will probably get done in January now (I was hoping the beginning of December but we'll have to see), I'm very excited about this and can't wait to get stared even though I suspect this will end up being another hellish job that drives us both mad, however I would still much rather do this than a tax return!
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Day Out to Bristol

11/5/2012

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So on Sunday I got up and open the curtains to see this...
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Bloody snow! Unlike everyone else I HATE snow, I hate driving in it, walking in it, inevitable falling on my arse in it, basically everything about it. Slightly annoying as I was going over to Bristol to see my sister who has recently moved there. So off I trekked encouraged by Sally texting me to say there was no snow in Bristol at all, which turned out to be true. Bloody Bath, some how we manage to cop all the weather in this bowl of a valley!

Anyway once in Bristol we when to the coolest cafe for lunch, it was like some mad shed/cafe/hobbit hole, totally amazing...
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They also do the best bean burgers ever there! If only I could remember what it was called! (I will find out and post a link)

We then had a wander down to road to a tiny little close of eco houses, one of which looked like it had been mad by the same chap...
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After that was a little trip to a new rec yard I haven't visited before (always good to find new ones!)
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Hi Sal!
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 I had no idea Stocks Croft was full of so much excellent stuff, not a part of Bristol I've ever spent much time in before. I will be going again SOON!

Thanks for a great day Sal!! xxx


More house updates when I can get round to taking some pics!
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    The photos on this blog are copy write of Kat Whelan unless stated otherwise, please do not reuse without permission. Thank you.

    I apologise for any spelling or grammatica errors, I am dyslexic like many artist's so find writing a bit of trial!

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