Buying local brings us local benefits

Once again we’re seeing the value of buying local...





...Ian is working on the floor for the new eco lodge.

First step was to get rid of the old floor and non-structural block walls. We were going to break up the concrete and re-use it in gabions to build a bank and reinforce the front of the building (waste not want not!). But Martin Bragg, our local (and reliable ... and well-priced...) digger driver had a better idea - scrape up a temporary bund, build the bank with the recycled concrete, then cover over with earth. Thanks Martin, that saved a few pounds on difficult-to-fill wire gabions, gave us the structure we needed, and created a much better feature.

Next task was to source the aggregate for the floor. The first lot came from Jewsons in Okehampton (11 miles), but it arrived in a huge delivery truck that buckled the edge of the concrete drive and barely manoeuvred through the gate. So when we realised a local builders merchant, AMP building supplies, was based at Winkleigh’s old WWII airfield, that seemed much more sensible. Phil turned up in a much smaller vehicle, and instead of having to set up a business account, with credit references etc, he just said ‘I’ll leave the tab open if you’ll be wanting some more'.

And once that was done, we needed some custom-made steel ‘shoes’ to keep the existing wooden posts inside the building from penetrating the damp course (see picture). Sounds complicated. But luckily, Chris Hodgson’s engineering workshop in nearby Hollocombe was more than willing to help, even tidying up Ian’s sketched drawings before they went for fabrication.

It's surprising what's available on your doorstep when you look! It's good for us, and it's good for the local economy too - these are the people we meet 'down the pub' and in the village, and that make Winkleigh a thriving community.

Impressive U values for the eco lodge floor

Ian has finished calculating the thermal insulation value (the U value) for the floor of the new eco lodge.




The U value measures the overall ability of a wall/roof/floor to prevent heat loss. It’s measured in Watts per square metre per degree Kelvin (W/m2.k) and takes into account all the thermal conductivity (k values) of the components of the structure, as well as other factors that affect how heat is lost from the building. Until recently, building regulations required floors to have a U value of 0.7 or below. That’s now been brought down to 0.22 W/m2.k. So how do we fare?

Well, it's not quite finished yet, as the picture shows, but here's the plan. The floor will be high-proportion recycled aggregate, then 150mm insulation (Kingspan, for it's exceptional insulation value, which we think outweighs it's only light-green manufacturing process - well they have been trying at least), then another 150mm of concrete made of 70% ash cement and recycled aggregate. Because it’s above the insulation, this layer becomes part of the thermal mass of the building, acting as a heat store to help regulate temperature. On top of that we’ll be putting down larch floor boards sourced locally (8 miles) from Mike Moser’s oak woodland restoration project.

Overall, that will give us a U value of 0.11 W/m2.k – twice as good as the 2010 building regulations.

Green green heating fuel

Here's some of our green heating fuel, three times green but not because it's green wood though...





...it's actually dry and seasoned - always more efficient in a wood burner.

More importantly, it's reusing waste - saw mill offcuts.


And it's local - the mobile mill is working a wood about 8 miles from us.


And on top of that it's a conservation project restoring an oak woodland by selectively felling conifer plantation. So the felling will be matched by a rejuvenated 'native species' woodland in our lovely corner of Devon.

And the icing on the cake? It probably saves us a significant outlay on heating oil for the house. OK, the house is 'cool' in the original meaning of the term, but we haven't had to buy central heating oil for about a year and a half now.

Here's Ian unloading the trailer.

And here's another earlier blog post about this source of sustainable timber - which we also hope to use in the new eco lodge we're building. The cutting list has been sent off already!

Rainwater harvesting in recycled industrial containers

[Maggie] 2000 litres of lime and ginger body lotion, 1000 litres of tri enzyme rejuvenating mask and 1000 litres of Japanese camelia oil - supplies for our self catering welcome packs? Not quite...





They are four 1000 litre industrial storage cubes we'll be re-using in the new eco lodge to store rain water off the roof. Because of the legislation about drinking water quality in the accommodation we'll probably only be able to use rain water for flushing the loos, unless we get into energy intensive treatment sytems. But we'll see. Maybe a clearly labled tap in the kitchen and or bathroom?

The cubes have come from a local company, Barnstaple-based Devon Pallet Recycling. They cost of £48 each. A new one might have cost us up to £600. So thanks are due to our friend Paul for the tip. And good on Devon Pallet Recycling for turning waste into a marketable resource.

The cubes will need a bit of a rinse. Ian reckons there may be a litre or so of the lime and ginger left in one. If I get body lotion in my stocking in a recycled plastic bottle I'll not know whether to be apalled or impressed.

Probably appalled actually - lime and ginger isn't really me.

Advice on sustainable building

We've had an inspiring visit from Rob Buckley, of the Dorset Centre for Rural Skills...




...This is it, this is the very start of our new Eco lodge! We have the planning permission, now we have to rise to the challenge of creating truly sustainable holiday accommodation. And one of our first steps has been to listen to what Rob as to say - afterall, he is 'mr straw bale south west'.

We've met him a few times over the last couple of years - at an open day at the Dorset Centre for Rural Skills, at a sustainable building show in Exeter etc, and he has offered to talk us through some of the basics. So we've swept the straw out of the barn, tidied the wood store, and thought through some ideas.

He's suggested modifying the overall design, keeping more of the 'barniness', reusing what would have been building waste within the structure, and making better use of the interior space. But most importantly, he's talked Ian through the stages of the build, and shared his knowledge of techniques and materials. There's nothing like experience!

DIY solar air heater

We're experimenting with a solar air heater made from an old sun bed and some secondary glazing. OK, so it won't do away with all our heating bills, but it could help in spring and autumn when it's sunny but still chilly inside.


We saw a commercial version of this earlier in the year at a eco-building event - but the price was high, around £1500 for a small unit.

Yet in principle the thing is so simple. You have a heat sink behind glass, an air intake at the bottom, and air out take at the top, and a solar powered computer fan to drive the circulation when it's sunny.

Apparently they've been used for a while in Germany, often to air heat caravans or holiday homes that aren't in frequent use.

So when Ian spotted the bulb-holding section of an old tanning bed down at the dump, he couldn't resist. And when my parents had their house double glazed, I nabbed some of the old secondary glazing they had been using.

Ian has painted the corrugated metal of the tanning bed black and fitted the glass on the front. A vent at the bottom lets air in - and warmer air rises out of the top. We still need to find a fan - back down to the dump probably - and decide where it's going to go. To heat a house of course you need to 'plumb it in' and that means holes through windows or doors, which isn't something to do without thought. We might test it on the garage first! We'll report back later.


Meanwhile, a little web research throws up some similar designs:

More here about how to make a solar air heater from drink cans.

On the fantastic Instructables site there's another design for a solar garage heater that circulates air from inside the garage through an external wall mounted heater (using metal fly screen, not beer cans)and back into the building.

Or if you just want something simpler to amuse yourself (or a science project for the kids) look at this page for a solar heater made from drinks cans that is hung in a window.