Question and Answer Time Part 2

My son Adam enjoying the Greenhouse!

I received an email yesterday from a long time reader Richard, who asks;

Hi Gavin,
I think it was during the Sustainable Homes day that I visited your place and saw your greenhouse. It took me a few months to get the motivation to set it up and a further few weeks to finally bolt it all together but it's done. As you inspired me, I tried to find out some more information on the greenhouse from your website, but I couldn't find anything. Can you please give me some pointers?
Firstly, the four feet at each corner of the base, did you just jam them into the soil so the base is flat on the ground? What's the base of your greenhouse covered in, crushed rock or recycled crushed brick?
Did you seal the polycarbonate sheets with silicon along the aluminum parts?
With the shelving did you buy separate portable greenhouse shelving and put them inside?
With your seedling labels, have you found any 'eco-friendly' ones or just the plastic paddle-pop things from Bunnings?
With your fruit trees, what made you decide what to buy?
As I've only got a 1kW PV system installed, would you add another more powerful system? How did you decide on how many panels you needed?
Sorry to ask all these questions, but it's frustrating doing it all myself.

Rgds,
Richard

Thanks for your questions Richard.

Answer #1.  The base of the greenhouse was bashed into the hard clay that we have in this neck of the woods, so it did not need any concrete.  The base did have spikes that were about 30cm (1') long and it has not moved since.

 After it was hammered into the ground with a rubber mallet, I made sure it was level.

Answer #2.  The ground was already covered in crushed rock, which I simply pulled back from the frame, then backfilled when in place.  It has kept it very sturdy.

Answer #3.  Walls.  I did not seal the polycarbonate sheets, and have only had one pop out because I was silly enough to leave the door open when it was very windy.  They are a pain in the bum to put back in!

Answer #4.  Shelving.  I bought the shelves separately, and re-purposed an old one that I had.  They are just cheap small greenhouse frames, that would normally have a PVC cover over them.

Answer #5.  As for eco-friendly labels, I simply cut up an old ice-cream container into strips and marked them with a permanent marker.  When I am finished with the label, I wipe it with a bit of methylated spirits to remove the writing, and store it back in my seed box.  Otherwise, I use old wooden ice-cream sticks from iced lollies.

Answer #6.  Fruit trees.  I asked the family what they liked to eat, bought those varieties on dwarf root stock, and planted the deciduous trees (stone-fruit, apples, pears) in the front yard which is north facing so that sunlight still warms up the house in winter, and planted the evergreens (citrus) to the south and west of the house.  Where I couldn't source dwarf roots stock I planted them in pots.

Answer #7.  Solar PV.  It all depends on your consumption of electricity.  If you are energy-wise, then 1kW will be sufficient, however if you are like the average Australian family and use over 16 kWh a day then it will only reduce you power bill by 25%.  You can read about how I went about reducing my electricity consumption at the post titled "Eco House Challenge Electricity 1".

Answer #8.  Just remember it is cheaper to save a kilowatt than it is to make a kilowatt of electricity.  I sized my system based on 75% of my energy usage of an average 12 kWh per day and I was way over generous.  I now produce 120% of my energy needs, as two children have left home since I installed the system back in September 2007.

Well, I hope everyone got a little something from Richard's email, as I certainly enjoyed replying to it.

Ask and you shall receive!

Clay Cob Oven Progress

I inspected the oven on Thursday, and there were large cracks that had opened up in the first layer, so on Friday, Kim and Ben made up a mix of 66% sand, 33% clay and half a bucket of straw.

They made a layer that was about 3cm thick all over, and we let that dry.  Well guess what?  That fixed the cracks.  So Saturday morning was the first firing of the clay oven to harden the inside which was still damp.

The first flame!

Where there is smoke......

After a few minutes, we had a small fire burning well.

Here it is in all its glory.  But is the flue working?

Why yes, there is definitely smoke and hot air going up the flue, and very little coming out of the door arch.  It works as designed.

The coals are glowing red.  The initial firing only lasted about 30 minutes, as I didn't want to heat it too much and crack the inside any more.

So, upon some valued advice from a fellow blogger (thanks Tracy), we made up a large batch of cob to make a thick layer to add to thermal mass.  This batch was 75% sand, 25% clay, two buckets of straw (including a bit of dried chook poo).  Ben and I did the mud dance and we mixed it until we could roll it in our hands and it didn't stick to them.  Then Kim wet the dome, and slapped on big wads of clay about 5 cm thick (2").  As we added this layer we smoothed it out.  Then my daughter Megan and her boyfriend Jake turned up to lend a hand.

 Here we are finishing the 3rd layer off.

The final smoothing whereby we bashed the oven with our hands to make sure that any air bubbles were removed.

Nice and smooth.  The dome is now about 15cm thick and the layer around the door arch about 10cm.

The front view with the ashes of the first firing.

Here is a close up of the surface of the oven.  Note the large amount of straw all the way through.

One final inspection , and we are done.  The clay came off of the flue with a damp cloth.

Directly after this shot, I fired it again to help the new layer dry quickly.  It worked like a charm, and I kept the fire going for two hours this time, still small, and not a raging inferno.  The inside is as very hard now, and the outside is drying nicely, with only hairline cracks which are easily smoothed over.  The top of the dome gets warm, but never hot enough that you cannot hold your hand there.  I have given away the idea of an insulating layer with chicken wire and render, and will only add a final render of sand/clay, and a little cement and lime (with an oxide added) over the surface to smooth it all down.  This will allow Kim to add mosaic tiles, all over the dome.  I am looking forward to the artist doing her magic!

I will fire the oven each night this week, so that before the final render goes on, were should be no more cracking.  For those wondering about the clay pavers that I used for the floor of the over, well great news, there has been no issues at all with them, with no cracking and they are simple to clean afterwards.

Next weekend, I will also make the mantle to go at the front and the door for the oven.  That will be the finishing touches, other than two doors that I am going to make for the wood storage.

I am so pleased with this oven so far, and now wonder why I procrastinated for so many years!  We are all looking forward to actually cooking something in it.

My Thoughts Travelling Home

My inquisitive mind was wandering all over the place on the way home tonight.  I am going to share my thought pattens, even though sometime it may seem a little out there.  Here goes trendsetters!

First my thoughts were drawn to the preparation work that Kim and I have to do this weekend for Sustainable House Day.  Call it a spring clean if you will.  Weeding, tidying, building, etc.  Should be a great weekend I thought.  Building a wicking bed, and adding another layer to the cob oven and fixing up some cracks.

Then I thought deeper about the concept of Sustainable House Day, and that one day it will not be needed.  That day would be when everyone grows their own food out of necessity, and has chooks, fruit trees and veggie patches, and lives within their means.  Whether it be because of peak oil, or climate change, or economic downturn or all three is besides the point.  The fact is that it will probably happen and I thought that I am glad that I am well down the path towards a more sustainable lifestyle before TSHTF even if it does happen in very slow motion.

Then I thought about the most unsustainable house that humans have ever made.  The news today talked about a Russian unmanned space craft that was ferrying supplies to the International Space Station.  The ISS would be in my humble opinion, the most unsustainable house in existance.  It has to truck in food, oxygen, water, and everything else that humans need to survive, and don't even try to work out the food miles!  Yes, it may be expanding our knowledge of space and science, but the costs to maintain it must be enormous.  No wonder NASA canned their manned space program.

Then I thought about the most sustainable house.  A Yurt came to mind, and so did a Wattle and Daub hut.  Easy to maintain, weather proof, easy to heat/cool and the materials are low cost.   Very sustainable, and probably very comfortable.

I kind of went off track in my head about this time as I began to actually listen to the podcast "More Hip than Hippy", which I enjoy on my commute and have a laugh once in a while.  Val and Dori were talking to a lady somewhere in California that gets by without a car, and who lives in the 'burbs.  Big deal I thought, and they were waffling on and on about how hard it is.  Yes this lady's hubby had a car, which they jointly own.  Well that is not really getting by without a car now is it.  I might as well interview Kim on my podcast and ask her how she gets by in the suburbs without a car!  Same thing really, as we only have one car, and Kim chooses not to drive at all.  So underwelmed I felt, I skipped past that part of the podcast.  People must be really attached to their cars in the US, I suppose a bit like Aussies when I think about it.

Then I started listening to the Kunstlercast, and James and Duncan were talking about the Standard & Poors downgrade of the US governements credit rating, and The Long Emergency.  High unemployment, housing prices/values falling, people just getting by with crap jobs, and not many people taking about peak oil like James does constantly, which is quite important to the US seeing they use 25% of the worlds oil resources.  A little blip like a revolution in an overseas oil exporter and they have to start eating into their oil reserves, which is dwindling all the time.  He also talked about the leadership stalemate (or lack of said leadership) and that he was waiting for some left wing equivilent of the Tea Party to start up and start doing the things that the Democrats are, in his opinion, not capable of anymore.  Sound a bit like our Green party to me.  Then I thought that things just don't look very pretty for our allies.  However I could have it all out of context, because I just listen to podcasts from the US, and am not living the experiance. 

My mind turned to transport, and the lack of a good public transport system.  Traveling on the train in the mainland capitals of Australia is very ancient Rome like.  All roads, and in this case, trains, lead to the city center.  A truly well designed rail system would have orbital lines that connected all of the lines to each other at various distances from the city center, a bit like NY, Tokyo, London, and Paris.  I remember that traveling in London and Paris when I was in my 20's and how easy it was to get around on the Tube and Metro respectively.  All because the systems were well planned out and interconnected.

Interconnected.  I then remembered that we are all interconnected in the world, this world of Globalisation, and wondered how much longer it would last.  Cheap trade is not possible without cheap fossil fuels and now that is a thing of the past the cracks in the fabric that holds Globalisation together must be streaching hard at the seams ready to burst.

Then I pulled into the train station and traveled home in my hybrid car.  I wondered when more cars would be manufactured as hybrids or electric, and wondered when the price of petrol (gasoline) was going to get so high that people would start to abandon their SUV's and massive 4x4's on the side of the road because they couldn't give them away!

It was about then that I pulled into the carport, met the dogs at the door, and gave Kim a big kiss and a hug.

There is no place like home!

Green Podcast Interviews Wanted

I have really enjoyed the "Interview with a green blogger" series of podcasts, and would like to kick it up a notch.

I am after interesting people, bloggers or non bloggers, who have made green changes in their life, and are willing to be interviewed on my podcast.  If anyone is interested please drop me an email which is listed in the left sidebar.  I believe that by sharing with others about the things you have done on the path towards a more sustainable lifestyle can be uplifting, inspiring and not only for others but for yourself as well.  Call it an opportunity for 15 minutes of fame and a big pat on the back for all the great things you may have achieved.

Interviews are held via Skype, and more than willing to interview anyone on Earth, as long as they speak English (unfortunately, I don't know any other languages).

So, who is willing to give it a go.  Don't be shy, I won't bite (hard).

Gav

Clay Oven First Layer

On Saturday, we held a clay oven workshop at our place which was well attended by members of the Melton Sustainable Living Group.  I had ten willing workers at my disposal, and I managed to occupy them all on various tasks.

So from this:

To this in two hours (plus one day's drying and sand removal)!

So let me step you through what we did during the workshop.  However, be warned, there are lots of photos (click to enlarge).

Before everyone turned up at 10am, I received an order at 8am of 1 cubic metre of packing sand, which has a high clay content.  Kim and I had to shift this sand from the roadside to the area where we were making the oven.  It took me the good part of an hour to do this work alone.  After a cuppa and a biscuit, I made this template for the sand dome.  It is 50cm high and 85cm wide.

This picture shows how the sand dome was being formed.  Four people on a quadrant building up sand.

Here is the sand dome nearly finished.  You can just see part of the cardboard template.  Don't you just love the smiling helpers!

And from the front angle.  The sand dome just touched the front of the door arch.

Now that the sand dome was finished, it was time to get down and dirty.  We used a 50% packing sand and 50% clay mixture, and enough water to moisten it. There was quite a bit of aggregate pebbles in the sand as well, and a few handfuls of sugar cane mulch in the clay when we dug it out of the ground.  I didn't think it needed any more organic matter.

We started off with two stompers.....

Then there were four.  It became contagious.  It was great fun with everyone in gumboots (wellingtons to those in the UK) to stop their best shoes from getting caked in the stuff.

Then on to the table where a team of five helpers made clay logs that were about 6 cm wide and various lengths.

Then yet another team put the logs around the sand dome.  The dome was covered in wet newspaper so that it would make the sand easier to remove once the clay was touch dry.

The logs are placed like bricks to add rigidity to the form (well as best as can be).

Nearly at the top of the dome.  The dome at this stage was just at the edge of the door bricks.

This is the full height of the flue, just so you get a better idea.  

Once the dome was finished, we had to join it to the brick door arch.  More clay logs!

Then we started to smooth all of the cob logs.

Then we wet our hands and gave it a nice sheen.  We also filled any depressions in the clay dome.

As the sun was shining on the clay, we decided to coat it in wet newspaper to slow down the drying, to hopefully avoid some cracking.  This was the point that the workshop finished, and Kim served us a lunch of home made pizza to order, then dished up buffet style alfresco.  Everyone really enjoyed themselves, and a few people expressed interest at holding another clay oven working bee in about 6 months time.  I am certainly up for it, now that the design seams to work okay.  Thanks to everyone who turned up and lent a hand.

Anyway, yesterday some larger cracks started to appear, so I consulted my Back Yard Ovens Volume II book that I got from Earth Garden magazine, and it suggested that once the clay sets to a cheese like hardness then you should remove the sand.  The reason being is that the clay is trying to shrink, but the sand is getting in the way.  So out with the sand, which I will have to pick up when I get home.

At one stage I had both shoulders jammed in the door arch trying to get the sand out! I wish someone had taken a picture of that.  The sand came out fairly easily once I had undercut the sand dome.  Most of it just collapsed and I just scooped it out with my arms.  The newspaper layer worked well.

I can't believe how big it is inside.  I estimate that with the hot coals pushed up around the edges, we will be able to cook 3 pizzas at a time, and afterwards about 4 loaves of bread.

So next steps are to move the sand that I left on the floor, light a small fire on every night for the next week to help the clay dry out, then on the weekend apply the glass wool insulation, chicken wire and clay/sand/cement render.

What do you think of the progress so far?  I am personally ecstatic about the progress, all in under a month of weekend work so far.

---

Want to learn more? Check out my eBook about how I built this clay oven!

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Cluckingham Palace Is Finished!

I spent all of today putting the finishing touches on Cluckingham Palace, and was so chuffed with the results that I took a 2 minute video of it.




It now is fully enclosed with bird wire, has a 1.2 metre square dust bath , a screen door that shuts and locks, a mulberry tree, and a cool sign!

All I need to do now is hook up a gutter, and plumb in the water barrel and pipe for the chicken nipples, but that can wait for next weekend.

Clay Cob Oven Flue

Well tomorrow is the big day!  Our clay cob oven workshop takes place with lots of willing participants expected to lend a hand stomping clay and sand, as well as making the oven itself.

Today our builder friend installed the flue, as I didn't want to make a mistake cutting the hole in the roof.  Click to enlarge the photos.

The flue is sitting on a plate made of the lid of an old BBQ that I saved, and we will mould clay over it and the bricks.  The sticks are to support the roof so that the rubber cowling above it is kept in place whilst the heat resistant sealer is drying.

It is going to be so cool making the sand dome, then whacking on some wet newspaper, then finally making the clay dome.  I am very excited!

Limoncello

As I mentioned yesterday, both Kim and Ben are not well, but never fear, I have my nurses hat on and am looking after them both.  Kim was sick of laying in bed, so I trundled her off to the lounge room, threw on the blankets, and she started watching Under The Tuscan Sun.

Half way through the movie, the main character, who was eying up some hot Italian lad, was told about this wonderful drink called Limoncello which she proceeded to drink.  Kim then asked if I could make some.  The reply was of course I can!

With lots of lemons on the tree, and a bottle of vodka in the cupboard, I set myself the task of making this luscious lemon liqueur.  After a bit of research on the net, the consensus was a recipe that goes kind of like this.  I borrowed the directions from taste.com.au but changed the amounts because I didn't think it was sweet  or strong enough.

Limoncello (Gav style)

Ingredients

9 large smooth thick skinned lemons
700ml bottle of Vodka or Grappa
1 1/2 cups of white sugar
2 cups of water
juice of one lemon

Method

Pick the lemons, then grate the rind of all lemons.  Be careful not to get any pith as I am told it will make the liqueur bitter.

Once you have all the rind place in a big glass container that you can seal or otherwise the alcohol will evaporate. 

Then pour in the alcohol and seal the jar.

Let it rest while you perform the next step.

I love the way it changed colour over the course of a couple of hours.  Note the rind sitting on the bottom.  Some recipes state that you must leave it at this step for 30-40 days to infuse the flavour, however, I stumbled across a few Italian recipes that I translated, and they added the sugar syrup the same day.

So add the sugar and water and stir whilst heating on a medium heat.  Bring to the boil.

Boil without stirring for 3 minutes.  You will find the syrup will thicken a little.  Take it off the heat, stir in the lemon juice, and let it cool to room temperature.  Do not add the syrup to the rind mixture whilst hot.  You will burn off the alcohol, which kind of defeats the purpose of this drink.

My syrup cooled after two hours, so I gently poured it into the rind/vodka mixture.

I gave it a gentle shake to mix, and left it at that.  Sealed the lid tightly and tipped it upside down to check for leaks.

I popped it into a dark corner in the kitchen where I will remember to mix it by shaking once a week over the course of a month.  Apparently, it is then ready to drink, however I did see recipes that recommended two months.

As for the rest of the left over lemons, I squeezed them and made a drink for Kim.  We are look forward to drinking the Limoncello on a nice spring day!  I still have a few lemons left on the tree, so Kim has convinced me to go and buy another bottle of vodka to make another batch.  Might try Grappa this time, to make it a little more authentic.  If it is as good as my Cumquat Brandy, then it should be a ripper!

Has anyone else made this liqueur before?  How did it turn out?