Pat yourself on the back

[Paddy]

A thread to post about steps you've recently taken in the direction of sustainability.

For me, just a tiny step to report recently: getting and using a travel mug so I'm no longer going through endless disposable cups to fuel my caffeine habit.

[josh-j]

This could be a good idea if it can encourage others to take steps too. But I don't want to make myself feel like I'm doing enough!

Anyway, I started taking a flask and cup to work for exactly the same reason. There are drinks machines in my office disposing endless plastic cups (for free) and half of them end up in the general waste so yeah, not good.

This year I am trying to see how much gas I can save by not heating my house (as low temperature as I can manage). I live in northern England and while its no Arctic, it can get pretty chilly (currently just below freezing outside) and my house is old. So it is now 8-9c inside the house. I do not recommend people go to this extreme (especially depending on health) but it has made me think about how what we consider as essential are really luxuries if we were really to treat climate change with the urgency it deserves. I have a warm sleeping bag wrapped around me and wearing 6 layers of clothes because I'm sitting at my desk. Only my hands are cold... (also, I've been using this as a way to talk about the environment to my work colleagues - it is lighthearted as they think I'm mad, but it means I can talk about things like decarbonisation!)

[Neven]

Well done, Josh. 

I hope to move forward again in 2018, because frankly, I'm not satisfied right now. It's insane how much stuff a family needs (or thinks it needs). And my daughter suddenly couldn't play basketball at the local club anymore, so now I'm driving her to another club in the nearest city, 60 km away, every two weeks. But they play at the national level and so this weekend we drove almost 700 km for a game (all the parents with their kids). It's insane, but as she's home-schooled, we need to make sure she gets out enough. Maybe we'll just have to buy an EV next year, but they don't grow on trees (either financially or ecologically).

One good thing we did this year, was snatch a plot of land from the agricultural war machine. We'll plant trees next autumn.

[etienne]

Hello,

Here is the document to help you :
https://www.historicenvironment.scot/archives-and-research/publications/publication/?publicationId=f2f2ebfd-ff37-4417-be92-a59400bb2665

It is really interesting. I used some of the ideas that are in the document, but most of them don't pass the "wife acceptance test" at home.

Good luck,

Etienne

[josh-j]

Thanks Etienne, that is a very interesting study. I particularly like the details about older furniture design like winged or hooded chairs.

My house is very badly laid out for heat because previous owners removed dividing walls and made the whole ground floor open-plan. If I live here long enough I might reinstate the old walls so I can trap heat in the living room.

[etienne]

I always thought that people weren't stupid in the old times, and weren't very rich either, so usually old houses are very energy efficient if you use them like in those times. So before changing something, it's always good to think at why people built houses that way.

Of course, houses could have been even more efficient, but insulation material (stroh, wood...) just wasn't available in the quantities we have now (and we only have these quantities available because most people insulate with styrofoam, rockwool or similar materials).




 

[pileus]

I have continued my practice of not eating ruminants, and have extended it to all four legged creatures.  I moved close to an urban core and have increased my walking/significantly decreased my driving.  I now use almost no AC or heating in my home.  What I am most “proud” of though, is a growing commitment to reduce my consumption of products and things in general.  When I do need something, I try to shop local, and I sense there will be a growing backlash away from Amazon and the other consumer monopolies in the coming years. 

[greylib]

One very simple thing I did ten years ago - bought a dehumidifier.

We try to take the washing outside and hang it on the line, but this is the UK... we can only peg it outside around half the time. The rest of the time we schedule the wash for the evening and dry it indoors with the dehumidifier, running it at night to get on to the cheaper tariff. This has to be a lot more efficient than a tumble dryer - we throw away around ten pounds of lukewarm water per session, instead of venting ten pounds of steam. It's such an obvious saving that friends, family and workmates don't sneer "eco-geek" or "treehugger" at me - many of them are doing it now.

Other advantages: if a room starts to feel a little damp, a couple of hours drying will make it much more comfortable. Especially the bedroom - I tend to sweat into the mattress, but a short session leaves it feeling warm and fresh.

As the abovementioned friends/family/workmates are pointing out, a dry room heats up faster - when the central heating comes on, it doesn't have to spend a half-hour or so getting the moisture out of the furniture.

[TerryM]

In keeping to the clothes drying meme.


My washer and dryer were outside in Las Vegas. Because of the very dry climate I simply disconnected the dryer heater and let it spin everything dry.


In California the dryer was in the garage. By filtering the exhaust and not venting it outside I could add supplemental heat at night by simply opening the connecting door. It also added a little humidity, which helped in that environment.


Terry

[sidd]

Insulation. And before insulation, caulk. First thing to do is also the biggest bang for the buck: a tube of caulk, caulk gun, weatherstrip, and 10 dollar infrared thermometer.

I just helped a friend this last, fairly brutal, winter with that. Just moved into brick building from the 1940's and winter descended. After the first day and night when his gas furnace never turned off with the thermostat down to 55F, he yelled for help. Good timing, winter is slow for construction (bar exclusively interior) in that kinda weather, so couple three guys showed up.

It was about 20F outside, so finding all the drafts inside with the IR thermometer was a piece of cake. Went thru a bunch of caulk and weatherstrip, tho. That shut the furnace up forabit.

His windows were a disaster, and we were not going to fix those in this weather. So we got some plexiglass and framed the sheets in on the inside. (watch out for local fire code. this might be illegal. if it is, put hinges in the frame and a latch. we used eighth inch plexi which can be snapped by  non infants, we are ag zoned, and he had pulled permits so it was and will be a construction site for the forseeable future. he's not exactly supposed to be living there, but since the neighbour, who is a township commissoner, helped with the job, i don't think thats an issue.)

Then we got a bunch of the rigid pink foam insulation surplus from another job and put it in on the inside of the outside walls of his bedroom, kitchen, bathroom. The stuff we had was paintable so we even matched the color. Then we moved the thermostat to his bedroom.  Couldn't really close off heat vents in less trafficked rooms without risk of pipes freezing.

Then we crawled in his attic. (Big mistake.) Suffice it to say there were old, dead raccoons involved. We fixed the animal entrances, and rolled out a bunch of fiberglass.

Three days. I think he laid out less than 2K US$ in materials, including beer. We didn't charge for labor, but we worked him pretty hard, too.

He still has to fix the windows, and put in the right insulation, and replace the furnace and tuck point the masonry and fix the chimney and the flashing, and the sump drains and  ... he ain't gonna fix that house without laying out a hundred K or so.

sidd

[etienne]

I developped a thumb rule to calculate how much money you save when replacing light bulbs or other simple electrical systems by more efficient ones.
It’s very easy.
In a year, you have 8760 hours, so a system using 1 W per hour uses 8,760 kWh. Since 1 kWh costs around 15 cents, the yearly cost of 1 Watt  24h/day is around 1.30€. Than you just have do define how many % of the time the system works. A 100 W system running 8 hours a day costs 43€  a year (1/3 of the time, so 1/3 of 130€). This is why reducing base load is often more important than reducing peak load.
It is sometimes easier to calculate with 1€ per year per Watt then add 30%.

To take example that are more related to daily life, if your 40 W bulb is burning 2 hours/day, or 2/24, you just calculate 1.30*40*2/24 so the cost is around 4.33€
If you replace your bulb by a LED using 5W, you save 35W, 2/24 hours, so the saving is 1.3*35*2/24, so the saving is around 3.80€.
If you are at work, light bulbs will be on 10 hours/day, 5 days a week, so the calculation would be 1.30*40*10/24*5/7= 15.48€
Saving would be 1.3*35*10/24*5/7=13.54€
So I have now LED in each place where it was possible.

[Grubbegrabben]

So I have now LED in each place where it was possible.

I also tried to do this but noticed that I'm sensitive to the flickering light. Most LED lights just do a half wave AC conversion (it's a LED, duh) resulting in a 50 Hz strobe light. Some people (including me) are sensitive to this, some don't notice anything. I have searched the web periodically but so far no results, except professional studio LED lamps for photographers (which are insanely expensive and not suited at all for home lightning). All light bulb replacement LED lamps I've found so far flicker.

Anyone else having this problem and found a solution?

Note: Some LED lamps have a wall transformer and produce DC current for the LED light, I have a few desk/window lamps like this and they are of course flicker free.

[etienne]

I have a flashing issue in the places where I have 12V bulbs with an electronic transformer, I went back to halogen, but I guess this not what you describe when talking about flickering.

Is this also an issue with professional lightnings ? Like in supermarkets, public transportations... ? Or in refrigerators ?

The main issues I knew about are dazzling, light that doesn't go in all the needed directions, availability of high power replacement bulbs (I still have to use some energy saving bulbs) and color.
I also had some bulbs that were early out of order, but this seem to be better.

Etienne

[Hefaistos]

You have to filter the half-wave output from the transformer to get rid of the flickering of LED lamps, especially if you want to use a dimmer. You can retrofit a capacitor, the bigger the better (eg. 10 000 uF will do fine). Costs 1 euro or so, but you need to solder it in place somehow.

[ghoti]

All the regular 60W LED replacement bulbs I've purchased have had no flickering issues (operate at 60Hz here in North America). 100W replacements have been rare but seem to be hitting the market now. I've found the "warm white" colour balance to be just like the incandescent bulbs they've replaced but the "cool white" are much too harsh.

Seems like specialized LED light fixtures suffer from issues of flickering but not the regular bulb replacements in North America.

[Dietrich]

Always looking for more opportunities....here are a few I've been able to easily adopt:
- Choose power generation which is 100% renewable (in Pennsylvania customers get to choose power provider).  This was merely a phone call to implement and my cost for electricity is level with last year
- Garden.  Everything I grow on site is less that has to be transported / commercially cultivated
- walk bike to local stores
- encourage clients to meet over video / phone directly reducing emissions
- adopt led lighting where possible
- recycle
- mulch biodegradable waste.  yes this contributes co2 but it directly reduces methane production in landfills and reduces transportation emissions
- talk to people and share perspectives
- Like / promote information which raises awareness (dislike / demote information which is clearly denialist propoganda)
- reduce meat intake
- choose investments which are low carbon.  There are good funds out there which socially responsible AND have solid returns
- Vote
- Contact representatives and let them know your preference.   Some actually do try to consider their constituents
- Plant Trees. More sequestration and less lawn to mow!

[oren]

Nice list Dietrich, and welcome!

[ghoti]

We have stopped using fossil fuel in our house.

The natural gas connection to my house was shut off this week and the meter removed. We just had a ground source (sometimes called geothermal) heat pump installed with a 540 foot deep (165 meters) ground loop. The unit is extremely efficient with Coefficient of Performance of 5.1 - 5.3 for heating and
36.0 - 41.0 EER for cooling.

This heat pump also does hot water preheating which will supplement the 40 tube Apricus solar hot water I already have. Final hot water heating when needed is electric.

We live in Ontario, Canada where electricity generation is now over 90% fossil fuel free.

Our one car is a PHEV and most of our travel is electric. Long distance trips, for example, Ottawa to Montreal return to  visit our son, still use gasoline. Overall though we use more electric than gas. The last time we filled the tank our fuel economy worked out to 2.2 liters / 100 km. Next car will definitely be full EV.

We have a 6kW peak AC solar array on our roof in addition to the solar domestic hot water system. Before switching from natural gas heat to heat pump we were annually producing 50% more electricity than we consumed. I'm wondering what the balance will be with the heat pump.

[etienne]

Congratulations. I guess you have a high thermal insulation on your house, otherwise I would recommend to add a wood stove. This would allow to run the heat pump at a lower temperature (higher efficiency) and to have comfort temperature in the house only when required.

[ghoti]

The heat pump has a ground loop which will stay at constant temperature year round independent of air temperature. The pump circulating the ground loop exchange fluid is variable speed to reduce the power needed to maintain optimal heat exchange. The compressor is continuously variable allowing it to run at optimal rates.

I did upgrade the insulation in the attic and basement about 10 years ago which helped reduce the heat loss almost 25%. The house has decent double paned windows which also helps. Insulation in the walls is limited by the "2 X 4" stud size. With brick veneer I'm not inclined to add insulation to the outside of the walls.

Here's a photo of the ground loop connection from the house to the top of the well all placed well below the frost line.

[oren]

Nice setup ghoti.

[josh-j]

Ghoti - a 6kw array - that makes me jealous! Well done on your heat pump setup, it looks like an investment in time but nothing unachievable for a lot of houses assuming they can be adequately insulated. A few years ago the government here (UK) was going to make all new houses be built to that kind of standard, but just before it came into force it was cancelled...

My house was built around 1930 and designed to "breath"; it would need quite a lot of work to be heated by heat pump though I'm sure it could be done. So like Oren I'd be interested to know how well insulated your house is!

There must be millions houses like mine here but no real plan to help people take the sort of steps you've taken. The people who can't afford to do so include the people stuck in fuel poverty because their leaky homes use tons of gas to heat...

Anyway this is the Pat Yourself on the back thread so: (!)

A while ago I posted about trying not to use heating over winter. I'm happy to say that my own slightly reckless venture to reduce emissions was very successful - I didn't freeze to death! Lowest temperature inside the house was about 3c but more often about 6-8c if I remember correctly. That seems pretty good considering the "Beast From the East" we had in the UK, outside temperatures down to about -6c or so at night. Even my pipes didn't freeze (I think it was close) But I needed a ridiculous amount of warm layers, sleeping bag, sleeping bag plus warm bedding for sleep, and so on. Nevertheless, this is supposed to be an urgent problem, right? 

Same again this winter The things you can do when you're single and living on your own.... lol

[ghoti]

I'd be interested to know how well insulated your house is!

It isn't insulated all that well compared to the most modern standards. It was built around 1955 with "2X4" stud walls with brick veneer. The walls have are insulated to R12 (RSI 2.1). The attic is insulated to R50 (RSI 8.. The windows are all vinyl framed double pane sealed units.

It needs about 14 MJ per heating degree day to maintain 19C inside. We have about 4500 heating degree days per year here. On the very coldest days of the winter (windy -30C) we needed about 22,000 btu/hr to stay warm and the heat pump can deliver 36,000 btu/hr so should be fine.

[etienne]

In Luxembourg right now, many air heat pump are installed, and this requires a better insulation. A heat pump pumps heat from the cold side to the warm side, so if the cold side is very cold like in an air heat pump, you really need a low temperature heating inside the house to get some efficiency (to get subsides, the water in the floor heating has to stay under 34°C). Here in Ghoti's situation, he has a cold side that never get's very cold, so it's not so much an issue if he heats water above these 34°C. Anyway, I would recommend a small pellets or wood stove, not only for the efficiency issue, but also to avoid using too much electricity during peak time during the winter. A trick could be to heat the seats and beds instead of the house.

[josh-j]

Thanks Ghoti and Etienne. I think I need to remember this thread and take notes. Perhaps it is more feasible than I thought!

[jacksmith4tx]

Thanks to everyone here for their conservation efforts and commitment to make a better future.

I just did the math on how much CO2 emissions I have saved since I installed my solar panels (Jan. 2012) and it comes out to 45.6 tons (67.3 MWh) according to my Enphase statistics. Since I use Green Mountain Energy that uses 100% renewable energy to supply my grid electricity they show I have offset 17.2 tons of CO2. Add them together and my total CO2 offset is now 63.7 tons. Not sure how to calculate my CO2 offsets from my Volt but I have driven about 9,000 miles since I bought it (used) and 90% of that was in electric mode. The onboard computer says I have a lifetime rating of 78 MPG by dividing total miles (since new) by total gasoline used. I'll have to do some more calculating to figure out how many KWh/CO2 that works out to.

I have accumulated a nice quantity of RECs (Renewable Energy Credits) that might be worth something someday if they ever put a price on carbon. 

*Details of my PV array, photos and a screen shot of a recent utility bill are at: https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/pv/public_systems/3Fzt45951/overview

[ghoti]

Enphase calculates how much CO2 my PV system has avoided but it is completely bogus. I live in a jurisdiction where no CO2 is released generating electricity. Therefore generating electricity with solar doesn't save any CO2 emissions.

It is still worthwhile generating solar electricity but I shouldn't claim credit for reducing CO2 emissions.

[jacksmith4tx]

ghoti,
What's your public Enphase URL

My system is also listed on PVOutput where it ranks as # 855 from a global population of 31,374 PV systems and according to their calculations I have offset 60 tons of CO2.
https://www.pvoutput.org/statistic.jsp?p=0&id=12116&sid=10059

Since the PVOutput API doesn't support my eGauge energy monitor they can't show how much I have exported but it's over 12 MWh since I turned it on.

[ghoti]

I think this is a  public view:

https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/public/systems/akmB223528

It shows 37.7 MWh lifetime but my meter from it to the grid says closer to 39 MWh.

[etienne]

Well I've been only by bicycle to work for two weeks now. It's really nice, but my body hurts everywhere. Transition is not so easy, good that there are week-ends to get some rest. I know times will make everything better, but improvement time is longer than expected. I only drive around 12 km per day.

[etienne]

To centralize the trash of the local school, we just installed a new container with a PV/Battery lightning system. It was the best option because we need to build a new school at that place and it is not possible to know now how things will be placed in the future. So we have a flexible container that we can put anywhere and that can be easily used for something else or sold.
This solution also means that nothing special had to be done to prepare the ground, excepted to get it flat and put some gravel/sand mix so that people don't have to walk in the mud when it is raining.

[Paddy]

So, been doing a move into a project house that needed a full renovation to be habitable, and as part of the fix up, it’s getting thoroughly insulated, a heat pump installed, and solar panels. No gas, all electric… will see how it goes.

Also moving job to cut my commute to something short enough to cycle, and hence massively cut my annual mileage. I would look at getting an electric car, but there’s basically no money left for it after the house, and little incentive to do it on how little I’m planning to drive.

[Bruce Steele]

Paddy, Let us know how your heat pump works.
I have replaced all the one pane windows in my house except four large windows in the living room. I had  a window guy quote a replacement cost for double panes , $15,000- $20,000 and I balked. So with the current heatwave I finally decided to get four 4x8 two inch thick ridged foam boards and just plug the windows. So today it is a bit darker in the house but 128 sq feet of single panes are covered. In the winter when I want some morning sun and heat I can remove the foam boards in the East pointing windows.

[HapHazard]

Figured I'd post something here. We do what we can. Solar went in last year. Wood pile is a quick pic I just snapped through a window; ready for winter. I split it all by hand with my trusty Fiskars axe, and we've already moved about 2 cords into the basement. (we have a wood burning furnace)

[Paddy]

Paddy, Let us know how your heat pump works.
I have replaced all the one pane windows in my house except four large windows in the living room. I had  a window guy quote a replacement cost for double panes , $15,000- $20,000 and I balked. So with the current heatwave I finally decided to get four 4x8 two inch thick ridged foam boards and just plug the windows. So today it is a bit darker in the house but 128 sq feet of single panes are covered. In the winter when I want some morning sun and heat I can remove the foam boards in the East pointing windows.

I’ll know in a couple of months how the heat pump works. Moving in date is coming soon. How is your foam boards system working out for you so far as we get towards winter?

Figured I'd post something here. We do what we can. Solar went in last year. Wood pile is a quick pic I just snapped through a window; ready for winter. I split it all by hand with my trusty Fiskars axe, and we've already moved about 2 cords into the basement. (we have a wood burning furnace)

Looks good - that seems a really decent area of panels.

I had a wood burning stove in my old house, but this time we went with high insulation, and was told that a working chimney in the only appropriate place in our particular structure would be a detriment to that.  The heating in the house will be all electric.  Luckily the winters here don’t generally get too cold for heat pumps to work solo, with sufficient insulation.

[kassy]

Some off topic discussion removed.

[HapHazard]

Right on, Paddy. We also have a heat pump, but winters here often get below -30C overnight, and heat pumps just don't do the trick then haha. Besides, I really love wood heat, largely because I love harvesting the wood & the crackle of fire in the stove in the living room. We have hundreds of acres of forest which is surrounded by wilderness/Crown land, so it's always an enjoyable job with a beer or two on hand.

[Bruce Steele]

Paddy, Covering up all that single pane window space with R13 foam boards has worked very well and was a solution I could afford.  $200 for foam panels verses $15,000 for double pane glass. I am still planning on installing a heat pump but I need to install it myself because the quotes I got were exorbitant. I have to trench in a 220 power line and get a DIY heat pump but the price difference is 10x to get a contractor to do it. 
 Maybe a silly question but does the wood burning stove affect your homeowners insurance?

[etienne]

Hello Bruce,

Looks like winter temperature don't go so low in your area, I also don't know what kind of heater you have right now, but a reversible air conditioning is rather cheap here in Europe (all inclusive around 10'000 EUR for 4 Rooms). It is also a heat pump and quite efficient if temperatures stay most of the time above freezing.

Than you would only need the wood stove when temperatures drop below freezing and when you want some more comfort in the evening.

4 Rooms would be like 2 bedrooms, the kitchen and the bathroom. Freezing protection can be done cheaply with direct electrical heat, but it should never be needed if 4 rooms are heated in the house.

Wood heating is very nice, but doesn't work well if you are sick or hurt. So you need an alternative for the bad times. My wife is sick and gets very annoyed if the house is cold when we get home, it's also a reason why I have use heating oil, but the wood greatly reduces the consuption.

On the picture below, more or less my yearly consumption. I'm very lucky because the local administration provides it already cut and split at a low price, I just have to stack it and let it dry. Nowadays, wood is more expensive than heating oil.

[Florifulgurator]

A bowl with the result of 1 day of carbon negative heating and cooking: Wet ashes and char from firewood and pellets. (The ashes get washed out to reduce alkalinity and the char goes to a urine (plus plant manure) sequestration barrel. The washed out ashes, sand and fine char go into the compost, which will later be mixed with urine barrel char, which will even later go into the garden and occasional tree seedling pots. That way the mineralized/inert char carbon holds even more organic carbon, roughly doubling the effectively sequestered carbon under good conditions of plant root growth and humus accumulation.)

I use a bit more than the 2 pictured buckets of wood and a bit less than the pictured pellets. A second carbon negative contraption is heating the bathroom (or not ).

[Bruce Steele]

Martin, I assume you use the bio char in your garden. Do you have an opinion on how the garden has responded?  Pictures? Are there some crops that seem to like it more than others? Do you have before and after soil carbon content numbers? And isn’t there a limit to how much you can use in a given space?
 I do appreciate your commitment over the years to bio char. Gotta wonder what an organized group of gardeners/ farmers could do to create a commons where their joint efforts could restore and deepen soils for forest restoration , and accelerated habitat restoration.

[sidd]

I began using firewood char about two years ago in test plots on clay soil. Seems to improve drainage, and residual ash raises pH slightly but too early to tell if they are doing better than other places where i have identical soil amendments without char. Will let you know in a few years ...

sidd

[Bruce Steele]

I am trying to lower pH so I guess I will have to wait on the char . I am adding sulfur . Our rains are about to begin . I have cabbage , braccicas , and artichokes up. We had our first freeze with a couple hours at 32. Enough to drop the leaves on the persimmons, and end the Oaxacan corn crop. The last of the pears and quince are in the drying shed on the concrete floor .
Martin, Do you cook bread in your oven ? Or just for heat ? And do you have hardwood trees you prefer to burn ? Anyway I was thinking bread from a wood burning stove would be nice.
I ground some hard red wheat, sifted it and built phyllo dough for baklava. It worked but the whole wheat wasn’t as pretty as bleached flour. I have foraged English walnuts, and a beekeeper dropped off 80 hives to winter them . For rent I have a lifetime supply of honey. Honey, walnuts, phyllo.
 I used late pears, walnuts, and quince to make some old fashioned mincemeat. Raisins, currants , dried cranberries, spices, homemade candied citrus, and tongue . Pig tongue which sounds odd but works very well, or maybe it’s the two cups of brandy that makes it work.
 Some acorns are coming in but the acorns come in very late compared to everything else.
 For cooking challenges the farm sourced baklava, and the buckwheat soba noodles also from farm
raised crops , topped the gardens results.

[KiwiGriff]

It seldom get beyond comfortable here in the far north of NZ . I have no heating or cooling device in my home at all besides dressing for the ambient conditions. We do have heat pumps at the beach house but they are seldom used for more than an hour or so a day in the high of the seasons to take out extremes .
I eat a  meat based diet . Most of it provided from  my land. I would consume about  one grass feed beef from the land a year the rest grown are  sold to offset  my land costs .Even though I graze some beefs the reminder of my land with its nurtured  native  forest cover more than offsets the CO2 emissions from what stock I do run.
I fish for sport but the food is a benefit. Three hours fishing from the local beach usually provides   about three meals of protein. if I bother to burn the petrol to go out in the little boat it usually feeds me and selected friend's quality fresh fish for  days . Veg gardens provide greens. tomatoes. peppers, squash, herbs  etc in season. The orchard supplies  fruit mostly citrus with the avocados now also producing well. Pip and stone fruit requires sprays with no frosts to kill the pathogens to do well here.  I am philosophically opposed to the indiscriminate spraying needed for good harvest besides  plums and grapes that seem to do well in our conditions .   

One of the best investment I have made is the vacuum packer . Frozen food keeps so much better when vacuum packed be it those extra beans I grew , the stock  I get butchered or fish I catch .

 I live off the grid no wires connecting my house to the outside world. 
I do heat water and do some of the cooking with bottled gas.
The plan is to go towards solar  hot water storage heating. Panels are so cheap now a dc element based  system makes sense. We do have a fire place with a cook top almost installed at home that would provide some cooking in the winter. Wood supply is not an issue dead fall and selected pruning would be more than enough to get us though  winters.  I am probably to lazy to do all  my winter cooking  on the fire . Gas BBQ for burning meat is so instant andsd controllable  .
   

[etienne]

Bruce, my grandmother had curtains to insulate her windows and walls. She was living in a townhouse,  so the neighbors insulated the sides,  and the curtains when closed covered everything from the ceiling to the floor.
It is easier to open and close than boards.

[zenith]

Some off topic discussion removed.

my initial post asking how efficient the wood furnace is and how insulated the house is are completely topical.

"We squeezed the maximum heat from our firewood on our off grid homestead.  Have you ever seen an apples to apples comparison of a blaze king catalytic wood stove to a normal wood stove? Is a blazeking worth it? We did the test, and now you can have all the juicy data."

TESTED. The BEST Wood Stove for our Off Grid Homestead

[sidd]

"maybe it’s the two cups of brandy that makes it work."

Nice, Bruce. Two cups of brandy would make me work.

sidd

[Florifulgurator]

Martin, I assume you use the bio char in your garden. Do you have an opinion on how the garden has responded? 

There was no garden, just fat white clay with pebbles and historical brick gravel with hard rooted grass grown over. I dug perhaps 30cm, no fun, build soil on top, and let plant roots and worms do the deep work. A coin I dug out is dated 1896, but likely got lost after WW1 by farmers playing cards. (They had cubic meters of old coins from the city folk.)

I have enough space/volume around the house for a century of carbon negative heating (hill side). Lets say 1000m^3.

The vegetable garden (main carbon sequestration site) is in the sun trap between pond and house. So the soil readily gets bone dry with huge clay cracks. Even after years of adding char compost I see cracks, but obviously the char is helping feed healthy plant roots. The only thing that's not growing well is radish. As always. Still I would say, it is way more work and takes more time to build good char coal soil in clay than it is in sand (where I invented it ca. 2004).

When done right you can have excellent soil with 80% char (vol). I have a 10+ year old bonsai tree in 90% char (from a saturated bokashi/urine filter) plus clay for stability.
 
Picture? Impossible...
Here is pond turtle Europa, queen of the whole habitat with 2 ponds. I can use the upper pond (ca. 4m) for garden watering, but mostly bucket water from the pond. Meanwhile wine grows from my carbon soil along the entire width of the house. (Stupid to put it in the middle of the vegetable garden, but the stupid house owner gave me 6 expensive grafted wine plants. They cost me 2 years of diligent carbon sequestration to prepare their places. 3 healthy survivors left, 2 at a rock behind the house with 1m^3 of char soil.) Apropos: This jewel/challenge of a house/ground desperately needs a good owner. Near Passau in Bavaria.

[Florifulgurator]

I am trying to lower pH so I guess I will have to wait on the char.

Counterintuitively char can make highly acidic compost when the ashes are absorbed/integrated. Standard worms can't stand it, and their tiny white brothers take over, slurping stuff in acid saliva, sustaining acidity. My char processing is mostly acidic, but I try to be as diverse as possible for maximum microbial biodiversity - plus degradation of possible bad stuff from char production (PACs, dioxins, chromium-6).

Martin, Do you cook bread in your oven ? Or just for heat ? And do you have hardwood trees you prefer to burn ? Anyway I was thinking bread from a wood burning stove would be nice.

My dream! And pizza. With a serious brick oven... Instead I use a small electrical oven for baking bread or pizza.

The oven is barely legal. Expert user only. I'm lucky Bavarian law takes it as historic and my modification as a restauration. (The darn old junk was actually optimized for f-ing brown coal. No more.) I haven't repaired the last innermost rust hole, so the bakery doesn't get very hot. Baking bread would need an hour+ of continuous feeding of a serious fire. Pizza I guess you can forget completely. But I'm looking forward to one winter make a nice old slow Bavarian farm pig roast in it...

The wood is from the area, made and delivered by a neighboring farmer. (I do the fine splitting, 30min/day.) Absolutely exquisite firewood this year from Beech and birch. I cook a lot in pots and pans on the oven, which is quite different to using an oven with electricity or gas.

[etienne]

Here a picture of my fireplace for biochar. I burn mainly hedge clippings, but since it is not legal here, I let it dry a little bit in order to reduce smoke. I usually do it in the spring,  but we had so much rain this year that I just did it last week.
Since I had no more compost to mix it, I just sprayed it over the vegetable garden.  I know that it isn't the best way to act, but perfection is not always possible.  Carbon storage remains the main objective.