A work in progress towards living a sustainable life, healthy life, making a living and creating a life, leaving smaller footprints on the earth. It is my hope that the smaller footsteps will gain momentum and leave large imprints of conscious living to enable our children to enjoy the beauty and abundance that surrounds us.
To improve my digestion I have taken the same science as if improving the soil in my garden. I equate that what happens in here is the same as what is happening out there. I changed to starting to eat in season and increasing the diversity of ingredients in my food. Instead of eating just rice, there would be millet, quinoa and couscous too, more variety in vegetables and fruits and telling myself that yes I can eat that but checking whether it fits that formula. This week it’s local asparagus although in the supermarket it comes from Mexico. Little changes do build up. Having a local veg box also provides me with local bacteria that will further enhance my wellbeing.
The compost bin houses a thermometer to see how the temperature is cooking and it’s gradually going up. Currently 28 degrees which is still on the low side but it will no doubt increase. To up the temperature I add green matter and to lower the temperature I mix the compost layers up. Additionally today I added a box of worms . They arrived in a box and the box will gradually decompose while the worms venture out and see what is happening. It’s just like cooking with waste. Eventually it will turn out to be compost . Just add patience.
Friday, April 05, 2019
A lot has happened to dampen my goals in life however, after 7 years I am back in the land of the living. My life was devastated by a neurological condition leaving me wheelchair bound and ill for a very long time. I had to move and adapt to living with a damaged body and I have become differently able. My goals are still the same, my direction is still the same and whilst my options are seriously reduced I am adapting to a reduced energy life. I am finding alternatives. I continue to grow food and explore available options but ' life is not as we knew it' Pointing north this platform will document my process.
Thank you for being here.
The cold weather spell is lasting a long time so today I want to explore how to keep warm with or without a fire.
CLOTHING
If we put on clothes that warm us and keep us toasty we are less likely to feel a bonechilling cold permeate us. A 100% wool sweater, gloves and socks are going to keep us cosy but if you still feel the cold the warmth of the fibre such as alpaca can raise the temperature. Wrapping ytourslef in a dressing gown or duvet heat the space wound you. The warmest fiber is qiviut but it is hard to get sufficient to date to increase the insulation factor. Check your clothing: a 50% wool/cotton combination is unlikely to keep you warm in winter. Most of our body temperature escapes via our heads so a hat is recommended.
HOT DRINKS
For just a few seconds. A cup of hot chocolate creates a fleeting feeling of warmth in your hands and stomach but not a change in your internal temperature—which is a good thing: Maintaining a stable body temperature is essential to having healthy organ function and a steady heartbeat. We associate it with a cosy inside feeling which is a placebo effect.
WOOD BURNERS AND OPEN FIRES
We do have a woodburner and without central heating it gives us the opportunity to warm one room in which we can all huddle together. It creates a warm feeling watching the logs burn and we can sit on the sofa, read a nice book and have a conversation.
CURTAINS
Closing the curtains or shutters enables the heat to stay in as a lot of heat escapes via windows and doors
DOORS
Seal your doors with doorstoppers ( a big long padded roll) so the heat stays in and draughtproofs the room.
ROOMS
Close off any unused rooms which will enable the warm air to stay where you are instead of circulating throughout the house.
FLOORS and ATTICS
Cover the floors in carpets or rugs which will insulate them against warm air escaping through the gaps and insulate the attic to keep warm air escaping via the roof. You can see how well your house is insulated by seeing if there is snow ( when it snows) on your roof or whether the heat from the house is melting the sneow on your roof.
COOK
Make cookies, or a meal ( without too much steam)/ Not only will you be moving about but the kitchen will warm up as the oven works and dry the air in the kitchen.
The snow can cause power to be cut so keep candles at hand.
Hopefully these measures will make you feel a bit warmer. A brisk walk or exercise will raise the temperature a little in your boidy and if all else fails, hibernating under the duvet can keep you cosy.
I hope these measures will warm you up a little in the shortterm.
The last few weeks I have been looking at the amount of resources used made of paper and how these could best be dealt with. Despite best efforts to stop junk mail and catalogues it became apparent that it still streams in the house.
MAIL
Mail gets opened near the paper recycling box and generally there is very little actual communication that needs a response.
Inbox- I have set up rules for incoming emails so the important ones get directed to their named inbox and junk box. It means being less overwhelmed by the amount of messages in the IN box. Turned off the 'ping' when an email comes in so I am not tempted to an immediate response.
Unsubscribe from emails you are not interested in.
Do not create accounts when purchasing items online and do not give out your email address when asked in shops or create an alias email for that purpose which redirects immediately to junk email.
GOING PAPERLESS ON BILLS
Bank statements and utility bills can now be received digitally as opposed to a paper copy.
Try to find out which companies offer paperless billing and choose that option. It will reduce the mail being opened and also saves the company money.
Set up a reminder monthly to check the digital bills and keep a copy on your computer. Mine are divided into business and private bills and accessible anytime.
LETTERS,RECEIPTS,OFFICIAL PAPERWORK
Letters from Government agencies, receipts and official letters are quite often kept in a folder and in any case should be accessible for 7 years.
To save them on a computer you will need a scanner. I save information in 3 places : computer, backup locally and a folder facility in the cloud.
I am a fan of Evernote as my back up because since having a stroke I have difficulty finding things and the notes saved on Evernote allow them to be searched by any word, as well as being available on mobile phones so in essence you carry the ability to carry vital information with you wherever you are.
Simple Life Together has a podcast episode six,dedicated to going paperless and Brooks Duncan has a whole website dedicated to going paperless.
Vanessa Hayes has a big range of videos to help organize anything in your home but in particular an action file.
BOOKS AND MAGAZINES
Books are available digitally as a direct download to an e reader or often as e-books which reduces the amount of book shelving space you need in your home.
I like that idea a lot but often there are books I will refer to often and those I still like to have in a hard copy on the shelf.
As far as magazines go, I am gradually changing any subscriptions to digital ones. Zinio have a great range of magazines and if you have an Ipad you carry with you a great amount of reading material.
Cookery books and Craft Magazines are being revisited and the articles and recipes that are of interest are scanned in, using Evernote I can search for the recipe anytime. Many cookery books tell a story and are good companions for cooking seasonally.
The New Year brought such an impetus of things I wanted to do to simplify my life even further so I thought I would write out those resolutions and got a bit overwhelmed with all the changes I intended to make.
January was used to look at those and I chose the sustainable wardrobe as my major project and then there was the garden, locally sourced produce in season, work goals, health, relationship, financial, energy efficient goals etc. Knowing full well the energy to achieve all of those would exhaust me and make life less simple to begin with. Some of these goals warranted investigating.
Why did I choose this goal
Is it aligned with what I believe is important
Am I willing to commit time to it and if so how much
What are the consequences of this decision.
Is it in line with my major life goals or a distraction?
Lets say your goal is to go and ski. Skiing happens at a certain moment when snow is available, so is time limited. This means travel and staying somewhere other than home. Requires a passport , special gear, toiletries and is going to make a dent in your budget. Now if its is in alignment with your authentic self( a need) you will go and find a way and have the satisfaction you have achieved something important with meaning. If however you go because you need a break from the rat race or the impulse came from a glossy brochure or advert, you may feel very discontented at the outcome.
Despite wanting to live a simpler life a downshifting path to simplicity the inflow of information we get every day to flex those consumer muscles is so great that our brains get more hits for consumerism than to simplify life.
In my goal setting I found that although I thought I had mastered the skill of differentiating between what is an important task and what is a want in my buying habits, this had not followed through in my personal life. And the most important habit to break is that of instant gratification so deeply engrained sometimes we are not aware of it.
To reduce the impact of consumer messages we have a system to deal with the post, reducing the amount of junk mail, recycling the paper as the post comes in and ending up with the important mail that requires a response.Those pieces of paper then get devided into home or business and get dealt with when I give the home or business folder allocated time and attention. It can wait.
If only it were as simple as the post. We are regularly receiving
post
email messages
twitter messages
facebook messages
pinterest
adverts
and most of them incite us to buy something and influence our choices.
Every time you buy something in the high street or online, it triggers a marketing campaign sending you emails whenever your profile shows up as a potential customer. You get asked for your postcode and what number you live in and there you are added to a mailing list. Every time you buy something the messages enticing you to buy increase. Companies are fighting for your buying power especially in a challenged consumer environment as where most people are tightening their belts after the spending spree for Christmas or for fear of losing their job. I know its a controversial issue because at the heart of it, we are asked to consume to create and keep jobs.
To counteract that we simply physically stop shopping but then turn online for our shopping needs. The consequences of shopping online brings you boxes and materials to recycle as well as the item you ordered plus a daily amount of emails which thankfully are easier to unsubscribe from and delete virtually. Many a purchase asks you to set up an account which when you do means another password to remember and more email messages for account holders.( including special offers just for you)
A few years ago my son was waxing lyrical about the benefits of a certain washing powder, how it would fulfill my need etc. We are open to receiving these buying impulses and clever though they are they diminish our personal power to make decisions about what we need and want. Add to that the trigger of instant gratification, and we impulse buy because we want it, and we want it now.
This was brought home to me while testing a new organizational app called The Habit Factor which as it happens accompanies a book , available tomorrow in hardback or instantly to a kindle and enabled me to list all my goals and then told me I could only concentrate on 3 of those goals. Three? The question I pondered this weekend was whose decision I follow when I want to achieve a goal, my own need or did the thought for that need originate as a marketing ploy?
Therein lies the differential and unhappiness between the goals our authentic self chooses and the ones we often pursue implanted by a clever marketing campaign.
Another app that brought me some insight was Astrid which enabled me to transfer those goals into steps I needed to take to achieve the goal and then allocated time in my schedule to do the tasks necessary. Three goals are sufficient to fill a whole diary and both these tools have been instrumental in helping me choose my three most important goal allocated to the three most important roles. By the time I consider my health, family and work I have my three major areas of goal-setting.
I am not proud of the fact that I still want it and want it now as an impulse, knowing that consciously means I can set myself the task to wait, 24 hours, one week etc. A wishlist is a great tool as it gives me the instant gratification of acknowledging I want it now, but tomorrow I can delete the item knowing I really don't need it,
Hibernation is used by many animals to last the winter. They curl up in as safe a place as possible to keep warm surrounded by their possessions and enough food to make it until Spring.
Here at the cottage the snow has been falling lightly sprinkling the garden with what looks like icing sugar and the birds have been strangely quiet. Birdfeeders get filled so we can enjoy the songs and calls of wildlife around us.
The snow makes going out quite difficult but allows us also to go inward and spend some time in quiet contemplation of our inner landscape. It always amazes me that when the weather gets colder we want warming, comforting food, soups and hot drinks, a warming fire, a good book and great company.
A simple life does afford those comforts but I am also aware of the many people struggling to get to work, congestion on the road, accidents and foremost the stress of battling the elements in an effort to go to work, to be that teacher or to get to whichever destination we feel compelled to get to.
Many schools close their doors resulting in grandparents being on duty, or else having to take a day off work and the world as we know it slows down. It could be seen as an inconvenience.
Let's turn that around and feel grateful for the opportunity :
to take it slower and breathe deeply while we drink that warm drink
to envelop ourselves and our family with the warmth of a blanket
that we can work from home or not as that case may be
that we do not have to get stuck in traffic
to have a reduced risk of a car accident or a fall
to take stock
to sit and chat a while
to catch ourselves slowing down and breathing deeply
to be grateful we have some time to relax
to bake cookies
to watch that movie
to pick up the book we were meaning to read and escape
to cook a warm spicy dish
to find out what is important to us
to spend time finding out what matters
It might give us an opportunity to tune into our inner intuition and help us realise the level of stress we endure on a daily basis and how we cope with that level of stress.
Snow gives us the opportunity to change our view from external to internal and revisit the goals we have set this year and how we can best achieve them with the resources we have.
De-cluttering is an ongoing activity in this household. Every time we have dowshifted to smaller accommodation there has been a sort of purging going on to deal with clutter. There are a few challenges with that in that 'getting rid' of stuff is not really just a case to put it in the bin for landfill but the questions asked are :
Can I donate it to someone who needs it or wants it? ( Clothes, books etc) Ask first.
Has it any value to sell it on?
Can I freecycle it or take to one of the local swap parties?
Can I repurpose it?
Can it be composted?
Can any parts of it be repurposed?
Is it mine to declutter?
Why did I buy this?
What am I going to do with it?
The questions can be endless and the right time to be asking them is when we acquire the item unfortunately, not when we no longer see a use for it. Believe me when I say at some stage it was a thing to behold.
Our tastes change, our circumstances change so it makes sense to change our clutter and stuff too. The reason we buy something new, want it is what keeps money flowing out and stuff flowing in.But how does its journey proceed from wanted/needed item to stuff to clutter.
Take for example my efforts with breadmaking. First I used to buy all bread at the supermarket with its wrapping, unhealthy ingredients etc. Then I decided to get a bread-maker and with a family of five found that one was not enough really I needed two. I then became concerned about the sugar,salt ,wheat content of the bread machine bread and the resources used. Indeed the bread had no wrapper and had not travelled halfway through the country from depot to depot but it did use electricity and for the convenience of that wondeful feel good smell it mainly took up a lot of space. Not ot mention the bags of flour varieties.
I then progressed to making bread the slow way, taking all day over it just using a bowl, hands and a kneading board. But even making bread at home that way created a certain amount of clutter :
kneading board
dough scraper
bread tins
knives to cut the bread with
books on bread making making double quantity and freezing one loaf
and so on.
If decluttering was a once off activity then we would all have simpler homes but as we grow our knowledge and interests, things become stuff and then clutter.
Two things have helped enourmously as a habit:
to stay away from shops
committing items to a wishlist
wait 24 hrs before buying anything
to question what to do with the item when it is no longer needed
to look at its origin and resources used
to find an alternative source ( can I borrow it, is is available on ebay, library, does my neighbour have one?)
to build in a habit of revisiting each room on a regular basis and declutter items
The mystery about clutter is that once clutter was a longed for, searched for, loved item and sentimental reasons can stop us from separating from the belonging. One answer is to commit it to the digital invisible cloud. Take a picture of it and have a special folder on your computer. Particularly useful for that achievement certificate in grade 5 or family photographs. But mainly ask the question" Why do I feel the need to hang on to this item? Those answers might surprise you and then you might be able at a click of a mouse to make it disappear like magic.
Really advanced decluttering needs a discipline of bringing one item in and one item out but that could sound too scary right now.
Melissa from Lehmans country store explains the ins and out of a wood burning stove.
Creating heat without central heating systems does not come naturally usually but it does provide an independent means of creating heat in our home. The wood burner does more than merely warm the room. The kettle placed on the stove eliminates the use of an electric kettle during the winter months; there is always plenty of boiling water on hand ( without the use of electricity). Hot drinks are a must when the weather is snowy. In general the wood burner has the ability to dry the air and warm air tends to move upwards and stagnate in the area around the stove. As our stove did not have the ability to distribute heat evenly throughout the room, a neighbour introduced me to the Ecofan. It is a sizable investment but it is a fantastic piece of kit that uses a thermoelectric module to create its own electricity and is really quiet. It always provides a discussion point when people ask what ' that thingy' is at the back of the stove. The third item on our stove is a pan with water ( which is noisier) but it contains aromatherapy oils that change with the season. Currently I am using eucalyptus oil to help those in the house that are suffering from a chesty cold. Lastly by using a cast iron casserole, it can be used to cook a one pot meal or reheat food that has been stored in case of power cuts.
The BBC ran a Christmas special about the Victorian Farm which was interesting to watch. Downshifting is not about returning to the ways people lived in the 1880 period but it helps me personally to understand how our historic home used to function. Ruth Goodman in particular has some excellent suggestions about how to cook on a range, how to preserve foods and how to live without electricity.
If you are planning a holiday this year and you want to experience a downshifting lifestyle without modern conveniences you can do so at Henley Cottage on the Scott Acton Estate. There is however a garden shed that houses a shower in case that is taking the experience a little too far.
Nevertheless, it would be a fantastic experiment. Last year we visited Thomas Hardy's cottage in Dorset only to find that it was not all that different from our own home.
As a general observation, people lived closer to the rhythms of nature and every task needed to be carried out with a vast amount of personal energy. Washing laundry took a whole week, people had fewer clothes and more care was taken of the few possessions they had.
Our home behind the shop is north facing and every room has outside walls. It was bitter when we moved in 2 years ago and the central heating did very little to warm the place up. Our gas consumption was 3 x 47kg propane gas bottles every 10 days between September and March, so for 7 months of the year we used to get a delivery every other week. The heating was only on morning and evening and really just took the chill off the air. It was very cold but we also felt the cold as we had come from a centrally heated house.
Some improvements were made to the property when we installed loft insulation which required an investment cost of £ 900. We also had the boiler serviced last year and the engineer showed us how we could lower the control on the boiler as well as the controls on each radiator to reduce consumption.
The shop and the ground floor do have radiators but are on a second circuit which we choose not to use.Most of the year the shop door remains open. We did close the door when the temperature plummeted to minus 5 Celsius.Usually the heat given out by refrigeration units is sufficient to keep the place bearable.
The wood burner installed downstairs keeps the temperature cosy at around 21 degrees Celsius and the office is the warmest room. The heat rises to the lounge providing us with 2 rooms that are heated throughout the day. The central heating is only on to take the chill off the place early morning and late afternoon. There are plenty of afghans, duvets and blankets to cuddle under with a book and hand knitted woollen socks, sweaters and hot water bottles go a long way to warming us up when we need it.
This year, not only did the heating only go on in October but we manage 3 x 47kg propane bottles for 30 days instead of 10. Although the cost per bottle is higher this year I anticipate our costs to be less. In effect we have reduced our heating costs by 60% and have also increased our ability to withstand colder temperatures.
When we visit people with full central heating we usually boil very slowly and cannot bear the heat and upon investigation,their heating is on mostly during the day and night to maintain a steady temperature.
This is our way and may not be your way but from experience I know that by increasing personal and building insulation, reducing the overall temperatures required gradually can lead to an adaptation by our bodies and minds and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. And when power cuts happen, we still have the wood burner to keep us warm.
Personal power : Our fantastic life sustaining energy system.
What the world eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio is a coffee table book with a difference. It identifies 30 average families in 24 countries and creates a photo of the family with a week’s worth of food. The results are worth considering : the family in Bhutan eats meals made up of fruits, vegetables and rice which look barely enough to feed a family of 7 adults and 7 children. The family of 4 people in the USA has a diet almost completely made from processed and packaged foods. And many countries in between. They all have some energy.
If we could compare health statistics in both countries we might find that there really is a correlation between our health and what we eat. The reason we eat is to create a constant energy cycle that enables us to function in the environment we inhabit and make a contribution to the overall well being of the planet.
Everyone does the best with the resources they have , but do we really? In heating our homes for instance, we use energy to heat the space around us first ( from the outside), instead of looking at ways to create energy from the inside.
Our bodies have a need to process energy just as much as any energetic entity in the world sphere but the way we get our energy and the way we use it has changed over the last century.The most muscle power used in a working day may be to get up and move a computer mouse.
Over the last few years, I have been looking at how my body processes energy and whether it is possible to manage that at all and have come to some startling conclusions. The food we used to eat provided a quick fix of energy followed by a real low and left my body to adjusts its energy supply by slowing down and demanding a fuel that would create boosts of energy from outside. This however slowed down the processing of slow releasing foods, slowed down my metabolism. To start a fire you would find paper, firelighters to boost the flames and then you hopefully would find logs that burn slowly releasing a constant temperature into the room. Different types of trees give out different heat exchanges. The same principle applies to the food we eat and how our bodies process that. Firelighters on their own will give you a spark but nothing else and to get your fire going with big logs is going to take a very long time. When we do not eat sufficient quality calories, our bodies start storing energy in fat cells ( in case the situation continues) and our metabolism slows down to stop us burning so many calories. As you get fatter and your circulation reduces, your body gets colder and you will find a need to seek out heat from the outside.
When our bodies function at peak, we do not feel the cold so much and we want to generally keep moving so that we create our own heat using the resources we have personally. It all changes when we age or when we become ill because energy is required to fight infections and protect our own planet.
Looking after you own physical, mental and spiritual body will go a long way to look after the planet in the same way.
My grandmother used to say that plants arrive in people's gardens, quite often the ones they need in one way or another. The newbie on the horizon is this splendidly beautiful plant, called honesty. Honestly, I had no idea but as it grew it developed the most spectacular purple flowers.
Common honesty is an old-fashioned dual-purpose plant, grown partly for its fragrant bright flowers in spring and early summer, but also for its unique seed-heads, oval and translucent, gleaming with an eerie silver light and coveted by dried-flower arrangers. It is properly grown as a biennial, and makes large, well-branched plants in its second year, after which it will seed itself freely around the garden. However, smaller plants can be grown as hardy annuals from an early sowing, with a smaller flower display, but very good compact seed-heads.
The gift of honesty for me is has been to really look at my life, with honesty, to accept the limitations and to marvel at the beauty that surrounds me.
And if you look closely, there is a small snail hanging on. This too is a reflection of how personally life has been over the past few months, simply a moment to hang on in there, waiting for the skies to clear, for the sap of spring to rise, for my health and energy levels to rise too. For some people the beginning of spring is the moment when the daffodils arrive but for me, it happens when I feel the need to go out, take pictures and marvel at how nature has the ability to spring back. I want to spring back too and to do that, like a plant, I need a sunshine.
What does your garden say about you?
Come and walk with me around the garden over the next few days.
The last few days have shown us the benefits of having your loft insulated. It simply feels like sleeping under a duvet instead of the stars and the change in temperature is considerable. The work was done by a local man who even decided he would paint the hatches for us. The property is unusual and the hatches initially built for much smaller people. Estimates from larger companies were more expensive and some even flatly refused to do the work on the grounds that it was too claustrophobic up in the loft space. It will take a few weeks for the air currents to adjust.
Approximately one third of the heat within your property escapes through the roof if not correctly insulated. Significant savings on heating bills can be enjoyed whilst also increasing home comfort.
Where we felt ourselves lapsing in having the heating on during the recent cold spell, the roof insulation has made it three degrees warmer and the immediate want has disappeared.
The autumn and winter weather here in the UK are comparatively mild in temperature compared with the USA for instance. It gets wet,windy and damp and to go out requires some effort. The dog is an excellent creature of routine and expects at least 2 walks per day. The difference living here is that it gets light after 8 am and quite dark in the afternoon, just after 4 pm when the children get home from school. Pumpkin carvings by Nathalie Halloween 2008
Light and candles are therefore important during these months and I feel drawn to scented candles and a daily walk in the fresh air. It feels like a time of hibernation, rest and contemplation and this year, I intend to give in to that rhytm a little more than previous years. Dampness in the air, colder nights and daylight have a mellow feel to it. There is a poignancy about this time of year. Nature is still blooming, ripe with berries, hips and haws and there are still many flowering plants in the garden. Yes we know that it is impermanent and that change is imminent.
At the same time, our bodies change too in anticipation of a different season. The ancient chinese associated this season with the earth element. When you look around at harvesting of crops, gathering fruits of your labour in the garden it can be linked naturally with digestion and nourishment. Autumn and winter bring us back inside, out of the cold, expecting warm nourishment and a time of rest.
I find it fascinating that eating with the seasons brings me into a different way of preparing meals that are suited to a woodstove. Comfort foods; warm stews, soups and hot drinks centre us at this time of the year. Cold food and drinks are thought to deplete the spleen and stomach energy. When cold food enters the stomach it has to be warmed diverting valuable energy from the digestive process.
Some seasonal preparations:
millet is a gluten free grain which in Chinese medecine is thought to be supportive to the spleen and is cooked in much the same way as porridge : 1 cup of millet flakes to 2 cups of water, simmer for 30 mins.
Root vegetables can be roasted in the oven ; sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, squashes and yams are high in natural sugars and are a healthy way to indulge a sweet tooth.
Slow cooked foods; casseroles, stews and soups.
Add cumin seeds, and coriander to vegetable, bean and lentil dishes- this helps digestion.
Drink peppermint tea after meals.
Despite the wet weather, I love the colours, the composting scents in the countryside and I look forward to coming home and taking up my knitting, my reading and spinning in the warm room.
As my daughter tells me that all little insects crawl away at the beginning of November and the onset of winter is nigh, I feel the need to create some winter concoctions to keep the air moist with orange and spice and all things nice.
The woodburner is great at producing heat but simultaneously has a habit of drying out the air around us. A simple thing to do is to have a pot with some water on the woodburner where water evaporates and makes the air moist again.
Much more fun is adding some things to the water- it could be a soup bubbling away but today I feel the need to add some ginger, orange, cloves and cinnamon to the water. Tomorrow it might be pine and eucalyptus.
It sure makes cabin fever more pleasurable. As an aside we did spend some money on base layers to wear under woolly jumpers and I am certainly feeling the benefit of that.
More spicy tea now and then a brisk walk with the dog. There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing - a saying I remember from Denmark. It may just be correct....
Mineral fibre or fibreglass matting is usually available in rolls 400mm (16in) wide. Thicknesses range from 100mm (4 in) to 200mm (8 in). In the UK, the total thickness of insulation should be at least 200mm (8in), the thinner insulation material available allow for old, thinner loft insulation to be overlaid to achieve the 200mm. Roll insulation can usually be installed without professional help.
Loose-fill loft insulation materials which are blown into the loft are usually mineral wool or cellulose fibres, installation is a specialist job which should be left to a contractor. The materials generally have the same insulation value as rolls of loft insulation and should have a minimum finished thickness of 200mm (8in) - most roof joists are only 100 to 150mm (4 to 6 in) so some means of increasing the depth of joist may be necessary.
Loose-fill loft insulation materials, such as vermiculite and mineral fibre, are sold in bags and can be poured between the joists to the recommended depth. They are easier to install than the matting if there are awkward corners or obstructions in the loft space. They also make the job easier if the joist spacings are irregular or not suitable for a standard width of matting. Again, the depth of the joists may need to be increased so that the required depth of cover is achieved.
All of the above are man made and use toxic substances which means that handling them and breathing their fumes in can be harmful. Is there an alternative?
I am quite prolific at spinning and knitting the wonderful fleeces that sheep provide us with. Here in the West Country, Jacobs sheep can be found roaming on the hillside and I absolutely love their fleeces. To keep warm I have made socks, hats, mittens, scarves and blankets for next to nothing money wise as the fleeces can be obtained on freecycle.
Thanks to Christa's comment my memory got activated about a company called second nature that produces loft insulation from sheep's fleeces. The benefit is that it is not only safe to handle and breathe around this material, but it can be cut, torn and stuffed into small unusual places.
So maybe the loft hatches do not need to be changed.No grants for this material but I am going to be a lot happier having non toxic materials in my loft.
Sometimes the obvious is the simplest answer: How otherwise can sheep withstand very cold icy temperature?
Father Peter's environmental notes left such a useful comment that I wanted to share it with you. Father Peter has some excellent contributions to make so do visit his blog.
We live in a small cottage that is about 350 years old and luckily was not listed. When we bought it 20 years the property was almost ready to be condemned and I rebuilt it over a two year period as sympathetically as possible.
All the internal walls (with external faces) are false and insulated and the loft spaces are insulated between the rafters by 5’’ of fibreglass at 45 degrees, so equalling 7 ½ inches. The insulated hot water tank was given a jacket on top of the insulation; this is heated by the open wood burning fire in the winter and ½ an hour of off peak electricity in the summer. I am obsessive about draft proofing as this seemingly minor item can make a huge difference. We have just had double glazing fitted and I only wish we could have afforded this years ago. The oil fired central heating has insulated pipes between the boilers and radiators with thermostats on each radiator; these are turned low in rooms that are not in use. The house now has windows that face south, there were none when we bought it, and with the fire on and (when it shines) the winter sun, pouring in the heating rarely comes on. We discovered a lot in the rebuild, that the kitchen area once held animals, that there were two families living in the house, and, when I removed the wall that covered the bricked up chimney in the living room, an inglenook fireplace with some parts of the old cooker remaining!
The government announced this week that it will pump money into energy saving schemes such as insulation. If you have not had the opportunity to look into doing these improvements to your home, then it may be worth checking out any grants you can get towards these. Personally we did apply and were successful in receiving a grant for draught proofing but as with everything, the doors became so tight that one of them fell of its hinges which caused us to need to do other repairs. The loft insulation was not completed on the grant because we have loft hatches that are too small for the rolls of material. Secondly, our ceilings are made of lathe and plaster ( a very old way of doing ceilings) and letting the workmen loose on it could have just given us another opening to the roof as lathe and plaster can crumble. So that work is on hold until we can get hold of a local craftsman who can carefully deal with the 16th century plasterwork.
Don't let that put you off,if you live in a more modern house, it will be a piece of cake.
Insulation can be considered in the following areas :
Loft insulation: Prevents 15% of heat lost through the roof.
Tank and pipe insulation: A hot water cylinder jacket of at least 75mm cuts heat loss by 75%.
Cavity/solid wall insulation: About 30% of heat lost through walls. Homes built after 1920 - with cavity walls - can be injected with insulating material. Older houses with solid walls can be fitted with an extra layer.
Double-glazing: Can cut heat loss by about 50%. The two panes of glass create an insulating barrier.
Draught-proofing: About 20% of heat lost through poor ventilation and draughts. Measures include fitting brushes to letterboxes. Source: Energy Saving Trust
If you have an older property like ours, you may need to make adjustments as the construction methods from yesteryear do not always lend themselves to modern measures and listed buildings would have restrictions placed on them with regards to improvements.
When we visited Thomas Hardy's cottage in Dorset some time ago, we were reminded that small cottages were inhabited by many people who heated one room and spent the majority of their time, wrapped up in front of the fire.
I will let you know how we cope with the cold as it creeps in over the next few months.
