Summer/Autumn 2007 - Living in Coom
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We are now moved in, although still only in the old cowshed. It will eventually be the guestroom, but for now it is home, and it has an en-suite bathroom - after the years in the Horsebox it's progress!
The grass roof is now established, it took a while because just after seeding there was a particularly ferocious storm which blew most of the soil off the roof, but now that the second attempt has taken root it should be stabilised and secure.
We had a party in the Summer so the Shed was decorated with flags from our visit to Laddakh, and a dragon puppet which had originally been made by Cathie for her Chimera Circus trapeze show, back when we were all doing trapeze (High Voltage site)
As for the house, we are getting there slowly... lining the walls at the same time as putting in all the electrics and plumbing is not the conventional way to do the work, but since Tony is doing most of it himself there is no need to have a separate plumber & electrician to do 'first fit' to place wires & pipes behid the panels...
This system does mean that there are some pretty impressive spaghetti wiring puzzles where the switches will finally be placed, but at least everything has been connected up and tested as we go on, so it should all work without the need to take panels back off later to sort out problems (well, that's the plan...
Behind the lining of the walls is 50mm of insulation - foam glued onto the old stone (rubble) walls and then the plywood lining is fixed to that. This gives us good insulation which is lacking in most old houses here, and allows the wall line to be made at least vaguely straight... The original walls curve alarmingly, and the windows are all at different angles - it'll never be exactly straight, but at least it'll be warm!
Rather than use plasterboard on the walls and ceiling we decided to use plywood - it's stronger, which lets us fix things to it later, and it's much easier to install overhead, of course it will be interesting to see how good a finish we can get finally, but that's something to worry about later!
To go with the insulation is the Geothermal Heating System. The pipework was already laid - see previous page - and now it's all operational - the controller is fairly formidable looking but it all works - we may not have finished the house, but the central heating is already working!
To go with the Heat Pump, we had to install a water tank for the hot-water which will be heated by the GeoThermal system. Getting a 400 litre stainless steel tank into the roof-space by hand was quite an interesting job - it took us two full days to lift it up and squeeze it into the available space, then an anxious time filling it to see if the floor joists would take the weight... fortunately it all seems to work out ok!
We are still getting regular visits from the local family of hares which live in the valley. Most evenings they will come to the house at dusk to eat the grass here. They have got quite used to people, so as long as we are quiet and don't move suddenly it's possible to get quite close to them, as this photo of one of them shows;
Meanwhile, we continue to prepare the car for the planned trip to the Egyptian Gilf Kabir region next year. We got a winch second-hand (well, it was a bargain, honestly!) and, two days after fitting it, had to use it to recover the car after a section of ancient track collapsed as we were turning on a mountain-top - the old peat digging tracks haven't had any maintenance, and after dropping off the edge we were stuck in a bog with both axles down on the ground - normally a long recovery job. Instead, we winched off a nearby rock outcrop and were back on the 'road' in 5 minutes!
Tony has been keeping up the Paragliding when possible (Ireland has 'challenging' flying conditions!) - the flying season finished with a cross-country flight along the mountain ridges on the Dingle Peninsular - high winds and the fun of flying over new territory was exhilarating, but the next day all my muscles ached from the battering I'd taken.
Normally the flying is a bit more relaxing - this photo taken while flying over the beach at Rossbeigh is more the usual conditions
Meanwhile, Carol is working in Congo DRC. Currently the headline news story on the BBC News website... the fighting in the Goma region is intensifying, leading to large population movements as whole towns are abandoned by the civilian population as the war sweeps through. Families who survive the attacks are gathering in areas which they hope will be safe...
