Pigeon Holes

Two years ago, working in the Civil Service, the term pigeon holes had a very different meaning for me than it does today. Back then (well it seems so long ago) pigeon holes were places where you left messages or correspondence for colleagues. Today I have the real thing – several in fact. Holes for pigeons cut into the walls of the barn. At some point they would have had wooden boxes attached to the inside to provide nests for pigeons whilst denying them access to the entire interior of the barn. The pigeons would have been a source of food for the people who lived here. Maybe the eggs were a source of food too but I haven’t found anyone who can confirm or deny that.

In renovating the barn the practical thing to do, would be to block up the old holes and point the walls inside and out. The other night though, I inadvertently left the light on in the barn and was amazed at the beauty of these relatively small and random pin-pricks of light that beamed out of the barn walls thanks to these old apertures. So the pigeon holes have to stay.

They need glassing in somehow and the shapes of the apertures are random to say the least. First attempt will be to see if glass bricks sold in DIY shops will do the trick. If that doesn’t work then maybe some Perspex can be cut to size and sealed in with mastic – either way a solution will have to be found because I can’t bring myself to get rid of them. But there again this is a frugal blog, maybe I should get some pigeons and follow the old ways.

David

Frugal Newspaper

Sticking with the log burner, frugal living topic (and this is my final post on the subject – honest) there are a couple of good and bad things about newspaper. So do you want the good news or the bad?

I’ll give you the bad news first. There are a number of gadgets on sale for about 12 Euros which claim to convert simple newspapers to logs which can be burned on the log-burner. Given that you have already paid for the newspapers they suggest that the heat they give is free.

Well, I didn’t pay 12 Euros for my gadget. I got it at a car boots sale for £2 thank goodness. I say thank goodness because, quite frankly I would have felt well ripped-off if I had paid any more. So what’s wrong with it doesn’t it work? Yes it works but the logs aren’t worth the effort. Firstly you have to tear up the paper and soak it for several days in a tub of water. Then when it has turned into a disgusting gooey mush you drag it out by the dripping handful and push it into the gadget which is a kind of mould. This compresses the paper fibres. Water and pulp leak out of every surface – and hey! You’ve got a brick.

Its no use to you however until it has dried out – and the bricks don’t dry that easily if they are stacked – so you need a pretty big under cover area to dry them and you have to turn them frequently. Once dry they can be stacked but they must be kept well away from humidity because they seem to have properties a little like salt, or blotting paper– they absorb damp and seem eager to return to their dripping state.

Now, that’s not the bad news – we haven’t got there yet. The bad news is that they stink when they burn and they give out little heat. The other problem is that being composed of softwood fibres; they probably don’t do your burner any good either.

Ok so now for the good news – well newspaper makes a fine mulch and an excellent compost so you can achieve something for nothing after-all. Better still, before you throw them on the compost use them to clean the glass on your wood-burner stove. Simply wet them, scrunch them up into balls, dip them into the cooled ash in your stove and wipe the glass with them. You’ll be amazed at how effective they are. Better in fact than bought products. Now wood-ash is what gardeners refer to as ‘potash’ – so the ash stuck on the newspaper actually improves the newspaper as a composting product. 

Now if you can find a free source of newsprint, – well it has to be a pretty good idea doesn’t it. So whereas my French neighbours paint ‘pas de pub’ (no publicity brochures please) on their letter boxes – I welcome all of it.

David

A Real Saw Horse

Having posted an article about log burning stoves, I though you might like to see this. I can’t claim to have invented it myself, I found it on a DIY website, thought it was good, built it myself and after several years of use I can confirm that it is an excellent piece of kit. Now what is it? Well it’s a sort of saw horse, a frame which holds logs while you put your chainsaw through them.

Before building this I tried all sorts of options but logs are not a standard shape or size and nothing I had held the logs secure enough for my liking. This gadget however, offers you two options. One way up it has a V shaped indentation to stop round logs rolling, turn it the other way and you have a flat surface for split timbers. You can add luggage tapes if you like to secure the log to the horse, or you can simply use your foot – suitably clad in steel toe-caped boots.

The thing took less than an hour to make because I bought the MDF cut to size from a DIY store. The whole thing is held together with long stainless steel screws and bolts which are kept in the right place by plastic water pipes. I wn’t bother giving you the detailed building directions because they are pretty obvious – but if you want to build one – here are the materials and dimensions.

To build it you’ll need:

6 pieces of ½ inch MDF each one cut into a 15inch x 12 inch rectangle

Two ½ inch stainless steel screw threads each on 24 inches long

24 stainless steel nuts

38 inches of plastic water pipe, just large enough for the screw thread to go through.

When you get home measure 2 inches into both sides of the 12 inch side of the boards and 6 inches down from the centre and cut a V shaped groove.Then drill a ½ hole in each side of  the boards 5 inches up from the bottom and 2 inches in.

Now simply put a nut on each screw thread, add a board, fix it in place with another nut and add a suitable length of water pipe to act as a spacer. Now another nut, then a board, then another nut and another water-pipe spacer. I fixed my boards at roughly 3 inch apart with a 7 inch gap between the two middle boards – and that is where the saw does its business.

Sorry to be using old imperial measurements but I find them more frugal – I mean there are less of them to the foot. Let’s face it, if I used centimetres I’d need 30 of them to make the same distance as only 12 inches.

When it comes to chainsaws I prefer electric over petrol mainly because they are lighter, less noisy, and more reliable than two-stroke engines. I have to say I am no fan of Black and Decker most of their products seem to be for light domestic use and I have burned out a considerable number of their sanders, saws and drills in recent years. These Makitas however, just run and run. I have had to replace the chain a few times but that’s all. You can get one here.

Makita UC3530A Commercial Grade 14-Inch 15 amp Electric Chain Saw with Tool-Less Blade And Chain Adjustments (USA Readers)


Makita UC3530A/2 35cm 240V Chainsaw  (UK Readers)

David

A New Log Burner

There is nothing prettier than an open wood fire but if you’re trying to be frugal it gives little comfort to know that 80 percent of the heat it produces disappears up the chimney. A wood burning stove is much more efficient and effective. For a start it acts more like a radiator than a fire. The heavy iron casing throws heat into the room and the huge chimney is reduced to a single small flue. The rest of the chimney can be sealed with insulation to keep heat in the building.

There was a wood burner here when we bought this house - a  ‘Vermont’ cast iron job putting out 8 Kwts of heat  and it was enough to keep the whole house cosy even during a hard winter.

But as a heater for a second home, a holiday home, it had a few drawbacks. Firstly, it took about a day and a half to reheat the fabric of the house, so if you came here for a long weekend, say arriving Friday afternoon, the house wouldn't feel really warm until Saturday night. Secondly, because the chimney wasn't used between visits and it hadn't been lined or capped, rain water came in.

One February night we arrived here, lit the stove and choked on the smoke which filled the room. Investigations the next morning turned up a dead pigeon and an owl in the flue. They had obviously fallen in there and died a horrible cold death. Soon after we had a ‘chapeau’ fitted to the top of the chimney to prevent further useless deaths – and to help keep out the rain.

But, by then the iron stove had rusted due to the rain and lack of use. Bits were beginning to fall off. A new stove was called for and it was one of the first improvements we made when we moved here permanently but if you’re thinking of getting a wood burner it is important that you do some thorough research into your needs and circumstances.

In France stoves are described according to the heat they put out – the measurement is in Kilowatts.  Now a stove is most efficient when she is burning good wood and when she is stacked reasonable well. It’s difficult to have a small fire in a stove so you need one that produces enough heat when burning efficiently – but not too much – otherwise you’ll be opening doors or running half empty which is not efficient.

To calculate what size stove you need, begin by obtaining the ‘volume’ of space you want to heat. Measure the width, length and height of your room and then multiply the three measurements together, i.e. width 8m x length 4m x height 2.8m = 89.6 cubic metres.

Now, if your house were a new build and fitted with very good insulation, you would divide this figure by 25. For a room with average to good insulation you would divide the volume by 15. If the insulation were poor or non existent, then the division of the room’s volume would be by 10.  If you are unsure use 15 to get an idea of the Killowatts you need.

Ok so that is the size of space you want to heat but if you've got an open staircase in your living room, heat will rise up it. This may be a good or bad thing, you may want the hot air to rise through the upstairs of the house – or you may prefer to insulate your room and use other solutions upstairs. Either way, just remember that heat rises and bear that in mind when you make your calculations. 

Another thing to know is that old stone houses like this one prefer a fairly constant level of heat and humidity so you need a stove that will bring the house up to your preferred temperature steadily and then maintain that temperature at an efficient burn.

Finally the size, type and quality of your wood matters.  Generally any dry hardwood will do but Oak is one of the most popular because it is very dense, it burns slow and hot, and it is easy to split. Birch also burns well but it burns fast. Poplar is popular as is Ash and Elm.
 Softwoods are not so good because they contain a significant amount of resin which can build up in the flue and, over time, you risk an uncontrolled blaze in the chimney or flue. The drier and more mature the wood the better. An easy test is to bang two pieces together; a dry mature log will have a musical note. In this part of France wood is sold by the Cord a cubic measure of neatly stacked logs 3M x Im  x Im. Three Steres make a Cord. I use about a Cord and a half each year at a cost of about 360E per year.

 Generally, in this part of France wood is sold as 30cm or 50cm logs. 30cm logs are more expensive because there is more wastage in sawdust. Now, ‘here is the rub’ as Shakespeare would say, our new log burner is an ‘Invictor’ which takes logs of 45cms! Bit of a pain really, either we pay more for smaller logs or I have to re-cut every log in my store!

If you have the space, you can save money by sourcing your own wood, cutting, storing and seasoning it yourself before it will be required, or  by purchasing cut  logs ‘green’, and seasoning as above but you need to get at least a year ahead (two years is better still) – purchasing or cutting, stacking and protecting now for 2015 or later.

Well, in France they say a log warms you up twice – once when you cut it and again later when you burn it, - but once you find a good woodman treat him as a family treasure.

If you are thinking of buying a log burning stove, there is a great deal to think about. I used this book and found it a great help in making a good choice

The Log Book: Getting the Best From Your Wood-Burning Stove, 2nd Edition (USA Readers)


the log book (UK Readers)

David