Heat

Hottest days of the year so far, 31-33º: time to order some firewood!

Leña! 4m3.

Last winter chopping up the big blocks was a daily chore. Good workout, but.

This time we asked for "leña para estufa", so you get wood in nice smallish chunks, else you may get huge chunks of terribly hard root that is unsplittable, even by Engineer Jansen.

If you order now there’s 6 months drying in the sun and heat. Last winter Engineer Jansen had his certainties about the humidity of the wood, having bought an electronic wood humidity tester, and the orange test light lit up far too often. Too humid wood gets you less heat, more air pollution, and soot up your chimney. Engineer Jansen does not like air pollution, and soot up his chimney.

Piling up is fun. I think we have room for 2 m3 more!

Delivery, 4 m3

Two heaps, one on the P, one in the driveway.

Pile #1:

Pile #1

Piling up #2:

Insert 1 - the fire

For heating in winter the house has an insert wood stove and airco. No central heating. Airco is noisy, does not have enough capacity. The wood insert also does not have enough capacity, and also is noisy, as it has a ventilator. It's old. Probably 20 years, as old as the house. So, the vermiculite interior is all cracked, and should be replaced. 

Vermiculite is a quite light ceramic material, "chamotte", that is very heat resistant. You can buy this stuff in plates that you can saw to measure with a woodsaw and files,  or you can buy the proper shapes from the manufacturer. A better, sturdier material is Skamol, but this one just has old crumbling vermiculite. The vermiculite cladding is important, as it insulates the fire chamber, making the temperature higher, resulting in more efficient burning. It also protects the metal interior, and reflects heat into the room.

But, with use it deteriorates and cracks, so after a number of years you need to replace the vermiculite. This insert needs a new interior,  they even put some fire resistant bricks in here to cover the cracks...

A fire is nice though, engineer Jansen can look at the fire all evening. So can the dogs, as you can see below. The only one complaining is engineer De Waal, who would prefer a pellet stove.  However, pellet stoves have more than one ventilator, and are quite noisy. They have a ventilator to blow the fire, and another ventilator to blow the generated heat into the room. Controlled by some electronics these ventilators switch an and off, and are speed controlled, so the pitch also changes, annoying engineer Jansen to no end.

Pellet stoves are very convenient though, no wood chopping, automatic lighting, automatic temperature control etc etc. 

(Will be continued...)

(video)

Papaya and Tex

Coco

Coco

Tex

Vermiculite interior, all cracked

Shutters, mosquito screens and oil

Some people may think we're lazing in the pool all day, but at least for one of us that is not true. There are some shutters, screens and windows to do up. Not seen sandpaper or brush in at least ten years, so high time to sand off the old dry wood stain, and apply a nice Tung oil. (These are the windows and shutters of the kitchen, at the side of the house.)

Shiny!

 Now for the windows themselves..