Oven

An existential matter is the choice of an oven! Pizza! We missed that. And again: big is beautiful. Only, if you bake a cookie in an oven of 115 liters, is that okay, or will it start to feel lonely?

The German Häussler one is big and beautiful, and expensive, and needs a 400V net connection. The Belgian Rofco is especially goof for baking bread (stone oven), while the Smeg is a huge allrounder. Just let us know what you think.


Häussler Primus - Das Schmuckstück für Ihre Küche

Rofco B10 - broodbaksteenoven

Smeg SF9390X1 - 115 liter!

The hood

All that is missing in Our Life™: and oven and a hood. And there's no end in choice in that. We dicovered Falmec, an Italian brand, and quite affordable. With a Collection. Capital C.

Look, there are the wallmount versions: (link):

So what'll it be? We're thinking 120 cm, because big is beautiful. See these photoshopped pics, and let us know what you think?

Concorde, sleek modern look:

Marte Pro,  true restaurant atmosphere:

Master, snack bar look:

Hob continued continued continued continued (4)

It works, and we are not (yet) exploded.

You did not think all would be well in one go, did you? Of course you didn't. And with reason, as it did not. The burners burned, but what this whole things was about fo me: small flames, and very low burners: nope. The control range was very bad. Big flames yes, small flames no. We could have kept the old Boretti. *snirf* *boohoo*.

But, the Boretti had small control screws under the gas valves to set the smallest flames. our lovely, wonderful, great and wonderful beautiful Atag in NL had those too, so this one probably as well. Yes. Small screws near the gas valves. So the glass cover needs to be removed yet again. Forth time. screw screw screw, sigh.

You need to turn the bypass screw all the way in for butane, and extend it for natural gas. Of course they were extended, for natural gas. Lucky I have a Torx screwdriver, the very same that was used to open Macintosh 30 years ago.

After putting back the glass cover and the burners you need to reset the hob. Remove the plug, put the right gas valve to '9', plug in the plug, set the gas valve to '0', and the display changes to 5 times 'C' for calibration. And then, finally, it works okay.

I hope to have taken apart and re-assembled this thing for the very last time, as the intimacy with this gas hob's innards start to bother me.

If you would like to admire our nice copper gas conduits and valve, do scroll down.

Question remains: would there be people that have had their gas hob converted to butane properly? The technicians here have no clue how to do this. It can't be right that buyers have to adjust the internals of their newly bought gas appliances?

Pervert!

Hob continued continued continued (3)

The technician who came today to fix the gas connection between bottle and hob said: "A hose, in the house? No es permitido". Not allowed, in Spanish. It must be made of copper, all the way to the hob if there is an oven underneath. And it needs an accessible gas tap. He'll come back tomorrow. Another lean day today. 

About the not possible opening he said: ah, I think we need to shorten the pipe-like thing. Ehhh. I want the correct manual, please.

But it's fixed. P. saw that the gasket (blue in the picture) was in the way, because the burner had been disassembled yesterday, and the gasket was deplaced a bit. That is now positioned correctly, and the 11 mm distance is possible. 13 mm, too.

Lucky we're two engineers, although one is more theoretical.

Solar Heater B continued (continued) continued

The second solar heater (B) now is connected to the house too, using a nifty flexible hose. It yields a little cooler air than the first one, 49º versus 53º. Heater B has a bit smaller converter, 4 cm narrower, 96 cm versus 100 cm, so 4% less surface area.

Hob (continued)

The hob has arrived, which is nice.

As we have butane bottles here we need to change the injectors from natural gas to butane types. We saw in the installation manual that is quite a job: you need to take apart the device to access the injectors. So we called Bosch service to do this. That went okay. We don’t have a correct converter for the gas connection, so the device is not yet operational.

There is one problem: we did not see him adjust the big injector for the wok burner. The manual we have tells us to adjust the space Z between two points to 11 mm. (see attached photos) So, we opened up the device, as we now know how, and looked. The space currently is ca 4 mm, which is the space for natural gas. However, the specified 11 mm cannot be set, the max opening is ca 9 mm. If you have G30 butane and a higher pressure there’s even a spec for 13 mm. But, that wide an opening is not possible at all with our device.

So our question is: what to do? We’re quite irritated and worried the device was “adjusted” as is now, as that cannot be correct. What would be the correct spacing?

All in all: we're not amused.

Valentine

ooh, a potato heart.

Perfect menu.

Hob

 I'm not allowed to have this one, a very nice ATAG. Something silly with no dealers or service being available, in Spain. Pff.

Then we'll have this one instead. The only one with a 6 kW wok burner. Bosch.

Wood contraption on both sides for mounting.

But, even when ordered in Spain you must change the configuration from natural gas to butane. The sprays are with the device, but with the smalles burner my smallest pipe key does not fit through the hole in the burner to reach the spray. And to exchange the second spray in the wok burner you need to disassemble half the device. So Monday we'll have a service guy. Grmbll.

And connecting up a gas hose isn't easy either. The reduction set we bought at the third ferreteria just does not fit. DAMN!

At least we're rid of this filthy thing.

Solar Heater B continued (continued)

Frame for the mosquito netting.

Two sides, the netting 2 cm apart.

17:30, sunny: 44º! (110ºF)

Two heaters now. Yes, those greay pipes will be hidden.

But, as you do, then there's rain.

Solar Heater Capacity

All very well, a solar heating, but what does it yield? 50° hot air is of course nice, but is it significant? A calculation.

The system has a fan that moves 70 m³/hr of air, in principle.

The heat capacity of air is 1,005 kJ / m³ it therefore costs 1005 J of energy to make one kg of air one degree warmer.

1 m³ air weighs 1,225 kg.

The outside temperature is about 15º, while 50º is output, a temperature increase of 35º.

If that happens during one hour, there is 70 m³ air 35º warmer.
That costs 70 m³ * 1,225 kg * 1005 J * 35 = 3016 kJ in one hour.

Watt = J/second, so the capacity is 3016 kJ / 3600 s = 834 Watt

The sun emits around 2.7 kW of energy per m² this thing has a surface area of 2.1 m ², and thus captures 2.1 * 2.7 = 5.67 kW energy.

This means that the yield is about 834 / 5670 * 100 = 15%, which is not very different from the efficiency of electrical solar panels (15 - 20%)!

Is the capacity significant? An electric radiator has a capacity of 800W (low) to 1400W (high), the kitchen has a volume of 140m³
I have materials for three solar heaters, so perhaps a few degrees? I hope that will make the difference. And it's free, that makes quite a difference.

You can view solar heaters as a "remote window". Normally the sun shines through windows, and heats up an interior. However, this house hardly has windows, so we'll use these "remote windows" instead.

You can wonder if the 70 m³ per hour air really is achieved is a good question. Perhaps next time.

Solar Heater B (continued)

 Saw - drill - file - glue - clamp

Solar Heater B

Yesterday started the second solar heater, as I have materials for three. This time I screw aluminium profile and wood in one go. That saves a lot of time drilling precise holes in the aluminium, afterwards. Now I drill holes in the aluminium profiles first, punch a hole in the (soft) wood, and glue and screw all in one go. And ready! (Well..)

The Hot box: 50º +

12:00, bright sunshine: more than 50º! Beyond the end of the scale of our thermometer, around the bend!

Jobs milestone

Today a milestone was reached in working on the house: the very last fly/mosquito/termite/... screen was finished. Now all twelve windows have a flyscreen.

This is the very oldest "window" of the house. It's not a window, but just a frame and a hatch. No glass. Possibly an original window, the others are much more recent. The wood was very dry and split. I soaked it in linseed and tung oil, it will probably last a while more. It does have a bit silicone around the frame, but as it's quite a bit up I won't bother to clean it up more. And I filled some gaps with silicone, too.