Another mole

Well, it seems the cats like to play with moles.  Another one turned up today.  

Not quite sure who got it, but it seems likely that it was porcy.  Quite a big mole.

Finished bendroom 2

The skirting is now installed in the spare room and all the furniture back in.  Also installed the architrave in the bathroom.

Almost finished the house.

Weather station

I had noticed that the temperatures from the WS were about 5C higher than Tarbes when it's sunny.  So it's been moved to a more exposed position and the temperature & rain gauge are at regulation 1.25m, the wind speed and direction are at 3.5m.

The weather station was originally installed on the pergola near the kitchen door at about 3m on 25/12/12.

Finished decorating

Well, almost.  Study filled, skirting board and architrave.  Bathroom filled and painted (had under coat and largely filled a year ago)  A little architrave and tiled skirting left there.

But, the 4th bedroom needs painting (2nd coat) and skirting.  The presence of a very large bookcase may prevent the painting, as might a lack of paint.  Only got about 15m2 left.

Tiled skirting in the ensuite would be nice too.

Snow (again)

Plenty of snow this morning - around 100mm.  Very dry.  About the same fell on the hill.

Pictures are in dropbox under feb 2013.

Largely gone by 2pm.

sharpened chainsaw

Well, more of a change the chain.  Chain too blunt to sharpen with a file.  
2 hours to strip and clean, changed air and petrol filter

1 year with (grid) electricity

With a year of 24/7 (grid) power, we have averaged 1.28kWh/day.  That's about a fifth of our usage the last time we were on grid (2009), and about 1/10 of the UK average.
Some of the saving is made through the use of solar panels, which offset the sun against our usage.  This saves about 109kWh per year, or would change our average to about 1.6kWh/day.

To put this into context, our leccy bill is about €128/year with panels and €141/year without the panels, so not really worth the bother.

The bulk of our savings have been achieved very easily.  We sold our 'designer' fridge and an upright freezer, and bought a very energy efficient fridge freezer.  Whilst our freezer space is around half what it was, it is used 100%.  The old freezer was never full, which means it ran even less efficiently.  

Whilst we don't freeze that much summer produce, it does become diminishing returns if you fill a freezer with low value produce.  And besides which, where do you put another freezer.  You can't put it in a garage as they need to be kept +10C to +35C.  And not in a bedroom as they are noisy.