The build

Our first night in our temporary home. It’s been a long busy day. Will be back down there tomorrow to pick up last few bits and clean. While I clean Bob will continue emptying sheds.

Yeah I think they are quite good at digging. So will have to keep a close eye on her. But as she’s 8 years old, she hopefully not going to want to go far anyway. And a very high chance she’ll dig into rocks just under the surface. She won’t be in the run part unsupervised until I’m sure there’s nowhere obvious she can escape from and that her hole digging ability hasn’t been underestimated. When I’m happy she’s safe. She’ll have access to the whole run all the time.

Little badger is very good at digging! I regularly have to fill in started escape tunnels with rocks. Yesterday when I went to put here to bed. I found she had dug her way out. Where did I find her? In her bed    . She’d obviously been out and had a look round. No idea how far she went. But she came back. so now we have to come up with a plan of how to stop her digging out. But for now she’s not allowed in the run at night and I’ll keep filling in started holes.

Badger by name and Badger by nature! Could you lay wire mesh in the run? I put chicken wire under the chicken run to stop rats burrowing in from outside.

Clever little badger, she just went out for a midnight raid for snacks then put herself to bed. You must've panicked.

Badger by name and Badger by nature! Could you lay wire mesh in the run? I put chicken wire under the chicken run to stop rats burrowing in from outside.

Yeah I could do but I’d be worried she’d catch her claws in it. And I’m definitely not burying it. 

Clever little badger, she just went out for a midnight raid for snacks then put herself to bed. You must've panicked.

I’d already been in to check she was in bed. Just shutting the door and saw the big hole. I ran back in to check she was in bed. 

Garage is coming on nicely . Still a lot to do. And another coat of paint needed on the door. 

   

Garage is now finished. Bob put the ridge plate on this afternoon. And finally got to put up one of the things I got for my birthday last year.

   

Just one more coat of paint to go on the doors.

Ok time for an update as I think nothing is happening. We’ve just ordered our solar panels. We’re going with more than intended as a very good on island (Miracles do happen! ) deal has come up. We were initially going with 6 x 400w panels on the house. We’re now going with 10 x 425w panels. 6 on the house 4 on the garage. Still works out cheaper than the company we were looking at and some of the bits we’re getting give us the option of connecting to batteries later down the line if we want to. The other company didn’t have that. I really think batteries are a good idea. Bobs not convinced we’ll produce enough energy to store any. Especially with the cost of the actual batteries. So I might be knocking on your door JJB as I’ve just found out P knows about these things     . 
The other thing that is happening far to slowly is the porch cladding! We’ve had the stuff we’re going to clad the porch with for a while now. As ever we’ve been giving conflicting advice on how / what to attach it to. On the plans it’s cement board. Engineers didn’t like that and wanted block work. Obviously block work still needs ventilation the usual type wouldn’t work with our cladding. So being very open and above board Bob phoned the planners and asked if it’d be ok to use different ventilation. Yes said the planners………but as your changing to block you’ll have to amend you building warrant. For *%&* ……! (Please extend this string of expletives) . That would mean handing those ………….. more money and having to get drawings redone at yet another substantial expense. So we’re going back to cement board and we’ll sell the blocks we’ve already brought     . 

But good news mowing season is nearly over and we can start on the house again.

If you do get batteries in the future, it would be worth considering fitting a change over switch so that, if there was a prolonged power cut, you could still get some electricity from the solar panels, enough at least to power your fridge/freezer at least. Normally, when the grid goes down, your solar panels stop working as they are grid tied.

P says (bearing in mind I know nothing) he totally agrees with you Mark but adds there are systems available that automatically switch over to battery should there be a power cut, it's the system he's considering. It's called EPS mode (emergency power supply). SC ask your supplier about an inverter that does this. The grand plan if we can get it, is to have batteries that will charge during a sunny day but supply our leccy when the sun goes down. P wants a system that will do this automatically but still provide customer some control. Some power companies also have a reduced price electricity overnight which can be used to recharge your batteries Octopus call it Agile Tarriffs.

SC P says if you or Bob want to discuss anything with him feel free to call him, pm me.