General Chat

When we moved into this house, a little over 30 years ago, I enquired about solar panels and the price per panel was horrific - then. It would have taken a little over 20 years to recoup the spend and we had never lived anywhere longer than five years so we did not think the outlay would be worth it.

How wrong we were! :-(

We have all those here in Canada, including small river-run hydroelectricity produced by private groups, First Nations, etc and then sold onto the major companies.

The UK has a lot of wind power, there's a huge wind farm out in Morecambe Bay, and I read of people getting solar power, but I can't believe that too many places in the UK get sufficient sun all year round to make solar worth installing.

In Australia solar power is gaining popularity, as are wind farms.

Some areas also have hydroelectricity eg the Snowy Mountain Scheme.

Tidal power is also being considered

What a lot of people don’t realise is that almost everything needs electric to start it so, without electric we wouldn’t have any form of heating, petrol is pumped with electric, our gas central heating is started with electric and ho humm I wonder how electric is generated.

Many people over here use oil for central heating ................ oil tanks just outside the house, oil delivered by tanker truck, and the oil then burnt to provide central heating.

My daughter had this in the centre of a city until they did major renos this summer and replaced the oil tank with natural gas.

She's been amazed at a) how much more efficient the heating has been, and b) how much cheaper it is.

They used to have to get at least 2 deliveries of oil, one in late autumn and then another around February or March, and were beginning to have to think about replacing the oil tank as they only have a certain life before beginning to deteriorate and rust out.

Now we're going hit a problem ............ gas gets scarce for you, electricity is expensive

what's the betting on what happens then????

you watch as gas gets scarce we'll be expected to ditch our gas heating!!

Ah, a free supply of logs, now that would be nice. I have several mature trees in the garden, maple, sycamore, willow, but being in a conservation area I am not allowed to cut them down. Not that I would anyway. In fact, it is only the Memsahiib stopping me planting more. I am thinking of an alder for the river bank, and maybe a mountain ash or two.

Allan - in my youth during the last millennium, our family home in the countryside had an 'open' fireplace where 'turf' was burned.

It provided heat of sorts & cooking facilities for our family of 5. Central heating as we know it today was unheard of in that region. There was never a mention of damaging the ozone layer or an other such 'Heavenly' warnings.

Happy & contended days as far as I can remember. But I'd rather not rewind the clock. Every generation has to live through whatever nature throws at them.

Do you have a wood burning fire, Dermot?

'Keep the home fires burning'.

We have an open fireplace that burns wood, but only because we live in a house that is about 75 years old.

Open fires were banned here in Vancouver about 10 or so years ago, largely because of the particulate matter they put out into the atmosphere. No new houses can be built with open fireplaces, they all have to be gas or electric "look like open fires".

Owners of houses with existing open fireplaces were not forced to do anything about them. We're really glad about that because our fireplace does a superb job of heating the living and dining rooms, although it does little for the rest of the house, we rely on blown air central heating and electric baseboards in separate parts for that.

We had a wood stove in our cabin that worked so efficiently that we'd have to open the windows to cool down the bedrooms, even if it was -5C outside! We could build it up before going to bed and there would still be warm embers in the morning.

They tried this in Western Australia a few years ago :-|

Many people in Perth and in the South West have wood burning appliances, but, as usual a vocal minority in Perth, who thought that the whole Sate only comprised Perth (where admittedly a vast majority of the voters reside) convinced the State Government to ban the appliances on health grounds

The deal was no new stoves fires etc to be fitted and all those with existing items would exchange them for gas at no cost.

That is when the brown substance hit the revolving item.

Very few areas outside of Perth have a piped gas supply. The majority of the South West rely on bottled gas and gas fires are very 'hungry'

The majority of the South West is also known as 'timber country' owing to the many State Forests in the area and firewood was plentiful, cheap and in many cases free.

Fortunately the new legislation was quietly and quickly ditched.

It is now a requirement that all new wood burning appliances have limits on the amount of particulates produced and there is also a maximum moisture content placed on wood fuel.

We've had wood burners for nearly forty years and for the last twelve of those we have had access to a free supply of wood :-D

We do have other heating but it is neither as cosy nor as practical as the fire

One wood burner in regular use and one from time to time.

Seasoned wood? Yes, if you mean "with a low moisture content".
But some woods burn better than others.

Almost everybody burned wood in England until the late eighteenth century..

I think you are ok with 'seasoned' wood.

we have a wood burning stove.
It's soooo cosy.
No intention of getting rid :-P

:-D

:-D :-D :-D :-D

What's the point of bringing out an 'eco-friendly' log fire, then telling people to stop using them? :-|

Tell 'em to log off :-D

I have an open fire - but then again, I don't drive, neither do I fly regularly.
Surely it's swings and roundabouts!

Also, a lot of modern log burners are eco-friendly - causing very little pollution.
My brother bought one about 3 years ago, for the Smithy he's doing up - when the non-eco friendly ones were being phased out.