Tag Archives: autumn

Australia, Bungendore, NSW

Slow Combustion Stoves

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Next on the list of big jobs to be done, came the installation of the wood burning stove.  Or more accurately the completion of the installation because the stove itself had been purchased and installed in January and basically sitting in the fireplace ever since.  It was time to get the flue sorted.   Time to get our act together and decide on what flue kit to purchase and get it sorted.

This needs a use

 

With the flue kit ordered, and collected from the store (special order only) and the extra 2meters of flexible flue piping also ordered and delivered, it was finally time to bite the bullet and try to install the kit.  I am made sure that we had the correct 6 inch internal kit with a cowl and down draft excluder.  And we had 2 of the flexi flue kit to standard flue adaptors just in case (I was positive we only needed the one, but someone else wasn’t and once we had confirmed that special order items could be returned to the store for a refund, it really didn’t matter if we had 1 or 2… provided we actually had some!)

The old fireplace cleaned up and ready for the woodburning stove – or slow combustion stove as they tend to be called here.

The empty space for the new woodburner to fit into…

So the big day arrived, Stuart set about installing the flue and more or less ran into problems from the word go.  It all came down to the very reason we needed the woodburner in the first place.  That darn chimney again.  Why or Why could the person who built the house not have put a straight chimney breast in?  There is no reason what so ever as to why they could not have done so.  Instead they made the chimney with a bend in it.  A narrow bend as well.  One that didn’t give enough space for anything to happen as it turns out.  Even smoke had had issues going up it.  The wind often came down it and smoke frequently returned to whence it came from!  It was a pain.  The fire place wasn’t designed with anything other than taking up a stupid amount of space.  It is too large, too deep and gives off no heat.  It returns all the smoke it can and you know what?  It also isn’t 6 inches wide… that is the chimney isn’t 6 inches wide all the way up.  and that is a problem… the problem that Stuart ran into almost straight away.  He couldn’t just construct the flue and post it down the chimney, attach it to the wood burner and be done with the matter.  Curiously though, it was only about 1cm out… odd.

He also couldn’t chip away at the bricks inside the chimney breast because it turns out that they are ‘ornamental’ fire bricks.  I say ornamental because whoever put them in was using gravity only to keep them in place, nothing more.  The weight of the bricks on top is the only thing that keeps the internal set of bricks in the chimney in place….

A plan B was needed and that meant a re-think.   And so the brand new flue was battered into a new shape where necessary and then forced into one of the adaptors and it sort of worked.

And so, eventually and with a slight change to the instructions on how we were planning on using it, the flue kit was installed, up and running.  It was even secured into place, cemented in.  It fits the chimney place at the top and extends at least 1m above the height of the top of the chimney itself.  It has 4 stays on it, anchoring it so that it can’t wobble around and after words with our builder earlier in the month, a plan for anchoring those stays on the roof had been devised without affecting the waterproofing of the roof at all.  Everything was now in place, we just needed to let the cement (?) on the chimney plate to the chimney breast itself (there was a 1cm gap on either side where things didn’t quite fit… the 10inch square chimney plate was great except for the fact that our chimney was 10inches and 2cm wide on its internal width measurement… nothing every really goes easily, does it?

Getting the fire lit was initially an issue, but now that things have been heated up many times, it is a lot better.  It guess it has bedded in somehow and all the grease inside it has now burnt off as well.  The fire was exactly the same, getting it lit was a major headache.  One curious feature of Australia is that although they have some of the best and most efficient coal in the world, the use of coal here as a means of heating is banned.  Yep – consumers can’t buy or use coal.  You can only burn wood.  That’s the law.  Its taken a while to get the hang of not using coal on a fire, but it was something we were reasonably used to be what with having lived on the road for 12 months and our survival/bush craft training.

And so the first firing on the slow combustion stove came the very weekend that the temperatures started to drop and drop and … yeh…

this

made this

Finally installed and lit

very welcome indeed.

Now I just have to cement in those 4 brocks across the front… spot the fireproof cement in the corner of the photo?

Actually, can I add as a footnote, that this stove is very efficient and almost too good for its own good.  There have been times when we have both been in T-shirts sweating wondering if there was a way of putting the fire out, or at least getting it not to be quite so darn HOT!  Perhaps a smaller one would have been better…

Australia, Bungendore, NSW, Cheshire, England, Scotland, Loch Rannoch

2017’s Calendar Photos

Starting in 2008, we have inflicted, sorry given all of our families and friends a calendar of photographs taken by myself.  This year has been no different and is the 7th such calendar (2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016).  I have previously posted the pictures we rejected from this year’s calendar; these are the 13 pictures that made it into our calendar for 2017.

The Cover

Cover – The cover picture, for once, does not contain an image of Stuart and I.  We had nothing suitable, but we do have a juvenile delinquent on our hands who systematically tears apart the tree he is sitting in, littering the ground below with broken branch ends.  He is also known to play peekaboo with me in the morning, hanging off the roof of the sunroom and peering into the room whilst upside down.

January’s Image – Lazy Clouds on Loch Rannoch (October 2015)

January – This image was taken in October 2015 on our last visit to Liarn Farm Cottages, Kinloch Rannoch, Perthshire.  During the 2 week we were there, we were to take the decision to consider coming to Australia.  We were also really fortunate with both the weather and the Autumn colours.  This was one of those wonderful days where we started the day with dense fog and total calm which was gradually burnt off during midday.  If you went out along the loch, you would cycle (we were on our bikes/trike) out of the dense fog and into the glorious sunshine.

February’s Image – The Back Garden, Spring Creek Road (July 2016)

February – February’s image was taken in our ‘back garden’ literally back in July of this year (2016).  That was our winter and we had been in the house about a fortnight when I was fortunate enough to capture this shot.

March’s Image – Way Out East, Spring Creek Road (July 2016)

March – Titled “Way Out East”, it is our track and heads out east.  To the right you have one of the stable blocks here, behind us is everything else.  It was taken at the end of July on another glorious winter’s morning  (Yeh, I know, it’s hard getting your head around that one, we are struggling with it as well) and I just love the long shadows and contrast in the shot.

April’s Image – Autumnal Light, Loch Rannoch (October 2015)

April – April for us will be Autumn and we felt it suitable to have an Autumnal shot in.  Loch Rannoch provided a suitable shot last October with the light reflecting through a silver birch tree against the most amazingly calm loch surface.

May’s Image – Spring Colours, Whitegate Way, Cheshire (May 2016)

May – May’s picture was taken in May 2016, less than a week before we left the UK.  It was another beautiful Spring morning on my daily walk along the Whitegate Way, (Cheshire) with Dusty, the Irish Wolfhound our landlady owned, but who I walked, or more accurately was escorted by…

June’s Image – Spring has Sprung, Spring Creek Road (September 2016)

June – In contrast, taken in September 2016, this is the pump house (for our bore water) in evening Spring sunlight in our ‘garden’.  I just love the light in this shot and Spring was literally just around the corner.

July’s Image – Frozen Tracks, Rannoch (March 2013)

July – July is the middle of winter here for us, and somehow, Rannoch station in snow, just seemed apt.  It was taken on another of our cycling holidays to Loch Rannoch, back in March 2013.  March and Scotland usually mean cold weather and this holiday was no exception.  Cycling along car tyre tracks and leaving pedal imprints in the snow, we were the only people at the station.  This is looking north heading for Fort William were you to catch one of the 5 or 6 trains a day that pass through the station.

August’s Image – Ghost Trees, Spring Creek Road (July 2016)

August – We were struck by the amazingly white tree trunks of these native Eucalyptus Gum Trees when we first arrived in Canberra, but not knowing what the trees were, Stuart renamed them “Ghost Trees” and the name stuck.  Here, again in our ‘back garden’ and surrounded by native woodland, this picture was taken back in Mid-winter and somehow seems appropriate.  August after, all is still a very cold month here.

September’s Image – Silhouette & Shadows, Spring Creek Road (July 2016)

September – Another from a series taken in very cold mornings, and again in ‘our back garden’.  this time a different Gum tree, but it is still a striking tree.  We have a number of these majestic trees dotted around the place.

October’s Image – A Foggy Forest, Loch Rannoch (October 2015)

October – A week of fog and glorious Autumnal weather on Loch Rannoch and more of those fantastic reflections on our last visit to Liarn Farm Cottages.

November’s Image – In Reflection, The Road to Rannoch (October 2015)

November – The road ahead and in the reflection, the road just travelled, Loch Rannoch, last October.  Somehow it just seemed to claim the November spot by itself.

December’s Image – Twinned with… Spring Creek Road (July 2016)

December – Many moons ago, we were camping over Christmas and New Year on a campsite in Glencoe, Scotland.  Our Christmas Day walk was heralded by the most amazing hoar frost and there was one photograph in particular that we loved; a picture of two trees backlight and covered in hoar frost.  The background was split with rays of sunshine and shadows, that followed the fence line back up the mountainside… It was Christmas Day 2005 and the walk was on the Clashgour Estate, Argyll and Bute, Scotland.  Stuart fancied this updated Australian version taken in our Winter as the Christmas photo.  We are still struggling to get our heads around Christmas, the longest day of the year, and Summer all being at once.  A hot Christmas is just weird (so far!).