OK, I’ll be up front, this is a little bit of a joke post, but I just bought the Victory Cookbook and there are lots of interesting food snippets in it to share. It’s a compilation of three of Marguerite Patten’s during and post-war cookbooks, and so is great for frugal, ration-based cooking. One of the [...]
Archive for the ‘Preparations’ Category
31 Jul
How much energy does your car use?
As part of our Energy Descent Plan we’re trying to progressively reduce our energy consumption – fuel for the car, electricity and gas in the house. This’ll save us significant money but also will reduce our carbon footprint and dependance on Fossil Fuels.
The first thing is to work out how much energy we’re using, and [...]
25 Jul
Our Rainwater Harvesting system (v1)
Current Capacity: about 2 litres, I think we can do better!
No, seriously, this is the only thing collecting water from the house at the moment. A single plastic jug under one of the downpipes. It’s a little below the 6,000l capacity I’ve been planning in my thoughts on Rainwater Tanks.
(The rocks were kindly donated [...]
23 Jul
OK, we’re in!
Finally, after several months of back-n-forth we are in our new house – expect some renewed action as we start to make some progress on all these wonderfull things we’ve been talking about – and the first figures for our Energy Descent plan are due at the end of the month.
17 Jun
Aquaponics Update
Sorry, haven’t been posting much recently – have been sorting out our new house . . . due to move in in a few weeks – working hard – and I’ve been planning out our Aquaponics system.
It’s one of the first things that’s going up at our new house so I’ve been busily over-planning every [...]
23 Apr
Understanding Peak Oil video presentation
Just another quickie – a really good video from Post-Peak Living. This is a great introduction to peak oil, so if you know someone who doesn’t yet understand the issues, send them this link. It’s U.S. based, but is still good – I liked a couple of the points particularly:
People lived well before oil, and [...]
23 Apr
The Guide to Post Peak Living
Just found this great resource over at Post Peak Living- “The Guide to Post Peak Living” – it’s a well-organised, comprehensive guide to preparing for life after the peak, including food storage, water, skills to learn and many others. Well worth a good read.
21 Apr
Background to Peak Oil – Interview with Colin Campbell
There is a great interview with Colin Campbell over at The Oil Drum – running through all the Peak Oil basics. It covers tar sands, new discoveries, potential of polar oil fields, reserve growth, and all the rest. I particularly liked the concluding paragraphs:
We enter a new world, as the principal energy that drove the [...]
24 Mar
Woodburning Stoves for Heating & Hot Water in Smokeless zones (update)
A quick update to my post yesterday on Woodburning Stoves for Heating & Hot Water in Smokeless zones. I’ve just had it confirmed by Rayburn/Aga that they do no wood-fired boiler models which are suitable for smokeless zones. So that means that I should update my Bin your Aga – buy a Rayburn post to “Bin your Aga and Rayburn [...]
23 Mar
Woodburning Stoves for Heating & Hot Water in Smokeless zones
We’re slowly narrowing the field in our wood-fired heating search. Following up on my previous posts on Woodburning Stoves for Heating & Hot Water and Using a Wood-Burning Stove in a Smoke-Control Area, I’ve found an interesting thing:
The Dunsley Yorkshire is the only stove with a back boiler that can be legally used in a smokeless zone
They cost £1922.30 for the [...]
