Keeping warm and well fed

It's been a pretty big week. We had a new boiler fitted outside the house. The previous boiler was sited inside the utility room and while legal when installed 23-odd years ago, in 2018 it broke just about every regulation there is. 

Now instead of something that is only 73% efficient we have something 98% efficient. That should make our oil go a bit further. It looks a bit unsightly,but I'm going to put a freestanding fence panel in front of it next year to hide it and then grow some climbing beans. 

It was a big job. Part of the oil line still sits in the house, as the previous owner ran the oil line from the utility room underground to the paddock and then later built a porch over the top. None of us fancied exploratory digs on the drive or taking up the floor of the porch to find it so the line was looped out through the main wall. Then we had all the radiators flushed, which took an entire day, new controls and thermostats fitted, a magna-filter (to collect the iron filings from inside the radiators so they don't block the new pump fitted in January), new valves from the pump,and a special soakaway built for the boiler condensate as it is acidic and could damage the septic tank ecosystem if discharged into there. It took two men three full days and one of them is coming back on Monday to sort out one remaining niggle over a reduced flow from the bath hot tap. 

We didn't have any heating during the week, although we did have the immersion heater for hot water, and that was fine until Thursday night. We caved that night and had the first open fire of the autumn as the temperature dropped to 7 degrees. 

So, it's done. At last.

I've been following the Brexit stockpiling story with some interest. You know me, I've always been a bit of a prepper, mostly for personal reasons which I talk about here and here. 

Brexit could result in higher food costs and perhaps delays to food deliveries if lorries get held up at ports (although supermarkets switching to a 4 or 5 day just-in-time system would help). While I won't be able to prevent higher food prices affecting us in the long term, I can delay the process a little and smooth the transition by making sure my stockpile is in good shape. It will also come in useful in case we get snowed in again this winter as we did earlier this year. 

So this week I did a quick rekkie of the stockpile and started the process of filling some gaps. I had stuff squeezed in everywhere so spent some time arranging things a bit better. Really it needs to come out of there though so only the currently used packets are in the circulation but that is a project for another year.