Blue Cavern

Hi guys,

since Manni went to Sweden again, he wanted me to say "Bye" for the moment and wish you a "Happy Holiday" in advance. :bye:

Manni might return sometime between late August to Mid September, depending on the workload he is having with his house. (I dare say from my own experiences that Swedish wooden houses need permanent care and I think Andre will second that).

Still, I don't know whether I might join him by early August.

I hope Manni will have a great time in Sweden Dom. I am sure he will.

And I hope he loves old wooden houses as much as I do, then there will be like a holiday all the time.

I think most houses need care and I can say that people who buy the houses they build today will have to spend a lot more time on their houses the coming 50 years then I will ever have to spend on my 200 year old house. That is the beauty with old houses, everything just gets more beautiful every year. Patina. I don´t have to do anything?????

I am thinking of next years project. They told us that the goverment will pay half the cost if you install solarenergy. In Sweden this is not that common yet, but I heard it is common to have solarcells on roofs in Germany. I have been thinking if I could install 60 m2 solarcells on my roof on the barn. I am starting to dislike the increasing amounts on the electricitybills and I guess they most likely will get higher and higher.
Have any of you any knowledge of solarpanels? Is it only a cost or are there possibilities to save money?

You don´t have to answer this here because this is Manni´s thread.

/André

I think most houses need care and I can say that people who buy the houses they build today will have to spend a lot more time on their houses the coming 50 years then I will ever have to spend on my 200 year old house.

I am fixing to buy one

Bye, Manni

Hope you have a great time in Sweden again

@Andre: He loves his house as much as I do and it was both a pleasure and a duty to keep the house alive. Manni taught me well to how to fix the roofing cardboard or how to mix the original old red colour of his house myself.

Talking about solarenergy, neither Manni nor me is using solarpanels at the moment. The costs, however, are really expensive and here in Germany, the government pays you half the costs as well. Refering to Sweden, I know that friends of ours needn't pay the refuse collection service and are given a forty per cent special discount on their electricity, since the services is using their refuse to gain electricity power. At least, this is the case in Ljungby, but I am unable to say whether it was also possible in your area.

I think everybody has to pay for refuse collection. They talked about this in the news a couple of years ago. It was a man who had no need for this. He recycled everything and didn´t want to have any refusecollection at all. But this was not possible. He had to pay for it anyway, but they made some kind of agrement for only collecting 2 or 3 times a year instead. But the cost was almost the same. I think they are afraid that people would say that they have no need for refusecollection if they didn´t had to pay anything and then driving around leaving bags at the recyclingstations and other places instead. I guess you have to have a lot of refuses if you can make that kind of agrement, but it maybe is possible in Ljungby.

But here they weight the refuses everytime they collect and we pay for how much we throws in the "refuse bin". But the cost for this and water is very low if you compare the cost for the district heating and the electricity.

/André

Bye Manni Hope you have a wonderful summer in sweden.

We had 4 solar panels fitted to our roof around 3 years ago to provide hot water. It cost us 5000€ but the government gave us 1000€ as a subsidy so that was ok. Since then we have water which is very hot in summer - 80°C so you have to watch out when having a shower or doing the dishes!!!!!!! We save a lot of oil though & on sunny days in winter we need less oil too.

ThanksTojo,

how big panels did you need for this?

I don´t need it for the water or heating, because we have this "district heating"( if it is the correct word). It is very enviromentaly good because they burn disposal and refuses and give back heating.

Regarding the solarpanels the change this year is not only that the govermant pays half the cost. They also makes the electr.providers to have to buy my spare electr. I only have to pay for the net cost.

For example if I produce 500 and use 800 I only have to pay for 300 on the bill. And if I produce 800 and use 500 I get money for the extra 300.

/André

The panels are about 1m x 2m André (8 square m in total which is more than enough for a 5 person household).

We considered having panels to produce electricity as well but as we had recently decorated some of the rooms we didn't want to have to lay even more connections from the attic to the cellar as that would have made a mess of what we'd just decorated. If we ever renew the roof on the shed in the garden then I think we'll have panels to produce electric put on it then.

It sounds great that your government pays half the cost as well (our government isn't so free with its subsidies...).