2022-09 Greenhouse Covering

This month I was working full-time, but winter was fast approaching. I knew I had unfinished projects I had vowed to get done. I try to remember that it is important to concentrate on the things you said you would get done. If I am not careful it seems easy to have too many projects and finish none of them.

Green House Covering

The greenhouse was in place but still needed covering. Fitting the polycarbonate sheet in winter would at best be not fun, and at worst be impossible. I admitted defeat and got some local Swedish assistance to come and help.

We managed to get half the sheets over with the aim being to fit the rest in the next session. Overnight strong winds split the temporary joint between the panels, so I had to take it off and redo that section. Getting the final metal top cap on that prevents the panels from splitting at the top was a nightmare.

I needed more wood for the foundation. In the end, we finished with about two days to spare before the first snow.

First Mouse

The yearly October mouse war began on the last day of this month. The live traps were effective and I took them by car (usually at 3 a.m. when mice seem to enter the traps) to the nature reserve nearby.

I can’t stop them from getting into the house without a full rework of the lower outer siding of the house. I didn’t have the finances for that work this year. We would end up catching 14 mice in 2022.

Bigger Moose

This month we got to see a moose in the field nearby. I managed to get a long-range photo. It is quite rare we see them, perhaps only once a year. My girlfriend loves seeing moose.

Swedish Lessons

I got fully back into learning Swedish this month using an online tutor. I’m not a natural at learning languages, but with a regular tutor, it should be easier.

Future Plans

I spoke to the person who did our first solar installation to ask about how much it would cost to add solar to the back wall of the garage. It would be out of sight of most traffic and would face the winter and morning sun. It could also plug into a spare interface on the existing inverter so it wouldn’t cost as much. All the legalities and politics of the grid connection were also already in place.

I ended up trying many different options using AutoCAD online to make an elevation of the garage and then trying different arrangements for the solar panels that were available.

I could fit more panels if I moved the old air source heat pump, but that would be a specialist operation as only a licensed operator can perform the regassing work on the heat pumps, and this was an old unit using greenhouse gasses in the refrigerant. The unit on the garage worked but had no modern intelligence, and as a result, was problematic to run. Specifically, the modern units can be set to come on when the garage reaches as low as 4C inside and turn off once the room is heated to 12C. The old model was in the range of 10-15 years old or more and could only run at a maintenance temperature of 16C which would cause higher bills.

I also spoke to a local ventilation specialist, authorised to remove and fit air source heat pumps. I got a quote to replace the current system including environmental disposal of the old unit and reinstallation on a different wall.