This article is for people wondering what it is like growing vegetables in northern Sweden, compared to places like the UK. Specifically for location and climate, we’re a little south of Umeå and near the sea. We aren’t experts, we’re just having fun learning as we go. The Seasons Not much happens prior to April […]
If you’re used to driving in another country, like the UK, and you haven’t done lots of driving in other countries then you might have some questions, which I’ll try and cover below: As an immigrant, is it hard driving on the other side of the road? No, as long as you are not distracted […]
There are some weird opinions on the internet, and one common one regarding solar is that it’s not a good idea in places like northern Sweden. As someone living in with a solar installation in northern Sweden, this is always an odd belief to read; it’s not that dark, panels are cheap, and there’s good […]
Here’s everything you might have wondered about the domestic electric supply in Sweden. This is mainly aimed at people that have never been to Sweden. How is electric provided? As a domestic home owner, you will have an electric supplier, and a electric network operator. They might be the same company, but you would otherwise […]
April brought the start of the return of the birds, and the snow started to melt. It’s not possible to plant anything due to frosts, snow and the ground being frozen. Most winter sports are no longer possible but also neither are the non-snow activities, so it felt a little like waiting for May. Starting […]
This month I worked on renovating the spare bedroom and fixing a problem in the attic. In hindsight I took on too much work. I might need a new rule of no renovation projects over winter. Outside was pretty but no significant sunshine yet. Water damage fix A sewer vent pipe routed through the wall […]
I took two weeks off work and spent most of February renovating the small bedroom I use as a work from home office. The snow outside had started to harden and so the snowmobiles were all out. Work From Home The office had gypsum walls that were damaged with some large holes. Despite using background […]
Pretty Snowy December was great, with lots of snow. The snow makes Christmas feel real, and the reflected light from the snow brightens up the darkest month. We saw the northern lights a few times on evening walks, and the greenhouse survived the snow without problems. Upstairs Sewing Area As a winter project, we started […]
November sees real snow that settles and stays, with the occasional snowploughs on the main road. All our activity shifts to indoors or to winter orientated outdoor activities. Making Planned Wood We setup the basement workshop to process rough-cut timber into planed wood, and planed our first planks. To do this we used the circlesaw […]
Time off Work I took 2 weeks unpaid leave off work, as I had a big backlog of tasks to get done before winter and we had a couple of weeks without a scheduled customer task for me. Once the ground freezes certain work cant be done, and once the snow builds up almost all […]
This article contains the settings we used for a NIBE ground source heat pump (GSHP) in Sweden to get a compromise between lower energy use without noticeably sacrificing comfort. Moreover, the article has a description of what the settings mean and the decision behind the settings. This is a work in progress and I’ll update […]
The following dates are our experiences for our location in Västernorrland. Note that the Swedish often use week numbers (e.g “week 25” of the year). This works well when the seasons change so significantly because the start and end of each month can be wildly different in character. January January is when the serious snow […]
This month we conducted mostly earthworks. We were desperately trying to get significant changes done to the garden before the winter with the time and resources we had. Rain made it too wet to work with the digger without causing significant damage. At one point I got frustrated and used the digger anyway, and caused […]
This month we had family to visit and later we had a minidigger arrive to help us in the garden. We managed to get out and enjoy the summer a little. The main constraint to developing the house and garden remained time, budget, and slowly building up tools and contacts. Stugga Visit We went out […]
