My work was badly flooded, haven’t heard the full extent of it yet. One of my colleagues took the following picture.
Flood at James Walkers the day after (c) Shalana Lambert
Officially closed on Monday, except for key staff. I’m working from home for the until further notice.
We are all OK here in Johnby. Doing a lot better than Cockermouth and Keswick.
river dewent floods into memorial gardens
This is the river in Cockermouth at lunch time on Thursday. Six hours later it was at least 8 foot higher.
The Riverside Restaurant Cockermouth
This is a balcony over the river cocker, which is usually 2m down.
I went home before the worst of it happened; I can’t imagine how much water there must have been to get 8 foot flowing down main street.
A flooded bookshop in Cockermouth: the town is home to many small businesses (c) skynews
Work wise my company was flooded, not sure exactly how badly yet. Reports vary from 6″ to 4 foot. Looking at the local news showed some aerial video of part of the factory, showing part of the carpark underwater. There were abandoned cars of which you could only see their roofs. The site is shutdown without power and I’m going to be working from home over the next week.
We have now switched over to our new boiler and solar panels. The boiler heats up the two tanks
The heating is then run from these tanks (we’ve disconnected the old oil combi). The hot water cylinder is heated by the solar panels and then topped up from these tanks. We burnt about a barrow load of wood to get the tanks up to about 70: 24 hours later they were down to 50 ( the hot water was topped up from this one) and 60. The solar panels have been doing well considering the time of year, yesterday we got 40 and today we got to 60 degrees.
The wood boiler is supposed to be very efficient, it burns very hot and gassifies the wood which is then burnt to heat the water. After all the wood we burnt there was very little ash left.
I think we bought the Cumbrian weather with us!
We had a few days away last weekend ( more about that later), on the way we stopped off a Beachy Head
They have started plumbing in the boiler room/ new boiler. Two enormous water tanks to hold all the heat from the boiler. I didn’t realise it was going to be so crowded in there, barely enough room to get them all in.
Cecilia says they look like darleks! They think they should be ready to fire it up next week!
We had a great day at the show, best weather for months. Plus the Woolclip won best stall at the show.
Cecilia Demonstrating spinning at the show
Arfon came up to help on the barn this weekend. We got loads done; finished off the plumbing linking the new hot water pipes into the old system (with a valve so it doesn’t flood the barn), and put up the stud walls for one of the bedrooms.
And just after Arfon left the boiler man rang to say he is coming tomorrow to start installing the solar hot water cylinder and the boiler.
As a finishing touch to the airing cupboard, I gave it a coat of paint. It seems like big step to start getting paint on the walls, as though we are nearing the end! However its just one little room..
I did some more plastering this weekend, in the bathroom where the bath is going to go. It feels like I’m starting to get the hang of plastering. Still not 100% but its getting better. I needed to get that done so I could run some pipes along it. I didn’t finish all the plumbing I had planned but I got enough done so that the boiler installation has enough pipes to link to. We are splitting the heating circuit into 3, old house, new barn, and bathrooms. This means lots of pipes connecting though to the old part of the house. The installation of the boiler might happen next week, but last time we spoke the man was waiting for the last bit (tanks), so we’ll have to see.
The boiler has been delivered, our nice Atmos log boiler, its a DC32GS. The accumulator tanks should arrive next week, and it will be installed early September. Means I’ve got to finish all my piping for the heating next weekend!
I’ve nearly finished it – just needs a coat of paint (and some doors but they can wait until the tank is installed). I managed to plaster all the wall and ceiling in one go….never again…one wall at a time. I spent half the time scrapping the plaster off the wrong walls. Still its done, I’ve laid a bit of floor and some skirtings. The cold water feed needs to go through – its all cut out just needs a bit of soldering.
