Busy days. Many things needs to happen at the same time. Seeds and seedlings nursed to give veggies later on, the greenhouse cleaned up after the winter, preparations for the first tour of the house, continuing with building stuff! Also a very rewarding time, as soon as the sun is out we have summer temperatures. The wines and other shrubs have started to get leafs which is very nice, soon we’ll disapear in greenery 🙂
The upper balcony/terrace is mostly finshed, now it’s more smaller touches left to go, a cool space. Once we have built a stairs from the ground up, the house will become and even more confusing 3D puzzle, awesome!
We got some nice documents from the local council, the permanent occupancy permit, no more interim permit! Very nice, thanks Vallentuna!
We also sent water samples to the lab for testing. The drinking water has become better than the test done shortly after the well was drilled, quite normal. Slightly harder (more Ca) which would explain the calcium buildup we have in the sink etc. A de-hardening filter would be good.
The other water sample was from the cleaned/treated waste water after the growing beds. VERY nice result! The beds are only 1 year old though so the values might increase a bit further on. But the echoli, BOD7 and phosforous values was extremely low. Lower than the big treatment plant north of Stockholm. Drinking water quality. The nitrogen is slightly higher but that is due to no plants growing in the winter, it will be nice to compare with a new sample after the summer.
Anders Solvarm http://www.ecorelief.se stopped by one evening as he passed by Stockholm. Great to catch up, have a look around and do even more measurements on the beds. Anders designed and built the whole treatment system. This time he brought a measuring probe that could sample pH and ammonium nitrogen. I.E. sample before and after the beds to see how efficient they really are. Yucky to take the pre-bed samples but great to see the results, the nitrogen was reduced ~100 times by the beds. PH rose in the bed, probably due to the different types of salts that goes hand in hand with the nitrogen if I understood correctly. Results and more exact numbers from the tests are published under the “data” page to the left.
Also on the data page are the data from the heat recovery pumps first year. I expect the numbers to become even better next winter when the greenhouse is finished and will keep the temperature higher around the house + more filling material around the slab + house logs sinking/compacting making the walls tighter + tuning of the heat system + using the wood stove more.
Only a few days left now before the first open tour of the house, lots to do, little time. Hopefully people will be happy afterwards at least. More dates for the summer has been added too, book your tour now! 🙂
Time for some pictures! A bumble bee that needed some sugar (amazing little straw it has to suck up nectar), finishing some of the facade, washing the windows (everyone seems very intrigued how we wash the windows), big tulips flowering like crazy, wine leafs, more tulips and finally the solar sails that makes the balcony not too hot during the day. Way too nice to sit in the shade and work from home on the computer. Last pic of our road that got a sping cleaning too, a good grating/planing to get rid of potholes. Making the road grate again!
