Tag Archives: technology

by | April 26, 2012 · 8:34 pm

A little light

Transom window over a door with stained glass effect

One of the simplest things that we did to save energy on lighting in our new house was to include small transom windows over our bedroom doors and a bathroom door in the ‘sleeping wing’ of our ICF bungalow. We intentionally kept bedrooms on the smaller side and access to them is off a fairly small L-shaped hallway. When we did one of our many walk-throughs after the main floor interior walls had been framed, my husband and I had an almost simultaneous ‘a-ha’ moment, and realized that transoms would ensure that some daylight would get into an otherwise dark hall space; the inclusion of a transom in the tiny but very efficient internal bathroom (ie no external windows) we carved out for our two boys, also means that during the day it isn’t usually necessary to switch a light on in order to use this room.

The very best thing about these transom windows didn’t happen until several weeks after we moved in however; a chance visit to the hardware store turned up a stained glass effect roll-on paper that transformed these windows. At night, when electric lights are turned on, the glowing colours are really lovely.

14 Comments

Filed under Greening homes, Modern life

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | April 3, 2012 · 7:26 pm

Positioning our Esse Ironheart woodstove

Esse Ironheart woodstove sited on a tiled surround

I’ve been meaning to do a post about how we decided to position our Esse Ironheart woodstove, but have been reminded by a new reader who is about to purchase an Ironheart and is curious about how best to site the stove in her home. Welcome Catriona and thanks for prompting me to get to a post that’s been brewing for a long time!

We found the Ironheart by chance and are we ever grateful for that bit of serendipity in our lives. When we decided to purchase our patch of land and embrace the need to build a new home on it (as the land came without any significant buildings on it), it didn’t take us too long to decide to build a concrete or ICF home (insulated concrete forms). But we didn’t know much more than that and simply started reading whatever we could on sustainable energy options for homes and on modern house design.

An article in a green homes magazine showcased a home with an Esse Ironheart integrated into its kitchen. My husband was immediately smitten and started researching the Ironheart in earnest. Everything we read told us that this would be a smart investment: a heating source that made use of renewable fuel (trees) and burned as cleanly and efficiently as any woodstove ever had. It was a bonus that we could plan to cook and bake on it, but those additional features seemed quite abstract at the time.

Armed only with the theory of the Ironheart, we proceeded to design a home that positioned the Ironheart very centrally in the main living space, but still made use of a natural gas furnace and an electrical range in the kitchen.

Great room of an ICF bungalow with Ironheart woodstove

We moved into our home in the late fall of 2010, and that first winter we were blown away by how incredibly well the Ironheart performed and how amazing an ICF home was at retaining that heat. In summary, we’ve learned:

1. The Ironheart is indeed as good as it gets; the heat it puts out is incredible, the options for controlling that heat are amazing, and you can see it igniting the wood gas and burning everything inside the box. It truly is a deeply efficient woodstove.

2. Combining the Ironheart with a home made out of concrete has been a double whammy: we can easily achieve tropical beach temperatures in our main living area (ie 27 degrees celsius and upwards, or high eighties and upwards for you fahrenheit folks) if we don’t regulate the size of fire and rate of burn. Additionally, our concrete house holds onto that heat incredibly well: on a typical cold winter’s evening (remember, we are in eastern Ontario in Canada and it can go down to minus 30 degrees celsius) we would wind down the Ironheart’s output in the early evening (ie the woostove started cooling down then). In the morning, the main living area of the house would still be holding steady at between 18 and 20 degrees celsius (again, very comfortable sleeping/living temperatures) in spite of the cold outside.

3. We only need about four good-sized logs to heat our home on a typical winter’s day; you can read more about our wood consumption here.

4. The Ironheart gets to cooking and baking strength very quickly: on a cold winter’s morning, we could be frying eggs on top within 15 minutes of lighting the fire and baking in it after about an hour.

5. Smokin’ hot the Ironheart is (I sound like Yoda!): standing in front of the Ironheart’s woodbox, stirring a pot on top of the stove one morning, my husband called out to me that my denim skirt was smoking. I’d forgotten to pull the hanging screen across to create a shield between me and the woodstove, and I very nearly regretted that oversight!

6. We could have gone without the natural gas furnace that we installed at the time of construction; we heated our home nearly 100% from the Ironheart this past winter, and realize we could do it completely, even without making any further changes to our woodstove infrastructure. It’s a bit frustrating realizing this, but on the other hand we know the traditional furnace will still make our home more sale-able should we decide to move in the shorter term (no plans to do so however!).

Double doors leading out from great room to front hall with stairs to lower level

Some key things to tell you about our home’s layout

1. Our ICF home is a bungalow with a walkout basement. Its north side is nestled in the side of a hill, making the front of the house appear very small; it’s the south-facing side that is full of windows on both levels to make the most of passive solar gain.

2. We designed the main floor with the following things in mind:
i) We wanted one large main living area that could be easily closed off from the rest of the house should we ever need to heat it exlusively using the woodstove for an extended period of time in extremely cold weather. With that in mind, our ‘great room’ includes the kitchen, dining area and living room. It has four exits: a single door to our mudroom (seen next to the kitchen in one of the images above), a door out to our screened in porch (next to the woodstove itself), a single door to our bedrooms in the hall beyond the great room, and double doors leading to our front hall/entry and to an open set of stairs down to our lower level.
ii) Cool bedrooms are completely desirable to us, so having them outside of the main area being heated works well.
iii) We deliberately made the design of the house very open in the front hall, where stairs lead to our lower level, as we liked the open feel and design features it made possible (including a reading bench and bookshelves on the landing of the stairs), and hoped it would help with air circulation in the house (it does, but not enough).

Some particulars about our woodstove’s installation and positioning

1. The tiled area underneath the Ironheart is wonderful and is exactly the size it needs to be; I’m grateful to our builder for his knowledge and attention to detail in this.

2. The position of the Ironheart within the room it occupies is perfect and I wouldn’t move it an inch; I love how handy it is to the kitchen and the dining table, it’s a perfect focal point from every spot in the room, and it’s just right where it is. I would never consider placing an Ironheart physically in the middle of a room (ie rather than on the perimeter), as it wasn’t really designed for that kind of installation and it just gets so damn hot. It just feels right being along a wall.

3. Our woodstove is positioned the recommended distance (for Canadian woodstove standards – about 14 inches) from the wall behind it and had no special treatment (ie no heatproofing, no tiling). We have noticed that the painted wall behind the stove becomes incredibly hot when the Ironheart is at full strength, and so we are planning to install some kind of heatproof layer to the wall before our next heating season. It’s incredible to know that some UK homeowners have the Ironheart positioned flush to neighbouring cabinets and counters in their kitchens; that doesn’t seem safe somehow!

Things we wish we’d done differently and which we are addressing

1. We should have ordered the woodburning insert for the firebox. Our model came with the standard coal burning insert that is commonly used in the UK (where this stove is designed and made), and we are still using it that way (we are awaiting a wood insert, but the Esse Ironheart rep has not been very communicative – that’s another story).

2. We should have got more involved to ensure that our model would come with hob lids; we left the order in our builder’s hands and unfortunately the stove came without the lids. Those lids, when we get them, will undoubtedly help with controlling heat output (which is particularly important for us being in our way-too-easy-to-heat concrete house).

3. We can’t get a whole lot of heat from the Ironheart – amazing as it is – down to the lower level of our walkout bungalow. We’re seriously looking at installing the optional hot water add-on (with two radiators) in order to better distribute heat from our woodstove to our lowel level. That is a whole other post, and I will address it very soon.

Upcoming posts on the Ironheart will include:
- more specifics on the amount of wood we burned each day during our heating season, the tools we’ve come to rely on and maintenance of the woodstove

- our plans for installing the optional hot water system with radiators and how we might have designed elements of our home differently had we had firsthand experience of the Ironheart

- plans for cooking during the hot weather months (trust me, these do not include the Ironheart!)

NOTE: My husband would like it placed on record that he cleans the window of the Ironheart before every new fire, which is why the window to the firebox in these shots looks so grimy.

23 Comments

Filed under Cooking and baking, Esse woodstove, Greening homes

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | February 24, 2012 · 10:30 pm

Keeping it old school

Old school bell

Moving to 28 acres gave us pause when it came to the idea of how we’d communicate with each other when one or more of us was out on the land. Whistles came to mind quickly enough and we have made use of these when we’re all out together and may need to get each other’s attention from a distance.

A whistle just won’t cut it, however, when I need to call everyone in for a meal and they are scattered to the four winds. Enter the old fashioned school bell. My husband dreamed up the idea that we needed one and we found just the specimen we were looking for when doing the rounds at a favourite antiques / junk spot.

I think it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen and it rings a treat.

16 Comments

Filed under Farm life

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | November 3, 2011 · 10:39 am

Children and technology

Children listening to an iPod on shared headphones

Wired kids - listening to music on older brother's iPod during a long car journey

I don’t write about technology here much. It’s not the focus of the blog, although ‘raising children’ is a strong theme for me, as evidenced by my word cloud. But that theme is heavily weighted towards the other themes that I explore here and, as such, technology doesn’t get to intrude. But technology clearly is a part of our lives – I’m writing this blog, for one thing, and my eldest son has two (he’s realizing that combining them into a single blog is probably a good idea). Technology is the thing that gives me pause. Sometimes I feel so clear about it and at other times it befuddles me.

Last evening I was taking a bit of time to surf, mostly because it is NaBloPoMo, and to catch up with some blogs that I visit occasionally. I came across an article by Chris Jordan (mother to seven!) on cultural references that our children will never understand, such as film for cameras, television ‘snow’ and why we say someone sounds like a ‘broken record’. Some of it really made me smile. Explaining the idea of developing film to kids these days is quite funny, and I remember my sons looking at me very strangely as I explained rotating disposable flash bulbs (now there is something the world is much better off without!).

But the rest of the article left me kind of cold, and I realize that I may be an anomaly in some places (but I’m pretty sure not in all). My children and the adults in our family wear wristwatches (ie rather than relying on cellphones to tell the time), we’re all still very comfortable with print maps and don’t use GPS, and no one in our family (currently) texts or relies on a mobile phone in any way. My 13 year old is not on Facebook. I don’t (yet) have children who need to be ‘constantly connected’, but I know that many parents live this reality every day. I like to think that we’re not dealing with that because of the choices we’ve made, but it’s no doubt even more complex than that.

I think that ‘family culture’ is a biggie, and the fact is that my husband and I don’t go in for communications gadgets. We do work in technology and make our money that way, so computers are very present in our lives, but we didn’t own a mobile phone until this year, and it’s still a real and running joke that we can’t get the hang of it (it was purchased for potential emergencies). We have a pretty nice camera and I do manage to get some good shots, some of which I post here, but my boys call me the ‘Camera Forgetter’ as I forget it at least as often as I remember to bring it along (and I usually forget it when there is a shot of something that they would really, really like to have). We do speak fairly disdainfully of Facebook and Twitter around the dinner table, and we’ve never been seen playing games on a handheld device. If we were tweeting, facebooking, gamers on our cellphones, I think our kids’ expectations would be quite different.

The other main positive influence that I think we’ve had is refusing to simply provide our children with portable technology. When our eldest was nine and we went on a family trip to the UK my mother bought him a CD player, which was greatly appreciated on the airplane (books on CD from the library and the odd music CD). I remember it felt like a huge treat. But he didn’t get an iPod until he was 11 and had funds enough of his own. Which, not incidentally, I believe is around the time that he was ‘ready’ for such a device. He is approaching 14 and still has the same device. My eight-year old has wistfully looked at the iPod on a handful of occasions over the past two years, but really has no desire or use for one (he still plays tons of imaginative games for goodness sake!) and he certainly won’t get one until he’s sufficiently motivated to save up for one. I expect that may happen when he’s about 11!

We’ve never bought handheld gaming devices for the kids, never had any kind of in-car entertainment unit, and certainly have not bought them cellphones. My eldest has made it to 13 without needing a cellphone; he may feel differently when he goes to high school next year (don’t worry, if you think I sound at all smug or self-satisfied, I know I’m in for some very big changes next year!), and if he does he can purchase it. He is starting a part time job at the local library this winter so he’ll certainly have the ability to save up for something like a phone, if he wishes (though flying lessons are awfully important to him and a heck of a lot more expensive).

The other decision that we made that I think has helped is not having cable (or satellite or whatever) TV. We don’t have any channels. We watch movies that we buy or rent, and a couple of programs that my mother generously tapes on VHS for us (Time Team from TVO and Mythbusters from The Discovery Channel, if you’re curious)! So the boys aren’t being marketed to a great deal, and they are now old enough to know when they are and have good ripostes of their own. They have a very healthy cynicism towards advertising.

So, here’s what we do have in the way of technology in our house and how we’re dealing with it:

1) The older boy has two blogs and a YouTube channel. This boy is endlessly creative in terms of building things (with Lego, K’nex, etc.) and likes to share his creations online. He was over the moon when he got some positive comments on a video he made about creating a chess set using Lego. He also likes to film crashes using his flight simulation programs (more on that below). I’m pretty happy with his experience in this realm so far and I’ve learned from him, which is always fun. The blogs are another place for him to sharpen up his writing skills and he can put together a pretty nice post.

2) The older boys loves computers and computing and loves to dabble. When our laptop died earlier this year he was largely responsible for trouble shooting his way through a variety of options in an attempt to rebuild it. He has read tomes on computing from the library and learns a lot from his dad (when he’s feeling receptive – bit of a maverick, this one). He dabbles and makes mistakes but often gets things right. I can’t keep him from computers, obviously.

3) The older boy also wants to be a pilot and loves computer games, so it made sense for him to get the gear needed to fully simulate a flight environment and to be able to play flight simulation games under optimal circumstances. He paid for most of this gear himself. He is very, very keen and would play endlessly if allowed, which he knows he is not. Currently he’s allowed to play a few evenings a week, for a couple of hours at a time. This boy is a straight A student, is taking his Bronze Medallion in lifesaving this fall, is a Scout, knows more about World War II from his recreational reading over the past year than I could ever hope to accumulate in a lifetime, has already started ground school in ‘real life’ as he plans to fly for his career if he possibly can, and has a part time job as well. He’s creative and a good cook/baker, and extremely well rounded, so I find I cannot say no to screen time during the week for him. (I still agonize over this however, mostly because I know that I have a complicated relationship with technology.)

4) Which leads me to younger brother who, at eight, is a completely different person to his older sibling. We’re a huge book loving family, but this boy (like his dad did at his age) struggles with reading and writing and finds school exhausting and challenging. So different from my firstborn, who cheerfully heads off to school each day. My youngest loves books as much as his brother, but just can’t access them in the same way (yet), and the whole reading/writing thing is pretty fundamental in a school environment… This boy, like so many younger siblings, is getting access to a range of experiences and things earlier than his older brother did, and at eight has a schedule that (officially) allows him to do an hour of computer time on the weekend, and half an hour one day during the week. In reality, he often ends up logging more time than that and he has a natural craving for computer games when he’s tired and frazzled from school. This is where I get into a huge muddle. Part of me feels like it’s not a big deal and a healthy trade off when considered against all of the things that we do as a family, but when I’m in the thick of it none of that makes a lot of sense to me. At those times I can devolve into a complete technological luddite who wonders why on earth kids need or want to play computer games at all and why the hell can’t they just go outside already?!

The stumbling block that we’ve reached with this child is that he is usually no longer happy stopping when he is supposed to; this is newer and extremely frustrating. Once upon a time he would dutifully step away at the appointed time and that was that. This boy has issues with anxiety and a low ceiling for external input when he’s feeling stressed (for reasons which are not always readily apparent, but are invariably down to mental fatigue of some kind) and he has transferred this behavior to his computer time. It’s a great and no doubt simple little knot for us to unpick, but I’ve been feeling completely unmotivated to deal with it head on recently. I guess I’m glad to have stumbled across that article as it’s prompted me to look at this topic in another way and to re-examine how I feel about how our own kids are wired. Overall, I feel we’re doing pretty well, but that it’s something we need to keep our eyes on all the time and keep talking to our children about.

So I guess my ‘luddite’ moments serve a purpose.

3 Comments

Filed under Modern life, Parenting, Raising children

Tagged as , , , ,