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Family Eco-Holidays
and B&B near
Dorset's Jurassic Coast
MWC meets social media
The Museum of Obsoletion Piece
Fri, Nov 11 2011
| Laurie, Renewable Energy
Somewhere on the road between that Age of Stupid floating mausoleum to our society's failings and the dusty corridors of Weasel-sub-Birdport's House of Wooden and Metal Implements of the Handtool Times, you might one day come across the Monkton Museum of Obsoletion.
Among the various exhibits inside we expect you'll find one in particular that will bring back warm memories.
Monkton's Old Blue, the beautiful oil-fueled Old Kitchen Aga that's been cooking our food, boiling our kettle and drying our curry scented clothing lo these five to ten years is on its way out, and we would like to take some time to praise before burying it. (Unless somebody wants it, that is. Anybody who wants it should please get in touch. Burial's just starting to seem the likeliest option.)
We've been talking for some time now about seeking a wood-fueled replacement and saying no thank you once and for all to oil. And oil for its part gamely continues to nudge us closer to a spend-to-save leap off its ever rising price peak. Now we're starting to really survey the options, though, the landing seems less clear.
Turns out our kind of cooker can't be converted to woodburning. And woodburning cookers don't tend to come nearly as big. And ones that do will, like as not, have electrical components. Or be exorbitantly expensive, even taking peak(ing) oil prices into account. And none of them are likely to be powerful enough to feed us and feed our boiler. (The other another factor: our boiler runs off the same oily tank as the cooker when the sun's not shining. Which is, you know, a good some of the time.)
And this is before we even get into all the fun of where the wood will come from and be processed and be stored, who's going to be on the stock-the-fire rota, and where we all can go for a crash course on cooking for fifty on fire. (Answers: neighboring woodlands sustainably managed, on site by hand, woodshed, every last one of us, and just down to Fivepenny or Tinkers. But as I said, we've not even gotten to these questions, easily answered or no.) And all this without even touching on the whole wood chip v pellet v well, wood debate. Although we're more than happy to touch on those too, if you're interested.
Now, our cooker could be converted to electric. Indeed, this might look to some to be the cheapest and easiest option. It doesn't involve dismantling Old Blue altogether or removing it from Old Kitchen, for starters, and cooking on electric's like flipping a switch. But we'll probably get into all that in the blog entry about electric car refueling stations, so let's shelve it for now. In fact, let's step away from the Aga and check out another couple rooms of the Museum. As we're here.
Ah, yes. The room of Electrical Toasters, some still showing clear evidence of high speed collision with the courtyard concrete or grassy terrace. Possible explanations offered in the brochure include that special kind of rage a broken toaster inspires and the urgency that comes of a kitchenette filling with burning bread smoke. The Electric Kettle display in the next room over is arranged chronologically in two long glass cases, with tags indicating date and cost of purchase of each item. The attractively presented graph covering the room's far wall illustrates the correlation between cost of purchase and length of usage, and brings to light a gradual rise in the amount paid for each kettle followed inevitably by a drop back down to the cheapest on the market when the most expensive breaks. The reverse correlation between the steady rise in market price and drop in kettle life span can also be clearly seen here.
Some of you sharp eyed observers of truth will have noticed that the toasting and boiling implements shown in the Aga photo above are not to be found in the MoO Aga exhibit. These particular items were found in a certain Weasel-sub-Birdport basement, as it happens, and brought back into service here at Monkton. They will continue to stave off any need for their electric alternatives just as soon as we've figured out what we're cooking on.
Wish us luck, then. And in the meantime if you're looking for an old home for any wooden or metal implements of handtool times, I'm sure we could come up with something electrical we'd be happy to trade. Or if you know of anybody who might be upgrading their woodburning ESSE, we're certainly not too proud to shop second hand!
Among the various exhibits inside we expect you'll find one in particular that will bring back warm memories.
Monkton's Old Blue, the beautiful oil-fueled Old Kitchen Aga that's been cooking our food, boiling our kettle and drying our curry scented clothing lo these five to ten years is on its way out, and we would like to take some time to praise before burying it. (Unless somebody wants it, that is. Anybody who wants it should please get in touch. Burial's just starting to seem the likeliest option.)We've been talking for some time now about seeking a wood-fueled replacement and saying no thank you once and for all to oil. And oil for its part gamely continues to nudge us closer to a spend-to-save leap off its ever rising price peak. Now we're starting to really survey the options, though, the landing seems less clear.
Turns out our kind of cooker can't be converted to woodburning. And woodburning cookers don't tend to come nearly as big. And ones that do will, like as not, have electrical components. Or be exorbitantly expensive, even taking peak(ing) oil prices into account. And none of them are likely to be powerful enough to feed us and feed our boiler. (The other another factor: our boiler runs off the same oily tank as the cooker when the sun's not shining. Which is, you know, a good some of the time.)
And this is before we even get into all the fun of where the wood will come from and be processed and be stored, who's going to be on the stock-the-fire rota, and where we all can go for a crash course on cooking for fifty on fire. (Answers: neighboring woodlands sustainably managed, on site by hand, woodshed, every last one of us, and just down to Fivepenny or Tinkers. But as I said, we've not even gotten to these questions, easily answered or no.) And all this without even touching on the whole wood chip v pellet v well, wood debate. Although we're more than happy to touch on those too, if you're interested.
Now, our cooker could be converted to electric. Indeed, this might look to some to be the cheapest and easiest option. It doesn't involve dismantling Old Blue altogether or removing it from Old Kitchen, for starters, and cooking on electric's like flipping a switch. But we'll probably get into all that in the blog entry about electric car refueling stations, so let's shelve it for now. In fact, let's step away from the Aga and check out another couple rooms of the Museum. As we're here.
Ah, yes. The room of Electrical Toasters, some still showing clear evidence of high speed collision with the courtyard concrete or grassy terrace. Possible explanations offered in the brochure include that special kind of rage a broken toaster inspires and the urgency that comes of a kitchenette filling with burning bread smoke. The Electric Kettle display in the next room over is arranged chronologically in two long glass cases, with tags indicating date and cost of purchase of each item. The attractively presented graph covering the room's far wall illustrates the correlation between cost of purchase and length of usage, and brings to light a gradual rise in the amount paid for each kettle followed inevitably by a drop back down to the cheapest on the market when the most expensive breaks. The reverse correlation between the steady rise in market price and drop in kettle life span can also be clearly seen here.
Some of you sharp eyed observers of truth will have noticed that the toasting and boiling implements shown in the Aga photo above are not to be found in the MoO Aga exhibit. These particular items were found in a certain Weasel-sub-Birdport basement, as it happens, and brought back into service here at Monkton. They will continue to stave off any need for their electric alternatives just as soon as we've figured out what we're cooking on.
Wish us luck, then. And in the meantime if you're looking for an old home for any wooden or metal implements of handtool times, I'm sure we could come up with something electrical we'd be happy to trade. Or if you know of anybody who might be upgrading their woodburning ESSE, we're certainly not too proud to shop second hand!
Comments (1)
STOP PRESS
Mon, Jun 14 2010
| Renewable Energy, Archive Drive
It's come to our attention that somehow, someone in the summer newsletter forgot to mention about the new boiler cylinders.Thanks to 'Solar' Jim Shearman, for his unflagging efforts to make this place work better and more responsibly, and to Lynden's continuing finetuning, we have a solar-powered hot water system for the house that more than meets our summertime needs! While we do turn on the oil-fueled system for busy weekends, courses and family weeks (and we've all agreed to stick to showers during the drier months ourselves), the solar-heated system is another long stride toward responsible living. What with that and the indefinite shutdown of the aga in the Old Kitchen, our oil usage is down to just about a tenth of what it was just a couple of months back. While this does mean no slow-cooked porridge for the time being, we're sure our guests will agree it's worth this sacrifice.
Post script: Lynden's note to Jim (above) had already been documented for posterity when a previous account of water-related house strategies was uncovered at the bottom of a dusty box of disintegrating books about carpentry, mostly, behind an overstuffed armchair in the New Library. It's been dated at somewhere between May 2000 (date of the event of the flier it's written on the back of) and 2009 (when I start to recognise the handwriting. Many of the plans outlined in these papers and then put into practice are being revised by Lynden even now, so that the designs doodled throughout evoke nothing so much as a timeline with cyclical offshoots. The highlight of this report, though, hands down, is Option D (not shown on this page): 'Rip out the whole blighted thing and do it properly'.