A few Lessons learned over Xmas and New Year

We knew it had to happen eventually and it did. From tee shirt weather to -15 in a matter of days and we finally got some snow. We thought we were ready for the cold spell, after all we’ve all ready done one winter so this one should be no problem. Yet again we were proven wrong.

We had bought a new cooking pechka for the kitchen and now that the cold weather was here it was time to fire it up. We decided to get a couple of the tinfoil heat panels to go behind the pechka to protect the wall. We lit it up and all was going well, that was until Joe noticed a lot of smoke collecting in the roof space. A look outside showed smoke pouring out of the roof where it shouldn’t be. Probably because we know of people that have had house fires here we went into detective/panic mode to work out where the fire was Joe climbed into the loft space along with fire extinguisher while I ran round the house to see if I could see any more smoke escaping from the tiles. On returning into the kitchen I then noticed a lot of smoke coming up from the back of the pechka. Closer examination showed one of the heat reflectors was smoldering; this was quickly thrown outside and the problem was solved. Stupid I know, but we had overlapped the boards which had caused one of the boards to reflect heat onto the backing of the other one causing it to smolder. Turned out the smoke coming out of the roof was escaping from a bit of the roof we’d forgot to plasterboard, so that’s another little job to add to the list.

Lesson 2 also came while using the cooking pechka. I was getting ready for a baking session part of which is to crack the walnuts. I’d been told walnuts were good for burning so threw a few, well quite a lot, onto the pechka; BIG mistake those things burn very hot, and it does get worrying when the metal starts to glow and turns white. Damping the pechka down did help but created a lot of smoke , so back-door open, living-room window open, to let the smoke out until the pechka stopped glowing and temperatures dropped back to normal.

One morning we got up to no water, it hadn’t been really cold, only about -6ºC so we couldn’t understand why. We checked with the neighbors to see if it had been turned off but no, the problem was just us. This is the first year we have had water to the bathroom so we weren’t sure if it would freeze or not and that might have been the problem but no, the pipes didn’t seem to be frozen. After checking every pipe in the house, there was only one place to look, the water pit, but surely that would be ok, it was lagged and never froze last year, but it was our last option. All the insulation was dragged out, a radiator set in there for 10 minutes and voilà we have water. This has now happened twice but at least we now know what the problem is which is good when there’s a wind-chill factor of -19. We think we left insulating the pit too late in the year and that cold had maybe all ready got in the ground. Lesson learned, next year as soon as the last meter reading is taken, we will insulate the pit. The good news is the water is not freezing in the bathroom even though there is no heating in there, so we still have access to a shower. The wonders of a cob built room! The snow stayed settled nicely on the kitchen roof, so the insulation is doing it’s job. We were a bit worried that the roof in the kitchen might be a bit high and we would lose all our hot air up there but our plan seems to be working and heat from the cooking pechka flows through to heat the living room as well.

We spent Christmas day at home and managed to make an almost completely home-grown dinner, we had Brussel Sprouts, yes they weren’t much bigger than peas but they tasted good, potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, carrots (we bought them) and a goose we got from a neighbour down the road, followed by apple and raspberry strudel, from our stored apples and frozen raspberries we picked earlier in the year. In the freezer we have crates which contain our monthly supplies of fruit, veg and meat that we are living off but for Christmas I really fancied some carrots so we made an exception, I know we cheated but it was Christmas 🙂

New Years Eve was spent at a friends house who were having a 60s fancy dress party, not sure what the Bulgarians thought of all us foreigners dressed up, but we think fancy dress isn’t a Bulgarian thing as all though they had been told about it none of them dressed up. On the way home we came across a car that had come off the road, so we jumped out of the car in -10C and towed the car onto the road. Their battery had gone flat and they were probably trying to keep warm so we got them going again. Don’t know what they must have thought as an English couple dressed as 1960s hippies got out of a car to help at 3 in the morning, but we hope they got home safely.

We have been having quite a lazy time of it lately, the projects on the house have come to a bit of a standstill over Christmas, but now the New Year is out of the way we hope to get back on track.

We have snow 🙂

Sol enjoying the snow

Our hams drying in the winter sun

Ooops

New Year Eve Party

A bit of rope splicing

The finished result