wrm

Doing our bit to save the environment.

South Africa is quite a dry country. Hard to believe after the storms that recently hit Cape Town, but our average rainfall is 500mm/year, while the world average is 860mm.

The light blue area in the map is desert. Namaqualand, Richtersveld, Karoo… stunning landscape, but dry.

We are also in the middle of an energy crisis. It seems that our electricity utility and / or government decided that the minimum of maintenance was all that was required to bring the country into the 21st century, so no new power stations were built while the economy and the population boomed.

The greenies suggest hydro-electric, wind and solar power, because they don’t like nuclear. Nothing wrong with hydro-electricity, if you don’t mind pouring your drinking water into the sea (the power you can extract from the water is a function of the mass and the difference in height, so to extract the maximum power the water needs to end up at sea level).

Wind and solar farms don’t seem to work well anywhere in the world, but it does work well on a local, distributed level — especially solar, in the form of solar geysers. Although, with our current low (even after rates increased) cost of electricity, it takes at least five years to break even on the installation cost. Unless you do-it-yourself, which I am planning on doing (Backwoods Home Magazine has some good articles, tips and ideas).

Out-of-the-box way of going solar : hang your clothes on the line instead of using a tumble drier.

Looking at the future, I see three crunches approaching. Two are related — fuel and electricity. With nuclear power stations we can manage the electricity supply, but fuel shortages will force us to change the way we live.

The third crunch is water. We already have periodic shortages, maybe coupled to the 11 year Solar Cycle. With population increasing, we’re going to have to take a serious look at how we use water.

Studies say that 3/4 of the water we use is in the bathroom, with your toilet(s) alone accounting for nearly 1/3. The toilet we’re fitting in the new bathroom is a dual flush unit. These use a lot less water than the traditional toilets, firstly because of a more efficient design (a full flush takes 5 or 6 litres, while the traditional toilets use closer to 18 litres, they tell me — and sticking a brick in the tank does reduce the amount of water per flush, but because the toilet was not designed for it, it also leads to incomplete flushes, so you flush twice, using even more water), and secondly because you can select a “half flush” if there are no floaty bits that need flushing.

Out-of-the-box way of saving water in the bathroom : if you’re a guy, go outside. This not only saves half a flush of water, it also helps water your plants — two savings for the price of one. Oh, and it might even help keeping porcupines away.

2008-07-25 by wrm Geek House 0

Wiring the master bathroom

So after finishing (most of) the plumbing, I turned to wiring the new bathroom (unlike the plumbing, fortunately, only the kitchen and the new master bedroom / bathroom needs extra wiring).

Now in the bathroom we have an alcove where the doorway used to be. We’ll have some glass shelves there, and downlighters. We also have Tanya’s crystal light, which doesn’t really give much light, more like mood lighting with candles and with the main light off.

The main light, of course, needs to be controlled from outside the bathroom. But it would be nice to turn the main light off and the mood lighting on from inside.

My solution is to fit a two way circuit for the main lights, with one switch outside (by the doorway into the MBR) and the other switch next to the door to the outside world. The switch for Tanya’s light then goes next to the door as well. And the downlighters go on the same circuit as the main lights.

OK, all of this sounds terribly confusing, and the wiring is also rather… complicated. Especially since the best way to hide the wire for the downlighters is to take it from the switch up into the ceiling, around to the other switch, then down, under the bath, and up the height of the old doorway… yes, this is the easy way… trust me.

2008-07-24 by wrm House 0

Stupid, stupid, stupid

Me, that is.

I didn’t think, see.

If I’d measured things and told Frank to build the brick wall one brick lower, he would have been able to fit another row of glass bricks in the top.

As it is I’m left with a gap that I now need to fill.

Bugger.

The door is from Cape Ads. It’s a bit small for the frame, actually it’s half of a double door. I’ll have to fit filler strips to the side and top.

2008-07-18 by wrm House 1

Win a few, lose a few.

Tanya’s colour scheme looks good :-)

I’ve been scanning the Cape Ads for a jacuzzi for a while. Found one for what I thought to be a rather reasonable price, R 7500 for a freestanding unit. It’s a Superior Spa Barracuda, and it’s currently living on a trailer in the driveway — getting it there was fun too. You see, we have a flatbed trailer in the family, but it wasn’t roadworthy, since they recently made reflective strips down the side of the trailer mandatory — not a bad idea IMO. But that meant I first had to get two strips of galvanised steel which I could poprivit to the side of the trailer so that I could stick the tape to it. OK, there’s a place down the road which sells all kinds of steel, R30 later, we’re done. Cheap, compared to the cost of the tape.

So on Saturday I drove through to Bellville, fitted the steel strips and reflective tape while my father watched the Bokke klup the All Blacks, and dragged the trailer to Kenilworth. By now I’d realised that I was running late, so instead of going through to Fish Hoek to pick up the guys, I asked Tanya to bring them through. Loaded the jacuzzi on the trailer with much grunting and groaning, and strapped it down. Drove back rather slowly (there are three routes, over Ou Kaapse Weg (steep, especially the uphill bit), over Boyes Drive (also somewhat steep, specifically the downhill bit, and Muizenberg Main Road (where they have roadworks and a stop & go system). We went via Muizenberg. Lesser of three evils.

So, for geeks like me — the anatomy of a jacuzzi. (Non-geeks, skip down).

The main pump is the black thing left of centre (left hand pic). It draws water from underneath, pumps it through the canister filter (far left) and then around to the manifold (picture on right) where the water gets split five ways to the five main jets. The main jets also have an air hose each, air feed being controlled by the valve on the jacuzzi rim (top left on left hand pic).

On the bottom right hand side of the first pic, there’s a blue canister. That contains the heater element. Water is again drawn from the bottom, though the heater via the small pump (just right of centre) and into the jet behind it.

So basically the water in the jacuzzi is circulated via the main jets, and the heater circuit is on the side.

The third “pump” is the black thing on the right hand side, it pumps air via an airlock (the U above the deck — to make sure it doesn’t get flooded) and into the bottom of the jacuzzi.

This thing needs a serious power supply. It has four trip switches, 10 and 15 amp for the pumps, and 30A for the heater. Now I have a “spare” (used to be the stove) 20A 3 phase circuit, and the question is whether this would be sufficient — the heater is advertised as 4kW, which is 18A or so, so I don’t know why they needed a 30A trip. Current (*cough*) planning : use one 20A circuit for the heater, use another for the rest, and use the third for the oven — basically replacing a four plate stove with a jacuzzi, electrically speaking.

^^^ Non-geeks : you can skip to here.

The jacuzzi’s going into the corner there. Lekker.

OK, so I mentioned “lose a few” in the topic. Went down to Muizenberg for my weekly brass fix, R72’s worth this time. Almost there. I also bought 6m of 15mm polycop. Only slightly cheaper than the hardware store, R3.50 as opposed to around R4/m. And the bloody stuff is out of spec. Too thick by just enough to make it almost impossible to fit the little ring of the compression fitting. Bugger.

Back to geek : I also bought a 1gig USB memory stick for R80, which is a good price, I think. But it only works in two of the four slots on my D815EEA2 motherboard, gives errors in the other two. No idea why, but the slots are connected to different USB controllers, according to the mostly useless mobo manual. The memstick works just great with my xcarlink, which is what I got it for, so it’s not all bad.

And BTW the xcarlink *rawks*.

Frank screeded the slasto, using a bag and a half of self levelling screed, mixed with some Bond-It for extra strength. I figured that he should have been able to do the job with one bag, I think the screeding should have been thinner. But it’ll do.

2008-07-15 by wrm Geek House 1

Feed a cold, starve a fever?

… or is it the other way ’round? Nobody seems to be sure. I picked up a sore throat from a colleague, and working in the bloody cold (unfurnished) house in uncommonly cold (for Cape Town, it was 6 degrees in Tokai at 08:30 this morning) weather certainly doesn’t help.

I’ve always figured that it’s important to listen to your body, and right now mine is saying “feed me“, so that’s what I’m doing.

On the progress side of things, Frank’s been paving. Looking good.

I’ve been plumbing in the master bathroom, lots of work with little visible progress.

We got quotes for carpeting Jessica’s room (black-with-white-spots Superweave) as well as the living room and hall (matching colour-to-be-determined Tuscany) — just over R10K, which is about what I anticipated.

And the kitchen guys finally gave me a believable (in terms of what they think I need) quote, so I dumped R18K into their bank account, delivery (CKD, in other words, Some Assembly Required) in two weeks’ time. But that excludes the countertops and some other strategic bits I will still need.

2008-07-10 by wrm Uncategorized 0

Die winter se vendetta, het ons ingehaal.

Valiant word oud. Net soos sy fans, so ons kan relate.

Anywayz, it’s still pissing down in Cape Town. Cold as well, the car thermometer read 5 degrees C going over Ou Kaapse Weg around 1800 last night. (Note to self : my “computer room” area of the garage needs an insulated ceiling).

So it’s Gluhwein time.

The last time I made Gluhwein was probably around 10 years ago, and we used those little bags of stuff that Delheim and others sold. And it wasn’t half bad.

Lacking the little bag, I googled this recipe, halved it (two bottles of wine between the two of us? I don’t think so), and it was great. Better than I remember from years ago.

So, basically :

Stick wine in pot, on very low heat. I used a simmer plate on the gas stove. (Edit, for CH : Some people add water to the pot, I didn’t. I guess it depends on how cold you’re feeling).

Since I was only using one orange, I sliced it and stuck cloves in it. I also only used one lemon, sliced, a small stick of cinnamon, about a teaspoon of freshly grated ginger, and two tablespoons honey.

You want this concoction to start steaming, but not to boil. And then keep it there for a quarter of an hour or more.

And then grab a ladle and serve.

2008-07-09 by wrm Foooooood 0

Broke 100k

This morning I had R500 to go to hit the R100 000 mark, so I went out and spent R4 000.

It’s officially cheaper to shoot someone than to throw a brick at them. As long as you load your own ammo. R1.50 a common garden ROK brick? Yoiks.

2008-07-07 by wrm House 0

Shiny!

Well, the traditional first anniversary gift is paper, right? And a notebook is paper, right?

Asus EeePC 900. Tanya loves it.

Now I want one too.

2008-07-07 by wrm Geek 0

The Foodbarn

Sorta-kinda review.

My in-laws invited us, or we invited them (I’m not too clear on this) to the Foodbarn in Noordhoek. I had a look at their online menu and was not that impressed. Too many ‘porcini’ and ‘verde’ and ‘civet’ type things in quotes (And BTW, I send in a request to El Bulli every year, I’m not squicked by words like veloute or jus on a menu, this specific menu just looked… wrong, with all those quotes).

Anywayz, so we got there (after putting up the small wall between the bath and our bedroom, but that’s another story) to find a completely different menu. Yay!

They actually have two menus. The first is the Bistro menu, a sort of a set menu with about five choices each for starter, main and dessert. With a glass (one glass. One? Are they serious?) of wine-of-your-choice. For R165 per head. All in all the Bistro menu looks good, and we decide to go for it. Oh — the catch is that these are all half portions (no problem, sez I, gives me the opportunity to work through the menu twice. Grootbek).

Well, fair enough, Tanya recently converted to red (and since drinkable red is cheaper than drinkable white (I’m a white wine snob and a red wine slut) this is not a Bad Thing (unlike when I taught her to prefer Cap Classique over Cold Duck. But that’s a different story)), so we order four glasses of white (chenin) and pass them all on to Mr H (Mr H being Tanya’s father). And we order a bottle of Groot Constantia Merlot (Mrs H (you should be able to figure this one out) likes Merlot. Yes I know. Let it go).

First item on the starter menu is bouillabaisse. I read no further (well, actually, I do, because I’m curious, but that’s not the point. Bouillabaisse it is). Tanya ordered something with herbed goats’ cheese, Mr H picked the duck livers. Now for the mains. Oh my. Choices are line fish, a gnocchi based vegetarian dish, steak tartare, lamb cutlets, and roasted pork belly.

Now I have to say that in general, at a restaurant, Tanya orders the steak. Medium to well done. In the case of steak tartare, this is Just Not On (although there is a tale in the family of Mr H ordering well done steak tartare once, but that, again, is a different story). En hier word Wouter se ogies groter as sy magie, and I go somewhat apeshit. I suggest that Tanya orders the steak tartare, I order the lamb, and Tanya also orders the ribeye steak from the a la carte menu. This confused the waitress a bit, but not as much as it would have had Tanya ordered the steak tartare well done, I’m sure.

Oh, BTW, the Foodbarn is run by Franck and Pete. Franck’s been the chef over at La Colombe for the past ten years or so, and incidentally, that’s where I last had steak tartare. And it was probably rather close to the start of Franck’s tenure there, I will have to go find my notes (no, I don’t throw things away, why do you ask?) of that experience (which, of course, is another story).

OK, bouillabaisse. Great. Bit of a strange texture, those crazy Michelin fellows would probably have had much to say, but I’m closer to the other Michelin fellow, so… Mr H raved about the duck livers, and Tanya quite liked the cheese and aubergine thing (of which I tasted a bit, nice). I’d peg Tanya’s starter at a half portion but both the duck livers and the bouillabaisse were most definitely full portions, IMO.

Steak tartare arrives first. Mince, with an egg yolk in the half shell balanced on top, with fried potato slices and a very interesting sauce and four lines of… call it salsa… onion, gherkin, olive and parsley (I think. But hey, I’m not Remy, so if one of you guys from the Foodbarn google across this blog, please leave a comment to tell me what you really put in there :-). So I start the taste exploration, with comments from Tanya on whether I’m doing this The Right Way. I of course feel that my way is the right way and if you don’t like it, order your own portion. Bit of this, bit of that, I find that the sauce goes well with the olives and a bit of egg, the egg goes well with the onion, hey, I’m having fun. Guy on the other side of the room is mixing everything on his plate into one big frikkadel and proceeding from there, but who cares (Tanya cares, that’s who. Like the time in France with the fondue which was actually raclette, but… different story).

Next up, the lamb. Two small cutlets, and some sausage-ey stuff (that’s a technical term used by people like me who don’t speak haute cuisine, OK?) in pastry, on a sauce. Very nice, but the sauce is extremely rich. I just could not finish it.

Now as an aside, Tanya and I tend to swap plates, so that we both taste what we both ordered. Although most of the time this is more a case of me finishing what she ordered. And in this case, she had a bit of steak left, and I would have loved to taste it, but I just could not face any more meat (it must have been around 150 grams steak tartare, and the cutlets were small — and as an aside I often kill an eisbein at the Nag’s Head right next door to the Foodbarn — but I think it’s the sauce, and the bouillabaisse, that sunk me).

Anyway, Tanya liked the steak a lot, but she did report that her potato slices were somewhat burnt. The in-laws had Good Things to say about the line fish (yellowtail) as well.

Of course my choice of dessert was never uncertain — I’m not much for sweet stuff, and there’s a cheese platter on the menu, and of course they have port, so, call me Larry. Four cheeses, three of them excellent, the camembert just… camembert. With some very nice preserves, and the port was Bredells, very good.

Tanya and Mrs H ordered the dark chocolate samoosas, which are interesting, but the difference in texture between the samoosa crust and the melted chocolate is a bit… strange. Mr H was somewhat indifferent to his millefeuille, which maybe looked better on the menu than on the plate.

So, a good time was had by all, and the grand total for the evening, tip included, was just that… a grand. Not something I’d do that often, but it’s nice to have a somewhat upmarket restaurant in our neck of the woods.

2008-07-03 by wrm Foooooood 2

Glass bricks

So, Frank built a 900mm high wall closing off about a third of the back stoep, the idea is to build a glass block wall all the way to the top. This will shelter the jacuzzi-corner from the Fish Hoek wind, which blows up the valley from the sea and gives me a permanent runny nose.

But Frank doesn’t know how to build with glass blocks.

Neither do I.

Homebase makes it look complex, DIY Divas makes it look easy. Fine Homebuilding says it’s somewhere in between. With those three references, I’m sure we’ll get it right. I’ll ask some questions at the hardware store tomorrow morning.

Edit : Frank ended up building the glass wall just like a normal brick wall, using 5mm tile spacers, and normal cement. He strung wire between the wall and the steel pole (self tappers on the steel side, nail-in anchors into the wall) every two courses, and it came out well. Well, sorta well, see later post on same subject.

2008-07-02 by wrm House 0

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