As I write the The Greener Homes & Buildings Show ‘trade and professionals day’ will be in full swing at the Royal Welsh Showground in Builth Wells, Powys.

On Saturday and Sunday (8th and 9th) the show is open to the public and there looks to be excellent attendance from the sustainable & green building industry from both Wales and the wider world.

As well as meeting suppliers, ogling products and finding out more about the services available out there, there are some really interesting seminars on offer at no additional cost. My only worry is that they’ll be too busy for me to get into!

I’ll be attending with Rounded Developments who have a stand, See you there on Sunday!

I feel like I’ve somewhat misrepresented pellet stoves in the past.

To recap, pellet stoves are wood burners with a difference, they burn pellets made from pressed waste wood, that are feed from a hopper into a combustion chamber all of which is often controlled electronically.

I’m sure no-one has really been reading who’ll take offence, but I feel that I should redress the balance. When writing about biomass heating, I stated that:

biomass systems are often bulky and so can require extensive storage space for both fuel and machinery

…with no statement of assumptions and seemingly no exceptions.

After further research, I’ve found some nifty looking pellet stoves such a those from Rika, that offer full biomass credentials whilst remaining compact in size and offering levels of control not available with more crudely fuelled wood or multi-fuel burners. I especially like the Rika option that allows remote control of the system by mobile telephone. Read More

So, to redress the balance: Biomass can be compact as well as clean and green!

We have walls.

Well at least partially, the partition walls have started to be built in the kitchen, to form a utility / services room & a small WC and upstairs, to form the second bedroom, main bathroom and ensuite / dressing area (if you can call a meter-&-a-half corridor a dressing area).

This dressing area is an example of how you need to remain flexible when planning the internal layout of a conversion. This area started out as a strange 1 meter wide space. However, as the walls were placed in relation to the A-frames of the roof, the velux windows positioned and the true dimensions of the barn discovered (the original plans were out by enough to make a difference) I think we’ve been able to make good use of the space and provide rooms that are big enough, but not wasteful. And so my strange 1 meter wide space has transformed into a dressing area – magic!