James Freeman

My wife wanted a book for Grandpa to read to our new child. She wrote and illustrated it before the birth. I had it published and is available online. Thanks for looking.


Grandpa Bear, Let's go fishing!

Hi Thomas,
Thanks! I hear what you're saying. We are heading back east to help out with our folks. They are getting older and are starting to need a hand more often. We thought best to just get on with it and start again. There's still a bunch of neat places in canada. Checkout http://www.landquest.com/home.aspx lots of cool places to start there. This would also be a good one to share between a few folks. There's lots of places to hide on the property and a decent base to build all sorts of projects around the place. Open to reasonable offers of course :)

Hi Michelle,
Thanks for the positive comments! We love it and until a couple of days ago I assumed the wife would "sky burial" me on the adjacent island. Life got in the way though.

As for you moving from your tax farm(USA) to my tax farm (CANADA), no problem. A few "Mericans" ( I just noticed how close that looks to "Meixcans") live on the island now. One couple has been here since the draft. From Nov-March I typically see 0 people walking around. So if you are into some alone time... it's got it in spades. However if you want to see a concert in Vancouver you can jump in the boat and be there in 45 mins as long as the straight of Georgia isn't going nuts.

Summertime brings a few cottagers who come out for a week or two max. If you do a little fishing and like to eat deer (none on this island so your gardens are safe) its pretty low buck to be out here. Also when you do get a little lonely there's a complete dance club built into the house. Last new years we had 35 people show up, not bad for a population of 8.

This week the wife and I have come to the decision we need to move to help out with family. We thought we would live here forever. If you are looking to do this sort of thing but are short on time this may be for you.

The house collects your water, makes your power and feeds you. You in turn take care of it and it makes for a good life. tens of thousands of hours have been poured into this project with love. Its a rocket mass heater away from perfection. Im not sure if this is the right section but I didnt think this was a digital marketplace sort of post.

https://vancouver.craigslist.ca/van/reo/d/2000sqft-offgrid-island-home/6739236928.html

If you know somebody looking for something like this please send them our way. Thanks in advance!

I just drove to eagle idaho on the 55 and saw a rocket mass heater  sign next to a place selling stoves. I didnt manage to catch the name of it. About 10 mins west of eagle.

With the house moving in the winter I am afraid the brick design will crack. As its getting cold out quickl I am scrambling this week to come up with the best way to do this. Pictures to follow. Thanks for the help everyone!

I emailed over and checked out some stoves. Not sure tgis is right for us. Our house us built in a heavy timber frame and when the ground freezes Im afraid tye shiftung floor will crack tue brickwork.
I am willing to forgoe the stove part for now as long as we can correct our heatung for now. Cob is difficult as we have no dirt, the island is sandstone.

I guess I need an eight inch core and a pebble bench. Looks like nobodys cracked the shippable core yet though.

ill give a call over today. looks great! thanks.

Hi,
Its time to pull our wood oven and airtite stove and switch to an all in one solution. Can anyone suggest a way to go? We dont have much in the way of internets so I cant spend much time surfing. A few years back we built a couple in the yard for a hot tub but they never worked very well. I remember there were some core kits and the like. Anyways Id like to spend less than $3000 cad and make is so I have to feed the fire a bit less from now on. 2000 sq ft open house 49 parallel.

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

We recently got a place and it has a wood heat hot water system in it. I am unfamiliar with them and want to make sure it's ok to fire it up. We have had neighbours tell us they have used it when renting our place but they cant remember how it works. I will take pictures when I am back on friday and post them on the weekend when I can find some internet signal again but I can describe it.

There is an "S" shaped coil on the inside of our air tight stove. Is is directly exposed to the fire with firebrick behind it in the normal areas. The tubes go from the back of the wood stove (where there is a drain on the lower tube) over horizontal about 3 meters. One rises to what looks to be a bronze 80 litre vertical cylinder. I t is positioned about 2 meters up in the air. There is another similar tank below the place that I was told is the pressure tank, however it looks like a bronze tank but does have a gauge on it. I am to assume my incoming water from the cistern comes in to this tank and then up to the cold water input.

Then there is a what seems to be a missing hot water tank. On the connections to where it would be it has tags that says "replace plugs in heater and reattach before opening". I think this was used as additional heat storage as there isn't another water loop plumbed to the area. It was on the other side of the wall in the second picture.

My question is: Do I fill up the system and burp out air from the entire place through the taps etc and then light a fire? Should there be some over pressure valve on top of the upper tank? An should I get one of those air separators I see in brass on some of the videos on youtube and install it?