Judy Heald

Judy Heald wrote:We used the method of cutting the necks off the bottles and taping two ends together. Also that way allows you to get Taylor the size of them to fit your desired wall thickness. It's a shame I don't seem to have to option to add a photo. We uses a tile cutter with the water sprayer. I would highly recommend it for the amount of light you get in. You can also mix different colour bottles to create different colours.

We used the method of cutting the necks off the bottles and taping two ends together. Also that way allows you to get Taylor the size of them to fit your desired wall thickness. It's a shame I don't seem to have to option to add a photo. We uses a tile cutter with the water sprayer. I would highly recommend it for the amount of light you get in. You can also mix different colour bottles to create different colours.

Is there any uk/England rocket mass heater makers out there???

@Greg Payton
I know nothing about what your talking about but I soooooo want to! We are just about to start building our house, any information about a healthy grounded house would be so much appreciated! Please e plain what you were talking about.

We will start on the build for our house in 2024, next year. I desperately want a rocket mass heater, I'm trying to be REALLY well preped for old age, I don't want any systems that are essential to be labour intensive when I'm old.
All though, I find it a bit like the argument about mortgages, when people tell me they would rather have a fixed rate "so I know what I'm paying" which equates to paying the maximum for the whole term instead of having big dips where your paying a fraction of the price.
I guess what I'm saying is, one may as well have a system that does require labour such as a solid fuel system where they will have to chop and collect wood, and then either getting a "flick of a switch" system when they are too frail. Or simply using some of those decades of cost savings, to pay someone to do the hard work for you.

Definitely wished I hadn't clicked on this thread while sitting in my caravan with my 4 little ones and with 4 new lithium batteries for our solar system. I'd feel more comfortable about it if I was in a house and could fire insulate the room they were in.
I have to now work double hard to shift my frequency away from fire fear.

Putting insulation on the out side in cold places is a good idea, cobbauge (clay mixed with hemp shiv) or hempcrete (lime and hemp shiv) is a good way to keep the heat in the cob walls. Allowing solar gain and keeping it in the house.
Plymouth uni partnered with a French uni to test cobbauge to come up with one of the most if not the lowest embodied co2 building material that meets building regs ever.

Thanks @mike guys !
We will soon have a big glass house on the south of our house. Everyone iv spoke to (who iv told enthusiastically "I'm going to grow avocados in it") have looked at me empathetically and said "good luck with that!"
I just know it's going to be possible! (Maybe with a rocket mass heater as my secret weapon.) But I just know I'm going to manage it. Especially after seeing this one still surviving when it's stem is pretty much fused to the fig!
It's so weird, as it's this seedling that's doing the best. Some how the cover and tiny micro climet the fig coving gives it has kept it doing better than the rest, although the fig will be it's demise sooner or later.

The stem that died back

We live in Cornwall (the most South and west point) in the uk/ England. So it's as mild as I think you get in the UK?

We put a polly tunnel up 3 and a half years ago. We weren't very prepared, most of the compost we used was out of our own compost bins, that happened to have quite a few hass avocado seeds in it. After a few months we noticed avocados sprouting. Unfortunately the majority was under the fig tree. We left our place for a year and a half, so the polly tunnel was left to re wild it's self.
We returned in summer, and found a avocard tree shooting up literally from the base of the fig. I had seen it before, but I wasn't expecting it to have survived. It had some major die back in the summer but then has had more growth. (Don't get it confused with the fig tree (which it's atached to) the avocado stem (that's mostly died off) is about an inch thick.

I guess my point is, if this guy (and others) have survived from seed in my polly tunnel (that had a missing door and several holes when we returned) then I'm sure more hardy verities could do well in climates that get a little frost.