Monday, May 17, 2021

It's Official

Work has commenced on our second property out at Nordegg.  On Thursday May 13th our contractor, Shunda Creek Contracting, commenced site clearing.  It rained in the morning, so work didn't get underway until around lunchtime.  Scott ran his large track-hoe and pushed down a bunch of trees and pulled out the stumps.  I helped out a bit with my chainsaw, limbing the trees, and cutting them into manageable lengths.  A driveway in to the building site was cleared, as well as most of the building site.  There are still a few more trees to pull down tomorrow, and lots of cleanup left to do.  Scott hauled away two dump truck loads of waste, but there is still a lot more to go.  All of the logs that are not rotten will be retained and cut up for firewood.  The rest will be hauled to the community burn pit.  We have come to learn how much firewood can be consumed through a cold winter.  A wood stove will be the primary heat source in both our main cottage and the yet to be constructed guest cottage.
Yesterday we had our septic tank pumped out and hauled away, and got a load of water.  Our water storage cistern holds 2000 gallons, and the septic tank is the same size.  When we fill with water, we always empty the holding tank, so this helps us to monitor.  We last dealt with the tanks around Thanksgiving, so this has lasted us over six months.  Two tanks a year is very reasonable and we expect to use even less at our guest cottage.
I also had our propane tank filled this week.  We have a 1000 Gallon tank.  We last filled it about two years ago, and this time around it only needed about 175 gallons to top it up.  We use propane for supplementary heat in our cottage, as well as for our kitchen stove, our hot water heater, and our barbecue.  When we are away, we use electric heat to keep the cottage from freezing.  When we are at the cottage and it is cold outside, we mostly use the wood stove for heat.  So our propane consumption is minimal.








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