We also bought a little wireless monitor, the SMA Sunny Beam, to keep track of the production of the solar panels. “Wireless” as in a wireless connection to the inverter, the SMA Sunny Boy 2100, but the device can also be connected to a pc, to download the data stored on it. Having done that, you can visualise the production of your solar panels, just like this:

The production on a cloudy day in October,

or on a sunny day in March,

or the total amount of energy produced over a four-month period.

(Sorry for the cheesy Excel graphs — I haven’t got anything better at the moment.)

The interesting thing is that we first use the energy produced ourselves. When the panels produce more than we use, the electricity is delivered back to the net. So on a sunny day, when you see on the electricity meter that the energy is being sent to the net, you know that everything in the house runs “for free”, and you’re even getting paid for whatever is left over!

While Irene stayed at the old place, I already went to our new house, because the very same day, the kitchen would be installed. A case of Bad Planning ™, I fear, although not entirely our own fault.

Around noon, the movers arrived at our new house, after they had picked up a lift to hoist the 40-or-so boxes with books (and much more) to the second floor.

It was a very busy day, but the movers were great, very careful and tidy, and they worked very hard, the entire day, until about 6 pm. But in the evening, we could sleep in our own bed in our new house. We’d moved!

Ten months after construction was started it’s finally finished now. Although, it’s not quite finished yet, there are still some things that have to be done, but that will have to wait till after the holidays. But at least, in the mean time, we can start painting, cleaning, et cetera. We plan to move on September 17th.

Coincidently, this picture was taken exactly one year ago today, before they started building. So what do you think, does the house look like the drawing back then?

On the outside, the house is almost finished. The scaffolding has already been removed. Part of the windows and the doors still have to be put in, but it’s really starting to look like the pictures we fell in love with.

On the inside, some of the walls have been plastered, most of the wiring is finished, and they’re busy installing the bathroom. In the mean time, we have been planning what has to be done after we get the keys, i.e. the walls, the floors and the kitchen. This will still take a couple of weeks, so probably, we will be moving sometime around September 15.

Construction of the house was started almost three weeks ago. The first piles were rammed into the ground (what is “heien” in English?) on October 10, and since then, the concrete foundation has been poured, the water outlets have been set up and the ground floor has been laid.

In the mean time, we have bought ourselves a new kitchen! We’re still thinking about all the changes and optional extras: where to place the sockets and light switches, do we want an outside tap or an electrical garage door, do we want hardwood stairs, et cetera. We will have to decide about a lot of these things next week. And after that: project bathroom! I’ll keep you posted…

As I wrote a while ago, we have been searching for a new house. In fact, we have sold our old house, we have moved to another house, and we have bought a new house.

Let me explain…

Initially, somewhere around November last year, we were thinking about moving to a new (existing) house. We decided to put our house up for sale, because we thought it might take about half a year to sell it.

We had been looking at a number of (existing) houses, when we received a leaflet about a project of new (yet to be built) houses. We both immediately fell in love with these houses, so shortly after we had taken an option on one of them.

At that time they told us construction of the houses probably wouln’t start until May, because at least 50 % of the houses has to be sold first. This was in January.

The day after, we heard from our own estate agent, there were people interested in buying our house. So, a bit of a dilemma: should we sell our house now and try to find something (temporary) for about a year, until the new house would be built, or turn down this offer for our old house and wait a year, hoping there will be other offers.

We decided to go for this offer and sell our house per May 1st. However, this meant we had to find another home quickly. Of course, because it would be only temporary, for a year or two, we decided to look for a rental house.

April 25th we moved and a few days later we had officially sold our house!

So, here we are, in our home-for-a-year. And it’s nice! Of course, we haven’t spent much time or money, but we have tried to make it a bit our own, although it’s not our own.

In the mean time, we are still busy with our next new home! A couple of weeks ago, we (finally) signed the contract for the new house, after we heard construction will probably start by the beginning of October. Although we are still the only ones who have signed, the new (!) building contractor decided he did want to start building, hoping that ‘seeing is buying’. Of course, we were thrilled to hear that, the good news we’ve been waiting for ever since January.

Right now, we are in the process of getting the mortgage and life insurance. For the insurance, we will have to undergo a thorough medical examination; you wouldn’t believe the things they want to know! We are both pretty healthy, but this questionnaire sort of scared us!

Well, we are very much looking forward to seeing the house being built. I will keep you up to date with some pictures, now and again. For us, the next steps will be to think about the extra work we want done (electrics, etc.) and to go shopping for a kitchen and bathroom. So that’s the fun stuff! I’ll keep you posted.

Anyway, just the other day, I found out that since my weblog has been moved to WordPress, all internal links on my weblog are broken. All links still point to cpbotha.net. I plan to fix them all, but please be patient with me.

In the last few weeks, we have been busy painting and cleaning.
Then on Tuesday the new carpet was laid, on Wednesday and Thursday evening I’ve been packing my things, and yesterday evening friends came by with a Landcruiser and trailer wagon!

First of all, we went to pick up some furniture from my future sister-in-law.
I could buy from them a dining table plus chairs, a side table, a cupboard, a tv table, a linen cupboard, and some small things. There’s nothing wrong with the stuff, but they’re moving in a few weeks and just want to buy something new. Well, ok. Fine with me!

Then we went to pick up my boxes, bed, mattresses, and cupboards, and luckily, it all fitted in the trailer wagon.
We have been unloading until about midnight. These large cupboards are always a pain to get up or down the stairs in a flat! But we succeeded, without all too much damage.

Unfortunately, I’m still missing a few things. I still need a couch, an extra bed, a fridge, microwave, and curtains!

Update: Today, we started unpacking the boxes. In the afternoon, we went shopping and I bought a fridge and microwave at the BCC, and 47 metres of material for the curtains at the Kwantum. Next Saturday, the fridge and microwave will be delivered, so hopefully, the sleeping room curtains will also be finished by then – and I will finally be able to move permanently!

The only question is, will my TU Delft / Infopact internet connection also have been moved by then? Frankly, I doubt it…