Preparing For My First Swedish Winter (Story 6)

Over the summer, my mom dug a trench. It led all the way from the water pump house to the house and it was about 20 to 25 meters long. Because the ground was filled with granite rocks, she wasn't able to reach frost-free depth but instead got to about 80 centimeters deep and I ended up buying a heating cable that ran the entire length all the way from the house to the shed. After a lot of research, we got all the components and put everything together. The water pipe I was using had a 22 millimeter diameter. It was the same size as the pipe that had been there originally. I kept it the same because then I could reuse all of the fittings that were already there. Because it was too narrow to fit the heating cable inside, we placed it around the underside and covered it with aluminum tape. Around that, we put 20 mil insulation film. It was really difficult to source because most shops only carry 30 mil. I wanted to make sure that nothing would freeze so I managed to source the thicker option. We slid that around and secured it with black tape. After that, we pushed it into the big yellow evo pipe we got which was made of two layers so it was very thick. We managed to get it all inside in the end and began to close the trench at the end of summer which made my mom very happy. My initial plan for the water pump house was to keep the original structure intact. I was actually going to use the cladding that was there and essentially use that as the interior wall and build a wall around it and insulate it. But as I started working on it, I ended up taking away quite a bit of rot from the timber panels that touched the ground and I just ended up taking the whole thing apart. In the end, there wasn't much left. Even the structure that I was quite keen to keep disappeared. I spent more than a month building this water pump house. I had until the start of December when the snow would likely come and stick to the ground. I'd also taken on some freelance work and that kept me quite busy quite a few days of the week. So I worked on the house whenever I could, during breaks or during days off. So many things happened throughout the build that I won't bore you with all the decisions and changes that I made along the way, but instead I'll just try and show you. So I'd made the water pump house a little bit bigger than I'd originally planned. The roof panels that I'd left over weren't actually enough to cover it. I did have a small sliver of roof panel section that I wasn't going to use and I needed to cut that in half to be able to add it on to the end of the shed. But it took a while to find the right tools to actually cut it in half. So the section of roof remained exposed for quite a while. The flooring was quite improvised. I kept the original floor underneath the water pump itself, but I dug a deep hole under the extension where the pipe was buried into the ground. I ended up filling it with rocks and then placed some beams on top. I'd found some leftover pieces of laminate flooring in the attic and I decided to use that as a subfloor and after that I put in insulation. So actually quite well by the access heating cable that's in there, but it was going to get really cold and I just wasn't sure how far that would last. I was told by a plumber that I definitely needed a little heater in there. So I got one and it's all set up. It's been working perfectly. So let me just run you through what I actually did. So I mentioned before that most of these materials are self-etched, so everything is a little bit not in perfect shape, but it works. What kills me a little bit is the asymmetry. I hate that. It's just a little bit off-center. It's because I went with the larger door. I thought that I was going to use the original structure and so I kept that door in the same place and then added a slightly smaller door next to it. But I ended up just demolishing the existing completely, so that wasn't necessary at all. But what we have here is, this is where it goes into the ground. I've insulated the floor. There's a lot of excess heating cable which I've wrapped around. So there is the old outdoor tap which I've shortened. I will in the end put it back into the garden. There's a slightly coming off it, but it's so slight. I literally haven't touched that water in like a month, so that's okay. But all of this is like self-etched wood from other things. I've insulated the ceiling, put some vapor barrier on it. So that's a little radiator. We've got the water pipe going into the ground heating pump. And then out there, I guess that's the actual bore well. This is hanging a bit. That is the old wooden beam that it's attached to and I just can't get it out. There is an extension cable to connect the radiator and it leads to the house. There's an outside socket which I use for that. But I have to pretty much take off all of this wood just to get that through here. But it seems to work. The extension cable comes in in that little corner. It's quite a long one, so there's a bit left. But yeah, I have one of these as well. It's usually about 10 degrees in here, so it's quite warm. So yeah, improvised but completely insulated in all directions and all sides. These are really thick doors with new wood. There's insulation inside these doors as well. This one is a little bit crooked. But other than that, I think it looks pretty good, especially considering the materials I used. So I placed it on these blocks so that it's off the ground. That is an old section from the house. That's old from the old water pump house. This is all from the old water pump house as well. Different sections. That used to be the door. Look at how cute it is! And then here I... Sorry about my snow shovel. Here I had to get a little bit more creative with what I had left, which is one of the reasons why it took so long to make this.