Hi

Hi! New to site. Just bought 5.3ha is south canterbury, lovely big old weatherboard house. We have 3 active kids under 5 who I am at home with and a husband who builds. Very new to everything stock and garden related!!! Hope to have a big veg garden, a few more fruit trees (2apple trees at the moment) Chooks and a few sheep. Our lovely old house has been neglected for many years so will be doing this up too. Recently installed a huge log fire with 9 radiators running off -heaven! Used it several times already and excited for winter to really give it a workout.
Look forward to sharing our journey and learning along the way.

Welcome to the forum and all the best with the new venture!

wow, sounds ideal, a builder husband! You know what they say about builders homes - never finished!
Sounds great that you have a good woodburner, what make is it? Re the vege garden, you don't really need a huge area, best to keep it small and manageable at first. Now is time to get the winter veggies in such as mixed brassica seedlings pack. Access to water is important for veggies and some form of net covering to keep birds and kids off. For apple trees go for the organic types such as Akane, Liberty, Priscilla, Monty's Surprise, Sir Prize etc.
Good luck with your venture, no doubt we will hear more as things progress.....

tonybaker, I'm curious...what is an organic type of apple tree?

Congrats on your new purchase! Enjoy the transition to rural life

Certain cultivars of apples have shown greater resistance to diseases and are preferred by organic growers. The usual trees you see in Bunnings/Mitre10 are commercial cultivars which have been bred for keeping qualities and colour, not disease resistance. But I have seen disease resistant trees in the nurseries, even The Warehouse has them from time to time. The ones I have are Liberty, Dayton, Prima, Akane (my favourite) and Priscilla, Other good ones are Alfriston, Kentish Fillbasket and Sunset. You can get multi grafted trees, several cultivars on one tree although if you have the space it's best to get the single grafted ones. Choice of rootstock is quite important and I would avoid dwarfing types in favour of judicious pruning to keep the tree from growing too big (a common failing). Have a look at this site to get the idea on pruning.

Disease resistance is certainly a useful trait in an apple tree, but you need to thank the world of commerce, not 'organics' for your trees. The Liberty apple was bred specifically for commercial orchards by the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station [released for use in in 1978]. Dayton and Prima are also commercial varieties, created in the 1950s by the PRI programme [a joint project by Purdue, Rutgers and Illinois Universities], for orchards in scab-prone areas of the United States. 'Organic', I fear, doesn't mean anything in terms of disease resistance [nor, for that matter, does 'heritage'.]

Hahaha about the builders house, so true!
We went with a Hunter Herald 80b wood burner, so glad we did. Was a huge chunk of our budget but its keeping our non insulated, drafty old house nice and cozy.
Great advice for veg and trees, thank you! Planning a big weekend of sorting up vege garden and fixing up an old chicken coop we found in an overgrown part of garden. Fun!

that stove sounds great! so nice to have radiators all around the house. Trouble is not many kiwi plumbers are familiar with putting in radiators. I guess they installed a small pump to send the hot water around? Does it come on automatically when the water gets to a certain temp? This feature helps prevent condensation. Mine also has a safety cut in if the water gets near boiling, it turns the pump on. My pump is a Grundfos and it is silent and has been running for over 30 years!! I also have another pump (same type) to boost hot water for the shower. I lit my stove this morning and it was great to have a really hot shower and a warm house, all from free firewood on the place plus a few pallets for kindling.

Yes, I was brought up in the UK so my childhood was warm, double glazed homes with central heating! Love the heat from radiators.
You are right we struggled to find a stove that was an actual boiler that we liked the look of and no plumber wanted to install it when we did, so we actually got the company we bought through to come and set it all up. They were amazing. It does have a small pump to pump it around the house that plugs in so if we lose power we can plug it in to the generator and still have a warm house.
We have a thermostat that we can set it to come on at certain temp/time but thats a bit beyond me and is husbands department! From what I see/understand have two large 380l cylinders beside each other, the closest to the fire heats first like a wetback set up (the sealed radiator water) then this heats the second domestic water cylinder via coil and then when both are at the set temp on cylinder the radiators can then kick in and the water is pumped around. Each radiator has its own control to turn up/down apart from 2 and a heated towel rail the reason these don't have set controls is something to do with pressure and I think too that if the water gets too hot in tank and the other radiators are turned right down then these 3 can heat up?
We have a huge amount of firewood and trees to last years so it made sense for us to go with this option. We have a neighbour with a diesel boiler running radiators and did consider this but as we wanted to replace an dirty old coal range with a log burner it made sense to replace it with something that would do all rather than small log burner-diesel boiler-radiator option and have to purchase diesel on top.
Amazing your pump has been going 30 years! I hope ours is as good!!

Husband just said we also have a tank up in the roof space which is an overflow type tank for hot water if it gets too hot! Learn something new every day haha!

sounds great! I too am from UK and used to install C.H in commercial buildings and the odd rich listers place. I wonder why the 'plumber' used two cylinders? All you need is one cylinder with a wetback coil in it that is fed by the fire....I guess the towel rails are used as an emergency heat absorber in case the pump stops?
My place is two storey so I have natural circulation to the upstairs rads even if the pump is off.
We have had the fire going last couple of cold wet days and it's delight to cook on the stovetop and heat the water/house at the same time. Ours has an oven which can be run on electricity if needed or both if the fire drops too low. The longer you can store your firewood the better, it definitely pays off.

yup, that tank in the roof is an expansion tank, as water expands as it is heated. It also acts as a means of letting out the air in the system.You have to top it up from time to time unless plumber has installed a ball cock.
The height of this tank above the fire aids the circulation, but that's not a worry if you have a pump. If the pump is too powerful it will pump water into this tank. Usually you can reduce or increase the flow rate of the pump with a switch or by slightly closing the valve on the side of the pump.
It always amazes me that in the UK even the poorest state house has central heating, and here we shiver when we go to the toilet! and won't it be wonderful when we finally get those UPVC doors and windows!

Great tips with the roof tank will keep all this in mind. We are really looking forward to having it going every day to get a good feel for the system and how it all works.
Not sure about the reasons for two cylinders? I've only had gas boilers so not used to having a cylinder at all until I moved to Aus and had solar hot water stored on the roof! Maybe because we needed a new domestic water tank anyway, as the one in the house was dated 1972 and there looked to have been a leak at some time. The second tank they installed was the sealed treated radiator water. Both such huge tanks, we were lucky the old cupboard next to the fire fit them in (just).
Great to have an oven on your set up and the ability to cook. We can warm things on the top of our fire so at a push (power cut and run out of bbq gas!) we could probably make some food but it would take a while!!

ok, can't think why the plumber installed the second cylinder. You only need one cylinder designed for a wetback. It has a coil inside that separates the tap water from the radiator water. Anyway at least you have plenty of water stored!