Preparing for winter II

mama67

elisamoose wrote: »

If you have an M & S outlet , they have the thermals for £5. I bought a black sleeveless vest , but they had short sleeve , long sleeve and long leggings in white , cream or black. Nearest to me is Springfields in Spalding , Lincs but not sure how many others there are.

I used to live in Spalding, moved 10 years ago

OlGreeneyes

Hi winterwarmers!
Finally finished this wonderful thread after two marathon sessions and found loads of great tips and was reminded of things I had forgotten - like putting an old duvet under the bottom sheet. I did this a few years ago and couldn't believe the difference it made! Re the wheat bags - I was thinking of using pearl barley in mine. You can get it in most supermarkets and it's pretty cheap. I bought one bag of barley already, but then I ended up eating it and will have to start again (the barley, not the bag!).
I've been saving bubble wrap that came free as packaging this year and have just finished putting it on the windows (double glazed, but cheap & ill-fitting) and cut up the thick plastic bag that the new mattress came in to cover the bedroom windows (it gets down to 42F in there in winter). I've also hung onto a mountain of polystyrene packaging, including some big sheets of it that came with some self-assembly furniture in the hope that I could use it in some way, but I'm blowed if I can think what to do with it now. It's piled up in the shed so at least the mice and spiders will be nice and toasty!
I'm very tempted to get myself some thermals this year. Usually I just wear two (or three!) pairs of really thick tights, so I'm not sure if long janes will be warmer than that.
Thanks to all for lovely thread

Emstick14

Do they end up going mouldy?

I was thinking of doing this but quite often our windows are streaming in the mornings and I am wary that the fleece will soon be all mouldy and yuck!

Sylvan

Do your outside walls go mouldy?
It's that time of year again - I just found the first new patch of mould under our bedroom window, behind the curtain. Time to get out the bleach spray - but no matter how much mould we've had on and around the windows the curtains have never actually gone mouldy.
Fleece is thicker though. Might make a difference.

mardatha

And more on sterilising water -

With liquid use half a teaspoon or 2.5 ml for 5 litres of water and wait 15 mins before use, 500ml will therefore do 1000 litres.
With tablets you need to work out how much water a tablet will make drinkable,as unfortunately they don't say as they do with the liquid.

This may assist,I also have some Aqua Clean Tablets, 32 tablets per box,the instructions say one tablet purifies 25 litres of water for drinking purposes.
I would be inclined to contact Miltons to find out the correct amounts for the tablets.
***********
Which in fact, somebody has done

Primrose

I don't know whether this would help relieve the condensation problem on windows, but garden centres sell water retention crystals for mixing in with compost to help retain moisture in the soil. I wonder if perhaps anybody suffering with condensation could put some of these in a saucer on their window ledges and they would absorb water, rather than it going into curtains and linings? I know furniture manufacturers also sometimes put sylica gel (?) crystals inside sofas, etc. to stop them absorbing damp in shipment. Possibly if you could get hold of them from somewhere via the internet this might help.

Sylvan

You can buy water absorbing crystals, and containers for them, from caravan/camping shops. We have several (containers, not shops :undecided). I was reading the bag today, when we were refilling them. It said water will start to appear in the lower part of the container after a couple of weeks and the crystals will last for up to three months before you need to replace them. :rotfl:
We have to empty the water down the drain every couple of days and replace the crystals once a week or so.:doh:

I've been researching dehumidifiers for the last 3 or 4 days and finally ordered one this afternoon. (The smell of mould in DS5's bedroom has become overpowering:()
I turned on the heating for about 7 hours today as well. I've been wearing lots of fleeces and duvets and cuddling hot water bottles instead of using heating but after we found mould on our bedroom wall this afternoon I decided it's false economy not to heat the house.

grumswifie

Hi there
Could I ask you where you are buying your dehumidifier from and how much they are?

Sylvan

OlGreeneyes wrote: »

I've also hung onto a mountain of polystyrene packaging, including some big sheets of it that came with some self-assembly furniture in the hope that I could use it in some way, but I'm blowed if I can think what to do with it now. It's piled up in the shed so at least the mice and spiders will be nice and toasty!

Several years ago we had an extremely impressive flood in the kitchen (a small, beady-eyed furry fiend had chewed through the main water pipe, behind the kitchen units). When we were replacing the drylining we decided to insulate the gap. The builders' merchants sold us big sheets of thick polystyrene to do the job and it worked a treat. Ever since then I've been tucking bits of polystyrene packaging behind kitchen cupboards and into the backs of built-in wardrobes.

We've also used it to line some of the wooden plant containers hubby made for me. Any of them that are empty in late winter/early spring are then covered with old windows and the soil heats up wonderfully - enabling us to sow seeds much earlier than we would otherwise.

Sylvan

grumswifie wrote: »

Hi there
Could I ask you where you are buying your dehumidifier from and how much they are?

I looked at the bigger small ones (if you see what I mean) till I eventually realised they wouldn't be sufficient for our house.

Argos had one that looked good for £90:
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/4250777/Trail/searchtext%3EDEHUMIDIFIER.htm

This one (£106) had very good reviews:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Delonghi-148110002-DeLonghi-Compact-Dehumidifier/dp/B000BP81DW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=kitchen&qid=1286052156&sr=8-1

No-one had it cheaper than Amazon. I think Homebase were the next cheapest, at £129.99.

Screwfix had some similar ones, as well as a few more powerful ones that were still under £200 (I know that seems a lot to pay for a dehumidifier but 20 years ago we were told by a chartered surveyor that the only way to keep the damp out of very old houses is to overheat them and keep windows open - so a powerful dehumidifier will surely pay for itself in lower heating bills fairly quickly?).

I've read countless reviews and one of the problems people have found is that none of the dehumidifiers that use compressors work very well in cold houses. (They work the same way as fridges do, so if your house is already cold and they then lower the temperature by another 10 degrees or so they can find themselves struggling.)

Then I found this: http://www.dehumidifiersuk.com/p/1135105/meaco-dd122fw-mk3-7-litre-per-day-capacity-desiccant-dehumidifier.html

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B001FCMHU8

Several different suppliers were selling it for the same price so I ordered it through Amazon, from a supplier that had very good reviews (They're sending the newer model for the same price and I got nectar points for the transaction as well ).