Preparing for winter II

carriebradshaw

gtx wrote: »

Thanks - hadn't thought of them not being able to get supplies, my stockpiling list just got an awful lot longer:o

gtx

the only reason I think of this kind of thing is because I live in a remote area and a lot of the roads are single track, plus sometimes ,but only rarely these days thankfully if the weather is really bad the snow gates get closed and then nothing gets in or out ! :eek: lol

Primrose

A comment on another thread made me wonder how many people will be stocking up and preparing a survival strategy if we risk being faced with a winter of strikes and disruptions?

Our storecupboard is full, but my Achilles heel is our two freezers, both fully stocked with home-grown vegetables and batch cooked meals. I don't know how long they would survive prolonged power cuts, and I'm not sure there's an answer to that one.

Pink.

Hi Primrose,

The contents of a freezer will be fine in the event of a powercut for 24 hours if left unopened. If you are worried about prolonged cuts it might be an idea to check that your house insurance is covered for loss of freezer contents due to strikes etc. It wouldn't stop the waste of food, but at least you could be reimbursed.

As we have an existing thread on preparing for winter I'll add your thread to it shortly:

Preparing for winter II

Pink

Uniscots97

As best we can is the answer. We bought a fire pit earlier in the year. I know its for outdoors only but if push came to shove there's no reason why beans/baked potatoes etc couldn't be done using one of these or a kettle barbecue. Using wood that has fallen and/or the copious amounts of junk mail we get to burn (and loo roll inards). As for keeping the house warm I found during our last long power cut (10 hours) the large candles with multiple wicks (I got mine in Poundland) give off a lot of heat! Close all blinds and curtains and (I've found this makes a huge difference) tack an old towel over the loft hatch.

Penelope_Penguin

Primrose wrote: »

How prepared are you to survive another Winter of discontent?

Do you know something we don't?

LilacPixie

I have a well stocked storecupboard that I hope to drive down over the coming months. Freezer is packed but I doubt would last long if we get electrical outages.

We have a gas hob but electric everything else at the moment so I guess we would be living on pasta with tomato based sauces and rice with the same. I have lots of jams and chutneys but without electric to make a loaf of bread we would be limited to what we could do on the hob in a hot pan so a tortilla/chapatti type thing. I have alot of onions and potatos at the allotment that we would lift and store so tattie and onion soup or tomato soup with a tortilla to dip in it, maybe even some sort of naan/pitta type thing. If we lost Gas and Electricity for huge lenths of time then we would be really up against it. I also have some beetroot to lift so that will be pickled soon.

I really doubt it will get that bad but I seem to be opting for the doomsday senario. I was born in the 80's so I have no experience of the winter of discontent at all but I have a young family and I need to be sorted for them.

Kitcaboodle

We'd be largely screwed unfortunately. We have a small rented flat and pretty much no storage. Our freezer is one of the smallest out there, only 50cm wide, as that is all that would fit in our kitchen.

I try and keep a good stock of lentils & other dried pulses in - but these are rather un-appetising without other stuff to add flavour! Plus, if we lose electric we have no way of cooking them! If we start getting occasional power cuts I might batch cook something that can be eaten cold, such as pasta.

If the heating goes then that would be the biggest problem. This flat is boiling in summer and artic in winter if you don't have the storage heaters on. I have a Selk bag for myself, so I could walk around in that - but I'd have to strap the baby to me to keep him warm! (Thankfully the Selk bag is big enough to fit him in there with me!)

I suspect that if things got bad, we'd move in temporarily with the in-laws, as there would be more of us to heat the place through body heat & they have a garden that we could put a BBQ in to cook food.

LilacPixie

I hadn't considered heating. Ours is gas but radiators only no fire. I guess it would be quilts, all stay in one room jumper and 7 pairs of socks time.

csarina

http://reviews.halfords.com/4028/169121/reviews.htm

Get yourself something like this and you can cook a hot meal in one pan. I chop up an onion, cook gently in the bottom of the pan in a tiny bit of oil, add the mince and brown, empty in a tin of tomato's, add a beef stock cube and a little water, carrots cut small and a diced potato, cook on a low heat until the potato and carrot are cooked........serve with buttered bread. You can also use a steamer, cook a stew in the bottom pan and add the vegetables in the top for the last 20 minutes of cooking time. A pressure cooker will do the same thing in half the time. The bigger ones have a trivet you can put over thre meat and pans to cook the vegetables in. A twin color gas butner will give you a little more versatility although it will need a bigger gas cylinder. You can often pick these up of ebay or freegle when people give up camping, just get it checked to make sure its safe to use.

Eenymeeny

Just bought 2kg w5 dishwasher salt 85p and dynamo led torch at Lidl £3.99 hope it's a bargain and some help to some of you. (I never know what the normal price is but reckon it must be cheap if it's in Lidls or Aldi!) I know, a marketing mans' dream.....:o