Preparing for winter III

poohbear59

Hi, I haven't posted on here before so I hope you don't mind me butting in. I have recently been offered some magnesium chloride and in my research found it is used on roads and paths in USA in place of sodium chloride. Has anyone any experience of it? I live on a remote road in the hills and it seems like a Godsend to have something free to de-ice the road. (For some reason the council provide salt beside the road up to about 100m from the house, then there is none near the houses.)

annie123

BBC 2 tomorrow 9pm, Will it snow this winter?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0175m9n

Might be interesting.

rising_from_the_ashes

Thanks Annie - that will def be on my watch list for tomorrow ....

brenda50

I wrote to ask my landlord if I can apply to have the loft insulation inceased from a scantily covered 2 inches to 10 with the 100% grant I am entitled to from the government and he said he does not want me to have it done because he does not want men in the loft possibly causing damage to the rooftiles !!! He even said I should not have let anyone into the loft to look. Can you believe it? Is there anything that I can do?

poohbear59

brenda50 wrote: »

I wrote to ask my landlord if I can apply to have the loft insulation inceased from a scantily covered 2 inches to 10 with the 100% grant I am entitled to from the government and he said he does not want me to have it done because he does not want men in the loft possibly causing damage to the rooftiles !!! He even said I should not have let anyone into the loft to look. Can you believe it? Is there anything that I can do?

I am sorry to hear that you have a landlord who is so blinkered. I would think you have a right to have someone look in the loft. I have just arranged the same for my brother and his landlord is delighted. You must be paying so much more in heating bills than is necessary.
I am not sure what the legality of it is but you could maybe ask the company doing the insulation to liaise with your landlord direct. In the North of England GoWarm are doing surveys and providing insulation and if you are using someone like them they may liaise on your behalf. Their aim is to have every property insulated to the required level to meet government targets and they may have more clout.

rising_from_the_ashes

brenda50 wrote: »

I wrote to ask my landlord if I can apply to have the loft insulation inceased from a scantily covered 2 inches to 10 with the 100% grant I am entitled to from the government and he said he does not want me to have it done because he does not want men in the loft possibly causing damage to the rooftiles !!! He even said I should not have let anyone into the loft to look. Can you believe it? Is there anything that I can do?

Oh for goodness sake - he should be glad an "improvement" is being made to the house that he's not having to pay for:mad: How are the workmen going to damage the tiles - they're inside not out....

Sorry but I don't know if there's anyone you can complain to - maybe try asking the housing dept at your council for advice.

poohbear59 wrote: »

Their aim is to have every property insulated to the required level to meet government targets and they may have more clout.

Unfortunately this isn't really happening tho' as not every property is being offered the chance to have the insulation "topped up" to meet the new standards/targets.

They're coming round our area too just now - my next door neighbour is getting it as he's over a certain age and a couple of houses down the street as the occupiers are on benefits..... but they're the only ones being offered it.

Every property should be able to have the extra insulation put in to bring it up to the new standards and to help meet the energy targets (as well as helping with heating bills) - just because someone works doesn't mean their house is more efficient and doesn't need extra insulation.

brenda50

After an hour of trying to get him to see sense he said that I would have to write him a letter accepting responsibility if the work is done. Of course I dont want to be held responsible in the unlikely event of something going wrong. I will ring GoWarm on Monday to see what they say. Of course he has no say over whom I let into the house when I am renting it. He complained at the begining when I had to get cleaners in as the last tenant left the place dirty.

I did ask the housing department if there was someone to liase but they said no. I am trying to get a housing association to take me on. I have the landlord from hell at the moment.

singlestep

Good luck sorting it out, brenda50. I know very little about these things but you'd think he'd be glad that some kind of improvement was being made to his property without him having to pay.

Another one here with loads of condensation on windows this morning. I'm quite interested to read what you all have to say about it. As long as there's no ice on the inside (I remember those days from my childhood), I suppose that's the main thing.

I took a notion for pea and ham soup today - my gran's was legendary! - and am now having a go at making some. I really wish I'd asked my grandmothers when I was younger how to make the dishes they did particularly well. Neither of them were adventurous cooks but, on cold and miserable days, the comfort food I think of is tomato soup, chicken soup, steak pie, clootie dumpling. I've tried other recipes and while some taste great (surprisingly enough since I attempted them), they just aren't those simple dishes, with forty or fifty years of experience behind them, that I remember.

I've not spent a lot of time prepping today but I now have the majority of all the sweet things I'd want to buy for Christmas. Now I just have to think about where everything is going!

toottifrootti

Hi pooh!!

Dont know anything about your magnesium chloride - have you googled it?

thanks for the pm xx Hope you have a good time in the sun - I am jealous xx
toots xx

poohbear59

toottifrootti wrote: »

Hi pooh!!

Dont know anything about your magnesium chloride - have you googled it?

toots xx

Hi toots ,It's lovely to find you here.

I googled it and found it is used in USA. Just hoping to find someone who has tried it here. Maybe I should talk to someone from the environment agency. I just don't want to cause pollution.