Preparing for winter IV

Uniscots97

smithkinson wrote: »

These fleece lined ones feel lovely and thick though.
.

OH will kill me for posting this but when it was really cold last year he was working outside on night shift. He borrowed these to wear under his boiler suit. He said the warmth factor outweighed the embarrassment factor! :rotfl:

Rainy-Days

We have a cold pronlonged spell coming in and I looked at next week as well on the ten day forecast and it is still very chilly at night.

Notice the Daily Hell has an alarmist headline about -20 and snow again. There is nothing in the forecasts to say this is going happen at all!!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2239556/UK-weather-forecast-Britain-faces-coldest-winter-100-years-Big-Freeze-follows-flood.html

[Deleted User]

just a quickie to say that any future weather hints will be posted only on the shtf thread as multiple postings aren`t allowed. Sorry if I have offended anyone by repeat posting this morning

mineallmine

Argos do a short snow shovel (to fit in a car boot). Think it's about £10. Homebase sell snow shovels too. Good advice to get these now as they are much better to use than an ordinary shovel.

Also if you want a sledge - get one now before any snow. They're handy for helping to carry shopping as well as sledging down a hill

fattybumble85

unixgirluk wrote: »

Primark do fleece lined tights which are great under trousers as they aren't bulky. They were £4 last year not sure of the price this year.

I've just bought a pair of these and they are FABULOUS! Much better than standard opaque tights. Would thoroughly recommend them to anyone who finds their 100 deniers are leaving them chilly!

Fruball

kittie wrote: »

just a quickie to say that any future weather hints will be posted only on the shtf thread as multiple postings aren`t allowed. Sorry if I have offended anyone by repeat posting this morning

Ooooof I don't read that thread very much so will probably miss them

smithkinson

Can anyone who already has a small snow shovel to keep in the car recommend one to me? I seem to have falled down the rabbit hole of reading amazon reviews tonight, and I always struggle to come to a decision after that as there's always someone with something bad to say.

I'm just looking for something small and quite cheap to keep in the car just in case. We only have about a meter square we would have to clear at home to get off the drive on to the main road.

rising_from_the_ashes

mineallmine wrote: »

Argos do a short snow shovel (to fit in a car boot). Think it's about £10.

smithkinson wrote: »

Can anyone who already has a small snow shovel to keep in the car recommend one to me?

I got one of these last year - and will say it's a darn site stronger than some of the folding ones I've seen! It does actually move the snow!

Fab wee thing, folds up & goes in it's pouch and sits in the under-seat passenger seat storage tray in my car all year round:)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MINI-COMPACT-FOLDING-SNOW-SHOVEL-LIGHTWEIGHT-PORTABLE-CAMPING-DIGGING-SPADE-BAG-/230848395667?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item35bfa2f993

Full size

For anyone looking for a full sized snow shovel - it's def worth spending a couple £s more (and honestly just that!) to get a metal one - they will get through compacted snow and ice a lot easier than plastic ones!

Again, this is the one I've got (didn't hunt for cheapest prices) which shifts a fair amount of snow in one go!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Silverline-GT30-Square-Mouth-Shovel/dp/B000LFU08Q/ref=sr_1_52?s=diy&ie=UTF8&qid=1354173404&sr=1-52

bossymoo

I got a snow shovel in home bargains, £3.99. It's small and if you unscrew the handle it extends, rather than being a folding one. The screw part to stop it sliding back in seems fairly strong, although I've not used it yet. It's very much like this one:
http://www.selections.com/telescopic-snow-shovel.html

Very crisp morning here, cars all iced up and still dark.

DS bedroom is draught free since I used the foam tape on his window. I ought to do my bathroom, too. And see if anywhere else could use it...

Confuzzled

smithkinson wrote: »

Can anyone who already has a small snow shovel to keep in the car recommend one to me? I seem to have falled down the rabbit hole of reading amazon reviews tonight, and I always struggle to come to a decision after that as there's always someone with something bad to say.

can't help you with a suggestion for a shovel however i use reviews a lot so i thought i might give you pointers for how i make a decision, just something to keep in mind


i check out everything on amazon if possible as there always seems to be tons of reviews there, also if it's a big buy i may google the name and review to see if any blogs or magazines may have reviewed it

i always check out the balance of good reviews to bad. i read the first 10 or so good reviews and then switch to the lowest ones next

when looking at things this way you tend to see patterns forming with a product, at this point you can think to yourself 'does this pattern affect me, concern me etc etc'

also when reading the bad reviews i consider if i believe they are complaining about genuine product or customer service flaws or if the person complaining seems unreasonable or perhaps was expecting something different than what they ordered.

sometimes an item will have a ton of great review and only a single bad review will put me off IF it's something that is of genuine concern to me and i deem that it's not an acceptable risk

however, an item can have several bad reviews but if they seem to be things that are of no concern to me or don't seem a big deal to me and the majority are good reviews i will usually order the item.

the lakeland heated airer is an example because it has rave reviews then had a slew of bad ones then some one posted a review explaining to put a sheet over it and then suddenly loads of reviews backed that up. in the end i cancelled my order because it was going to be two months before i got it (this was a few years ago) i did order initially though because i could live with throwing a sheet over the top to make things dry faster, also i knew from reviews that the cord was short so i already had found a place to put it, not what i had orginally intended but an acceptable place


recently i was looking for external harddrives. i've had a few western digitals over the years, they've been so so, so i started there. lots of rave reviews but about 10% were having theirs fail in the first few months, failing to the point they couldn't retrieve the information, so that set alarm bells ringing

so i went on to check out reviews for several other makers of external hard drives. and i kept finding the same thing, particularly the more recent posts (always good to check dates, if complaints are old but then there are loads of newer good reviews it probably means the problem has been resolved) so i'm seeing this shocking trend in every manufacturer that has a decent amount of reviews, and the ones without reviews of course, at this point, make me skittish, so i looked for an alternative, a smaller but sufficient for now and cheaper flash/pen drive

the flash drives have exceptional reviews over all and i wound up buying a 64gig from kingston which i have found to be an excellent brand over the years. sure it's not the 1 terrabyte drive i was hoping for (i like to buy for years to come if possible) BUT it's enough for my most important documents, cheaper than cloud storage and was cheaper by 2/3rds than risking all of my precious data on an external that may fail.

if i had more time and it wasn't my career data on the line then maybe i'd have risked the external but i'm not happy to just shove things on dvds i wanted a second option immediately as i've had computer issues later and by taking an objective view of reviews from one company i'd had experience with and using that information to lead me to look into other company reviews i realised that for me, in this instance, i had to come up with another solution.

basically i look at a few good reviews first to get a feel for the products strengths and peoples reactions. plus you often get some clever person giving you ideas for how to make it better or get around some small niggling thing in the good reviews.

the bad reviews i take with a grain of salt to begin with, their problems and dislikes may have no bearing on YOUR use or needs. all products will receive bad reviews eventually, you can't please everyone all the time. but with a little comparison shopping of reviews so to speak, you can usually decide if the cons outweigh the pros for your own personal situation

i do give heavier weight to personal reviews HERE though, it's nice to be able to ask specific questions too and i really appreciate it when people give their honest opinions and clever solutions for specific product use here.

sorry that was so long winded, because i buy to last i find reading reviews to be of utmost importance to me when purchasing items either online or for larger buys. i'm not adverse to using a little known company if i am happy with the reviews and i've saved a lot of money that way and been very satisfied. conversely, these days you can't always trust the the big brand names to be better but you can always rely that someone will complain! do remember too that you will always see more complaints that positives for items in general, people will go out of their way to complain, not all of them will do so to give a glowing comment

ok time to get down off my soapbox and let you get back to your regularly scheduled forum post reading