Preparing for Winter V

[Deleted User]

I looked at my (netatmo) graph for last nights temperature where I keep the monitor, which is in my bedroom and now realise why I was wakeful a couple of times. It was 16 degrees and that, at my age is too cold for health. First off I stripped the bed and put the electric underblanket on, so I have a warm bed when I get in. Then I replaced all the covers with cozee home fleece and replaced the welsh wool blanket on top of the duvet.

I temporarily put my lakeland towel heater in the bedroom for extra heat because the radiator is very tiny, however the building fabric up there must have cooled without me realising, once up to temperature then it will remain there pretty well all night. I left the bathroom doors open as they have decent radiators and will help and the pellet stove is on full pelt. I was so busy, I never appreciated the building fabric cooling down and mine is an eco house btw, must be freezing in many homes now. Well winter fuel allowance was in today and mine is being spent on heat, exactly what it is for

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5372296.stm

Lucy5781

Little oil heater for DS bedroom has broken. Heating off between 10pm and 6am, his room dropped to 16-17°c overnight. Put another long sleeve top on him over the shoulder straps of his sleeping bag.

At 15 months next week he's big enough for the cot bed duvet but I'm worried he'll wriggle out from it and get cold with no sleeping bag on. Ah mummy worries.

tori.k

That's the issue we have here Kittie, we can't get enough heat into the stone walls as most days nobody is at home to get a fire going until after 6pm.
This morning the indoor temp is 13.4c we've never been able to get the ambient temperature above 16.5 during the dark half of the year.
I've given up we've added insulation where we can, plugged most of the drafts ( need to keep some so damp doesn't become a problem) but have to except that it's just miserable here in winter. But in fairness it was only designed as a summer holiday let.
We will run out of wood in January by my guess, I'm loathed to buy anymore in as we didn't anticipate another winter here and it already cost me £140. So may consider a temporary bedsit type living and just heat two rooms by electric rather than buy in more the house is upside down so would be easy to do.

Wednesday2000

I could not get warm enough yesterday. I had a really bad sleep the night before and felt tired so I don't know if that was why.

I was wearing my scarf indoors!:eek: I also had my warm slipper boots on and a furry throw wrapped around me.

I bought a new halogen heater, but I didn't want to plug it in and fall asleep as I was on my own.

I feel okay today, but it does feel chilly still. I will try out the heater today.:)

mardatha

Tori logs are not hot enough for real winter weather, use coal
The north wind is howling through the double glazing in the back of the house, the bathroom is an arctic zone and nothing I do seems to help. Kitchen is bearable, also at back and north facing. Rest of house is warm, livingroom constant at 26C. As long as the coal lasts lol but I have 2 big coal bunkers.

[Deleted User]

yes, mar is right, logs just don`t give out enough heat to warm stone. Re that living in two rooms tori, that is what many of us did in the old days, when pipes and toilets froze. Use anything you can to insulate those rooms, newspapers, cs duvets, old carpet. It does not matter how the room looks but you need to get some heat in there safely and then keep it there. Don`t block off the air vent. If push comes to shove and it gets to minus temperatures, then construct something like a tent in one room, for sleeping

That volcano in bali, likely means that temperatures will go low because all that dust in the layers around the earth will be stopping the suns rays from getting in, feeble though they are at this time of year

tori.k

It's all our own fault, we were foolishly confident that when our offer on the next house was excepted in June that we would be completed by now, so didn't make an allowance for wood this winter. We now have a oil filled radiator in the downstairs hall to take the chill off. Only reason I've been putting off the bedsit idea is I don't like electricals in the bedrooms and the only way DH will agree is if I let him have the blasted goggle box.
Lucky enough no Frost this morning, but very wet. I work outside so am a bit more hardened to the weather than DH sat in his central heated office, but he's also diabetic so we will have to sort the heating out more, we've had so many mild winters in Cornwall over the last few years we've got quite complacent

mardatha

I think a lot of the problem is that some modern-ish houses are not designed to run cheaply and stay warm. Even an old house can be made cosy if it has an open fire, if you use warm warm clothes, screens and door curtains as draught proofing. Copy the Victorians lol - look at wing armchairs, they were designed for draughts. Plus there is a fine balance between draughts and damp - if you have one then you cut down the other. But if you have no open fireplace then things get complicated and expensive with things like condensation damp and mould. I think, anyway. Just my witterings We have snow forecast for tonight and up north is getting a pasting, with a lot of thundersnow around. I had that here twice and it's bloody scary.

Eenymeeny

Snow today in the North East! It's beginning to feel a bit like Christmas! :snow_laug

Out,_Vile_Jelly

I once had to explain to a Norwegian friend what a draught excluder was (mine was comedy cat shaped). She explained that in Norway they don't build houses with draughts.

I leave home in the dark and return in the dark, meaning it's easy to forget to go outside and fill the bird feeders and clear ice from the birdbath. When I thawed it last weekend there was a bad-tempered feathery queue to splash about in it.

I've just made a cup of tea with water from a kettle I forgot to turn on at the wall. I don't recommend this approach to hot drink consumption.