Preparing for Winter V

MingVase

Times are all different now with modern farming re lambs etc.

MsPennyMinder

Hi does anyone have any recommendations for small portable electric heaters? Preferably energy efficient ones? One side of my (new to me) flat doesn't have an radiator and its causing damp (and general colddd) problems!

pollyanna_26

Working_Mum said:

All this talk of light and winter etc  so I thought I'd I read a book called "Wintering" by Katherine May

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/04/wintering-how-i-learned-to-flourish-when-life-became-frozen-katherine-may-memoir-review

It helped me put a new slant on Winter - I loved it.

My eldest dd used to have a subcription to Country Living magazine and would pass them on to me.I used to wonder about the person who made the lovely craft projects especially the Christmas ones. Dd worked for a wel known international bookseller and one year sent me a copy of "Making Winter" by Emma Mitchell .   Emma was the person behind all the lovely natural foraged Christmas trees and decorations.

I didcovered her blog "Silver Pebble " lots of different projects. Not all the projects she spent her winters making appealed to me. I can crochet but am more of  knitter but she didn;t seem to knit so quite a number of crochet items. There were some good foodie recipies but something surprising was Silver Clay. I'd never heard of it but was able to make very low cost jewellery and decorative items with it for gifts.

The pictures in the book were lovely showing the area around her fenland home. I still have it on a bookshelf and have a little browse through when Winter is on the way. I used to love the season when I was younger and look forward to hopefully snowy days . Like others here I find it harder now I'm older and Arthritis , Fibro etc don't go well with colder weather and lower light levels and darker days seem more of an endurance test while I wait for Spring to arrive.

I often think of Hannah Hauxwell alone on her remote farm living in poverty as she trudged through deep snow to feed what she referred to as her beasts. Each winter I watch again the dvds showing how she lived uncomplaining for decades and was relieved when she finally had to move to the village, found fame and spent her last years among friends, warm and well fed. She was a rmarkable woman and as I rewatch those dvds i tell myself I am lucky not to have endured such hardship and to stop being such a wimp when winter arrives.

I have no idea how to post a link to her book but will have a look at "Wintering" so thank you for the link.

pollyx

LadOnTheHill

Electric heaters are all the same in terms of energy usage - a 2kw heater will draw 2kw of electricity and output 2kw of heat. The difference is the style of heater itself - fan, radiant, oil filled,  etc.

Fan heaters will blwo the hot air around the room, meaning it travels further and heats a larger area, but at a cost of "intensity" of heat. You'll have a lot of warm air spread out over a larger area, compared to a radiant heater which will give you a smaller, hotter area. That's assuming both heaters are 2kw, you often find a radiant heater uses less electricity because it keeps the heat in one area. It doesn't need to "replace" the heat, as it were. An oil filled radiator will take longer to warm up, but also longer to cool down, meaning you don't experience such variations in temperature. For example,  a fan heater with a thermostat and an oil filled rad with a thermostat are both set to stop heating at 20°. The fan heater will stop heating straight away, but the oil falled rad will keep giving off heat even though it's not drawing from the mains. You'll likely notice the fan heater going off sooner because the heat you feel stops right away.

The use-case is the important thing. If you're sitting in a chair,  not moving, a radiant heater might be better. You'll have all the heat in one place, rather than being blown about the room, and it'll likely use less electricity to keep you feeling as warm. A fan heater will warm up a larger space more quickly, as it'll push the heat around. They're also pretty instant heat, unlike an oil filled rad. They might be better to heat a large space over a longer period, but they do take a while to warm up. 

If you have damp, consider a dehumidifier. They're not as cheap as heaters, but they actually remove the moisture from the air and you can get rid of it. A heater will enable the air to hold more moisture before it collects on surfaces, but as the heater goes off, the moisture will just collect on the surface again. You have cold wet air, or hot wet air. The dehumidifier - the zeolite models, anyway - will output hot dry air and such the moisture out of the air. When the air is dry, it'll stay dry until more moisture comes in. They cost more to buy, but are much cheaper to run than a heater, and won't need to be run for so long. I have an Inventor Rise model, available from the big river website, that uses about 700w on full-on, turbo mode and about half that in eco mode. It'll take the humidity down to less than 30%,and won't use very much electricity to keep it there.

Si_Clist

So there was a fire where the wire that brings us electricity from France ends in Kent.  That was in September.  It now looks like it's going to be May 2023 before it's back to rights.  Maybe it's an idea to have another count of your candles ...

https://www.energylivenews.com/2021/10/15/fire-struck-ifa-interconnector-not-fully-operational-until-2023-national-grid-says/

PipneyJane

Si_Clist said:

So there was a fire where the wire that brings us electricity from France ends in Kent.  That was in September.  It now looks like it's going to be May 2023 before it's back to rights.  Maybe it's an idea to have another count of your candles ...

https://www.energylivenews.com/2021/10/15/fire-struck-ifa-interconnector-not-fully-operational-until-2023-national-grid-says/

Hmmm.... I hadn't heard about that.  Thanks for the tip-off.  Wonder if it is a contributing factor to our rising energy prices?

- Pip

cuddlymarm

Hi guys
I know we’re just coming into spring but as far as I can see it next winter is going to be a toughie.
So maybe we need to think outside the box and start sooner than later, getting the winter preps sorted earlier and building up a war chest ( so to speak) of food ( packets and tins) fuel ( if you have access to a wood burner or open fire ) and money if you can afford it. All things that can be dipped into as emergency measures when your money is needed elsewhere.
I know if you’re on here chances are you know what you are doing but there must be a lot of newbies that are realising that things are going to get bad and I really feel for those with young families. It’s not always possible to leave the heat off, or not use the washing machine, or do without the car. The list is different for everyone.
The cost of living is going up daily at the moment and after yesterday’s government offering I think we know we’re on our own so I thought maybe this thread needed a bump to get started early.

So I’ll start. I try to add a couple of tins or packets to my store cupboard each week. Or shampoo, soap etc to allow me to not shop if I need to. I rotate every week before my shop so nothing goes to waste.
A lot of preppers have more than one freezer, but will the running cost be worthwhile.
Those that buy solid fuel or wood, will the price rise later as more people move over to using it too.
If fuel is  getting really expensive and difficult to buy for the electricity suppliers might there be power cuts ( again a thought for having a lot of frozen stores) I really struggled to find normal candles recently ( if the power had gone my flat would have smelt fabulous 😂)

Anyway I hope no one minded me doing this.
Bye for now

MingVase

Great idea to resurrect this thread, ty cuddlemarm. I'm buying thermals all summer:  base layers for both of us and thermal jammies for me. Also stock up on hot water bottles everybody as they might get scarce.

Uniscots97

This definitely makes sense. I'll probably use the summer months to wash and line dry all the heavy winter things and do a stock take and repair anything that needs repaired. Summer can be a good time to stock up on candles too and I've heard (though not tried it) that putting the candles in the freezer before burning makes them last longer. 

Living_proof

Excellent idea to use the warmer longer days to do as much as possible to ease the discomfort of what is to be next winter. Car boot sales,Olio and dehydrating everything in sight for me! Try and get ahead of the game now.