Preparing for Winter V

MrsCD

Laura_Elsewhere said:

Worth checking to see if you're eligible for anything, too - neither of us gets benefits and we rent, so we thought we wouldn't be eligible for anything, but in fact we've just got our loft insulation completely free (and free to the landlords too!), on one of the energy-efficiency schemes. 

We're both retired, no benefits, but got the loft insulation done free, as we were told we're in fuel poverty. TPTB also said we are eligible for a CH upgrade, but eventually told us we would have to pay the cost of bringing gas from the main road....are you sitting down? £13,000!!!
We are sticking with our night storage heaters on economy 7.

littlemoney

I think winter has come  back this morning. 14 degrees in my living room and no sunshine to heat it up. I may have to put some heating on. I had hoped I had turned it off until the autumn.

MingVase

Trying to snow here but it always snows this time of year. Last gasp!

basketcase

MingVase said:

Trying to snow here but it always snows this time of year. Last gasp!

Snowing in the NE (of Scotland) too.  Flurries and not sticking. I've found it tends to snow more in Jan-Feb than any other time.  Hopefully the last gasp here too.

I sometimes think the title of this thread should be Maintaining for Winter, not Preparing.

Moan, moan, chunner chunner...

sammy_kaye18

littlemoney said:

I think winter has come  back this morning. 14 degrees in my living room and no sunshine to heat it up. I may have to put some heating on. I had hoped I had turned it off until the autumn.

We are a whole 8 degrees here in South Wales with no sunshine either. But it looks rather cloudy and we have a fair amount of fog about. I am sat in leggings and a jumper with a cushion over my legs to keep me warm and a hot drink. Determined not to put the heating or fire on - we are on pay meters so it costs us a small fortune to use it! Luckily the only thing that uses gas is the heating and water! 


Morning all!

Thankfully I barely had the heating on over winter either as it stayed about 5/6 degrees and only got down to freezing a handful of times but again luckily the kids and husband are well trained and will curl up under blankets etc in the living room, use layers on the bed and we have 3 dogs who love a cuddle on the sofa. 

I also splurged yesterday for £8.99 to buy a pressure pole. We have an open doorway between our kitchen and our living room which sucked out most the heat all winter so I brought a pressure pole so I could hang a curtain to keep the heat in which seems to have really worked thankfully. 

Today will mostly be spent cleaning out the slow cooker and using all the sorry looking veg in my fridge to make some soup to then freeze. 

Hows everyone else doing? 

MrsCD

Had a few snow showers this morning in County Durham but very wet and only lying on the hills so far. It looks nice when you can see the snow line but I'm glad to be safe and warm back home! Had to go out this morning and tried to collect some LFT packs, but the chemists all had notices saying they had no free packs left....made me wonder if they were keeping them to sell from Friday.
As far as food security goes, I'm grateful to be in a privileged position where I've never had to worry about it, but my dear departed MIL lived on dry shredded wheat many a time to be able to feed her family of husband and two boys.
I'm probably not the best one to give advice, but there are others here who can.
Don't lose heart. Someone will be along soon.

 I would think turning off the news would be a good start to reduce anxiety, and concentrate on what can be done rather than what can't.

London_1

DGS in Essex has snow at the moment and said he is staying in bed today no Uni class and its warmer in bed than using the heating in his shared house. The four boys were charged £350 for feb-mar in their student house and he is extremely broke bless him. I have sent him some cash to get some shoes as his have holes in and some food as he is almost out My DD and my eldest DD have also sent him some cash, he is such a hard working lad and works all weekends apart from going to Uni during the week. He is on his last three months of his third year and really struggling for cash his maintenance grant barely covers the rent, poor little devil. I can't wait for him to come home for Easter and feed him up with lots of cake etc  

Happy_Sloth

hey all,  i thought this might be the place to ask.  

We have a terribly insulated victorian house and we've been desperately trying to renovate.  I've come to realize the single biggest thermal issue we have remaining is the dog flap. 

The dogs have free access to the garden via the kitchen it's very difficult to keep the downstairs warm because the dog flap is basically an small open door to the freezing cold air outside.  it's got a rubber flap but that's very little use at keeping the drafts out as it never closes properly.    

There is always a draft and because the 3 dogs are always in and out, and because the dogs wander about fairly freely and out smart little girl is more than capable of opening a closed door!  The warmest room downstairs is the living room, but I'm up and down out of my seat like a yo-yo closing the flipping door because the hall/kitchen are basically the same temperature as it is outside and i've yet to figure out how to teach dogs to close doors behind them.   

Any ideas of something i can put over the dog flap, an extra layer perhaps something that would keep less of the cold air out? but will still give the dogs free access to outside? 

boultdj

Door curtain is the 1st thing that pops into my head Happy_Sloth.

-taff

overlapping dog curtain, they'll soon learn to nudge it aside with their noses.

oops, meant fleecy, wrote dog...