Preparing for Winter V

Doveling

Boiler serviced and chimney swept yesterday.
Curtains being made for patio doors. 
Have bought two more hot water bottles. ( Can see them being like gold dust next winter  )
Have bought a Dreamland heated throw (thanks to whoever it was that mentioned them, sorry I've forgotten who!)

Thinking that in the winter we may move our main meal to lunchtime as we have solar panels so cooking will be cheaper then.

Laura_Elsewhere

leftatthetrafficlights said:

 also have open fires so if the SHTF, we'll still have some heat in the house. I've just taken delivery of a load of logs. 

Over the summer months is the ideal time to get your chimneys cleaned - annually is recommended for most types of fire, and in a few cases insurance companies will want a copy of the certificate issued by the sweep. 

Fire brigades are already having housefires from people trying to stay warm using fireplaces (or inventing "fireplaces"!) which don't have safe chimneys... 

And never ever ever be tempted to use a charcoal brazier or bbq indoors - even one that has gone out will still give off enough carbon monoxide to kill a whole family...   

Laura_Elsewhere

We're in a rented, all-electric top-floor flat so a bit more limited in options than many. 

We've never used our heating, so have an advantage in not being used to tropical heating... we have Victorian "stone pig" hot water bottles which you fill from a kettle and then they act as little storage-heaters. Uncovered (I sit with my feet on one in the sitting-room in winter!), it'll stay hot for a couple of hours and warm the air well; under bedclothes, it will be actively hot, not jsut warm, for around 8-10 hours. 
In all the colder months, even the bitterest -12C night weather, we open the windows front and back for 3 minutes to change the air, and then I re-fill the stone pigs and put one in the bedroom on top of the bedclothes to warm the air, and the other two in the sitting-room to warm the air. Mid-afternoon, I re-fill the bedroom one and put it in the middle of the bed, and then at bedtime we re-fill it a third time and put it about 3/4 way down the bed for overnight. sometimes we only use the bedroom one, sometimes we only fill them morning and bedtime, sometimes we re-fill all three throughout the day, but even when the outside of the pig is cool the water inside is still washing-up-water-hot, so takes little energy to re-boil. 

We have good, lined curtains at the windows (the sitting-room ones were made for my childhood bedroom in 1980!), and last year we put up a plastic curtain rail just inside the front door, and I have two curtains to cut and sew for a portiere, which should help a lot with insulating the flat's front door. 

Generally, a thin jumper and cardi will do fine, but I have lightweight shawls, etc., to layer on if needs be. 

sammy_kaye18

Doveling said:

Have bought two more hot water bottles. ( Can see them being like gold dust next winter  )
Have bought a Dreamland heated throw (thanks to whoever it was that mentioned them, sorry I've forgotten who!)

Thinking that in the winter we may move our main meal to lunchtime as we have solar panels so cooking will be cheaper then.

Literally top of my list to get next is hot water bottles because I genuinely think that they will be hard to get. 

Stocking up on candles too and have strings of  solar lights in the garden that I’m debating moving and putting in the kitchen but leaving the charger panel on a windowsill or next to a window to charge as needed. 

Looking into heated throws for the sofa for husband to help his arthritis too because he seems to feel it the most 

Primrose

I think it's imminently sensible to stock up on next winter warmers now.  Some probably will be in short supply or much more expensive and increased heating charges will really be starting to bite. I feel the cold terribly so decent thermals, thick fleeces and woollen knee blankets are high on my list! 

C_J

Does anyone please have experience of burning an occasional lump of coal in with the wood in a woodburner? I only want to add a lump or two throughout the whole evening in a bid to extend the heat and use slightly fewer logs, but I think I need to buy (what appears to be a very expensive) extra grate to go in the base. Is this right? Does it need to be a special one or can I use an existing old small ordinary metal fire grate if it fits? Is it necessary at all?

Doveling

C_J -  you need airflow under coal that's why it needs to be on a grate.
If you google "can I burn coal with logs" you'll find a lot of information.
We have a multi fuel stove but never burn both together.
We have ordered a couple of firebricks to put inside and reduce the firebed.
Hoping this will  cut down the amount of logs we use. HTH

Effician

C_J said:

Does anyone please have experience of burning an occasional lump of coal in with the wood in a woodburner? I only want to add a lump or two throughout the whole evening in a bid to extend the heat and use slightly fewer logs, but I think I need to buy (what appears to be a very expensive) extra grate to go in the base. Is this right? Does it need to be a special one or can I use an existing old small ordinary metal fire grate if it fits? Is it necessary at all?

Do you clean your grate out after every wood fire or leave a bed of ash on which you build your new wood fire.

C_J

We leave a bed of ash. It's not a multi fuel stove but I am sure the company who fitted said we could burn the occasional bit of coal, but I don't want to wreck it!

Effician

C_J said:

We leave a bed of ash. It's not a multi fuel stove but I am sure the company who fitted said we could burn the occasional bit of coal, but I don't want to wreck it!

Only adding a couple of lumps of coal during the evening hardly seem worth the cost of a new grate,

My daughter often burns wood on top of coal in a multifuel stove mainly for convenience of easy relighting of logs, she has gch too, however she has to clean the grate every day after nights burn.

We only burn logs on a good bed of ash now & only empty the pan weekly, the stove is our only form of heating. Ours is a  multifuel stove & have tried burning logs on coal but found it not as efficient in our case as logs only.

The main problem i find is that the wood ash chokes the coals so riddling of the grate is needed to maintain the heat in the coals, the downside is this then burns the logs faster, in contrast a good deep bed of hot wood ash acts very similar to a choked up layer of coals