Preparing for Winter V

fionaandphil

I saw this and thought it a good idea, but basically if you've got any old material you could make one with that such as an old pair of jeans or an offcut from some curtains. Really depends how pretty you want it to be

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/aug/16/craft-kids-make-draught-excluder

ET22

@fionaandphil , great, thankyou!

Floss

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82084235#Comment_82084235

I have a wider than standard door, and found a rolled-up fleece blanket was perfect. Tie it with ribbon so you can wash it now & again 😉

Laura_Elsewhere

My octogenarian Dad is delighted with his rolling draught-excluders- long narrow cardboard rolls from inside wrapping-paper, almost the full width of the door, with some bubble-wrap round it. He puts a long piece of string through the tube and ties the ends to hook over a couple of small cup-hooks screwed into the bottom section of the door :)
As you open and close the door, the draught-excluder moves with it, so no need to keep moving it by hand or foot; and it doesn't drag on the floor because it's a roller :)

He's ever so pleased with them! :)

And no sewing! :D

WickedLady4

My mum used to put rolled up newspaper in a stocking and knot the end when I was a child!

Laura_Elsewhere

My parents have had over 18 months of insurance-wrangling after their roof was torn off in a storm, but finally the rooms are now habitable, and we've been organising new bed and furniture and bedlinen for my old childhood bedroom to become a general spare room.
It feels lovely to be planning how to make it cosy and comfortable, even though we won't be living there!

It's also made me view our flat through a new angle: if we were starting from scratch, what might we do or have, to make it cosy, that we currently don't do or have?

fionaandphil

Gosh I feel for them @Laura_Elsewhere we had something similar with policy exp3rt a few years ago. It took ages to sort out even though they agreed to pay immediately. The contractors were dreadful and we've started getting on our own tradesmen to fix all the things which they did on the cheap. I wouldn't mind but my own guys quoted £4K the insurers said it was too expensive, offered £2K and then when they did it it was over £4500. Glad it's all fixed for you now and it's nice to have it all finished and life back to normal, even better if it feels like an enhancement.

Laura_Elsewhere

thanks, @fionaandphil - other way round with excellent contractors but Av1va refusing to pay what was covered… idiotic things like them stripping carpets from all four attic rooms and then saying they'll only pay for two new carpets?!?! The entire top floor had to be demolished to skirting-board level and rebuilt so massive work, but made so much worse by the exhaustion of them messing about- and the first claim on a policy paid since the 1970s at that!!

Anyway… done now, thank heavens.

fionaandphil

Gosh that is awful but useful to know. You would expect a big company to be better at these things.

Van_Girl

I used to work in insurance reinstatement, and Aviva was generally pretty good at paying out, probably depends on who your loss adjuster is

But insurance reinstatement is incredibly slow, because there's often so many people it goes through before decisions are made, so I imagine that is a nightmare when you're living through it