Preparing for Winter

zarazara

28 degrees in the South east today according to BBC weather, if this is winter ,bring it on!

missychrissy

Sunnyday wrote: »

Warm and sunny here in Yorkshire today too, very windy but the wind is very warm.

My wind up lantern arrived today :j can`t wait for it to go dark

SD

I have the same sense of excitement at a new money saving gadget. Are we sad?

Confuzzled

i've waited a few days to post this as i wanted to get my deposit paid before mentioning my new flat (didn't want to jinx it or anything! )

anyway as some of you know i discovered my current flat has a very very old boiler system that runs constantly and isn't even connected to the thermostat (i have one of those dual thermostats for hot water and for heat) needless to say i was horrified at paying 55 quid a month without even having heat on for the gas

anyway, i found a nice flat. it's upstairs and i have someone next to me too so it should be fairly warm just from the neighbours heat. it's only about 20 years old and all of the windows are very tight (i checked!)

it's got storage heating which previously i'd have shied away from however, with the current price of gas and having done some homework i realise i'll be MUCH better off with this form of heating even if i make the place quite warm.

the price per kwh is currently 1p more during daytime hours but it's less than half during the economy 7 hours. what i will do is start my washing at midnight, put the slow cooker on too (i normally stay up til 1am anyway) and of course that's when the heat will go on. this should keep things down as well as i can.

the bedrooms are smaller and seemed quite cozy, i doubt i'll even need to turn the heaters on in there unless it gets very very cold. i will leave the hall heater on low to keep the bathroom from turning into an icicle and also to keep the temperature difference a little less so that when we open the living room door to go to the loo we don't suddenly lose all of our heat!

we have a main door entrance and carpeted stairs. there is a window at the landing at the top of the stairs, i will put bubblewrap in that and on the glass on the door at the top of the stairs (so glad they thought to put that there, i don't care to pay to heat the stairs!) i don't know yet if i'll need draught excluders but i can knock some up fairly quickly if i do

so far in my current place i've not turned on the heat, i just sit with a duvet over me and it's actually kinda nice to snuggle under it whilst watching telly. a cup of tea helps if my hands are cold!

in the new flat (move in oct 1st) i plan to try ALL the heaters the first cool night just to be sure they all work. last thing i want to do is know there is a very cold snap coming and find out THEN that they don't work!

after that i plan to leave them off as long as possible. the living room has lovely heavy red velvet (ladies of ill repute red!) curtains that are quite long as well as some net curtains so this should help a lot with keeping that room warm. if need be i'll put some fleeces behind them but i don't think i will need to

it has a huge leather sofa so i'll have to have a throw or duvet for that else it might get a bit cold however it will be big enough and comfy enough to snuggle up with my daughter on so i'm looking forward to that. the kitchen is just off the living room and we'll have two computers in the living room too so i think i probably won't have to turn the heat up too high in there most times.

i'm hoping i have elderly or heat loving neighbours downstairs for obvious reasons! i spoke with the letting agent today that showed me the flat, i don't think my upstairs neighbour will be of much help, he's from the north of scotland and probably used to the cold! :rotfl:

also of note, i got my fee waiver for the OU so i technically start my course the day i move in (ok BT make sure you don't take 4 weeks to set up my internet this time!) i'm really looking forward to it. it's in a town about 10 miles from where i am now and there is a huge and lovely park about 2/3rds of a mile from me and just past that is a huge Lidl and the train station (3/4 of a mile from me) so i'm quite pleased by that. all the main shopping areas are no further than i walk now and many are sooner AND i'm even right off a main bus route so it's very handy for a chance (busses here are pathetic!) i can't wait to get there and see what prepping i can do... it's def very autumnal here and it's really frustrating my squirrel nature to NOT be doing much prep work since i don't know what i will or won't need right now... anyway hope everyone is well and managing tonight in this dreary dreary weather

Sunnyday

missychrissy wrote: »

I have the same sense of excitement at a new money saving gadget. Are we sad?

Lol nope - we are MS, sensible and prepared

One of the girls at work said that she would be heading over to mine if there`s a powercut. Strange thing is i don`t even think that she has a candle in the house never mind a torch or a lantern.

I would have thought that seeing someone else preparing just in case would prompt her but nope. I plan on using my new lantern quite a bit - not just in power cuts.

Happy gadgeting

SD

Sunnyday

Congratulations on your new flat Confuzzled! :j

Hope that you will be warm and MS in it - it certainly sounds good.

SD

Confuzzled

Sunnyday wrote: »

Congratulations on your new flat Confuzzled! :j

Hope that you will be warm and MS in it - it certainly sounds good.

SD

thank you! i'm quite pleased with it. the rent is 85quid a month LESS which is a bonus!

right now i use about 30 quid a month in electric and i'm paying 55 a month for gas thanks to this crap boiler! the daytime increase in price will bump my total up about 5quid a month anyway so i'll say that through winter just for my normal stuff not including heating i'd be likely to pay say 40quid a month... that includes the price difference and a generous allowance for using more lights etc.

right now i'm already paying 85quid a month for combined gas and electric and that's without heat so even if i spend another 45quid a month for heat there i'd break even compared to here and to be quite honest i think it would be hard, given the way we live, to use 45quid a month in heat alone unless it's a very severe winter. at worst i might spend 100quid for a few months in winter (doubt it but possible) but the rest of the year should be quite reasonable overall.

given that here i was likely to spend 35quid a month in winter for electric and at least 100 quid a month for gas though more like 125 (i talked to my neighbours who are on the same plan! and also have the same crap boiler) i'm def much much better off, and to top that off the radiators here only warm at the top so i'd likely have frozen my patootie off anyway and paid a king's ransom for the 'honour' so as you can imagine i'm quite chuffed!

Patchwork_Quilt

Well done Confuzzled. I hope you will be warm and happy there.

Patchwork_Quilt

We got the landing curtains up yesterday, which might help insulate the house a little.

twiglet98

This should be obvious, but I must be missing something: how do you hang 'double' curtains? I have rails with big rings, and all my curtains are pencil pleat or pinch pleat (charity shop or ebay bargains), and I just can't see how I can get two hooks into one ring. Is it better to safety-pin another layer to the existing curtain, either room side or window side, depending how attractive it is, or otherwise? I have aluminium DG windows but they are all a bit draughty as the house is a funny shape and twists on the clay soil!

Do separate ready-made curtain linings fix onto the curtain, or the same rail as the curtain? Same problem really, I just can't picture how to do it.

jamanda

Separate ready made curtain linings come with a different sort of header tape. The hook picks up the linings and then straight on to the curtain - therefore two "loops" on same hook. It is very simple once you see the tapes.

HTH