Preparing for Winter

csarina

We pay £90 for a full load of logs. They should be £120!! we get them cheaper because we live in the estate where they come from. If I had a chain saw and the right experience I would forage for them, there is always plenty of wood around. in fact we have three big pieces leaning against the wall outside, I need to get one of the farm hands to bring the chain saw down and cut them for me, I could also do with a decent axe, watched them chop the wood on the Ben Fogle show last week, I never thought of hitting the axe with a lump hammer to spilt the wood....hhhhmmmmmmm..........

Confuzzled

when we lived on skye there was a wood that we had permission to collect deadfall wood from.

even heavily pregnant, i'd go out and help my (now ex) husband gather stuff up. the boot of my car permanently had the back seats folded down and we were often seen driving back to our house with the hatch tied close with the back full to brimming with wood!

we had a chainsaw the ex referred to as daisy that he loved weilding on the larger pieces. i got to be pretty good with the hand axe for kindling. i prefer wood but we never had enough available to use it solely.

to this day i still covet any large seemingly untapped resources of wood and wood burning stoves :rotfl:

SwipernoSwiping

I followed this thread last year but felt that in mid november I'd left the preparations too late. Once again it looks like Warmfront are going to let us down and Landlady is too quick with the "well you'll just have to put up with it" answer. :mad: Too many berries on the hawthorns this year already, I am not going to be left shivering like last year.
It got so cold here that I couldn't get going to do house work! Eco 7 Storage heaters have no temp regulation, and I don't want to have to use all the oil radiators this time round.

So with fire cement ready to patch the holes in the coal fire, and Freecycle providing free wood at the minute for us to stock pile - most of the wood suppliers ran out december, not falling foul of that one either, I'm looking to get geared up and snuggly. :T

I've a baby due november so getting as much as possible done now. - Not sure where to start.. probably a list!
So:
Windows Front of house - Secondary Glazing from Wilkos? - Reseal around the woodwork - Thermoblinds?
Doors - Lined curtains?
Fire - Cement up holes, check chimney

Bathroom. Terrible black mould issues on outside facing wall but leaving the window open freezes the house and doesn't seem to make any difference- Stuck for ideas here. Dehumidifier? Expensive!
Kitchen..- Needs a seperate list.. daylight around the door, massive drafty window.



Not sure how I'll get the cloth nappies dry without a tumble drier..

Gosh.. now I am super depressed.. that wasn't my aim!

mardatha

You havent got TIME to be depressed !You need to start now ! Cold spell due in Sept, they say snow for Scotland and frost for England. Re damp bathroom wall, you can buy special paint that stops mould growing, it's not expensive and its in B&Q. Daylight round kitchen door, get a tube of silicone foamy stuff and squish it everywhere - poke crumpled newspaper in big holes first.

rachbc

My son is mortified when I drag home logs up the street that I've foraged! I got the wood from a local farm - has seen the sign a few times and meant to pop in and ask and finally did yesterday. Hopefully it will act as in incentive to dh to build my log store!

SDG31000

I don't normally post on this thread, but I just wanted to leave a message for shellieholly. I'm pretty sure that if you contact the Enviromental Health department of your local council they can help you make the ladylady perform repairs and sort out things like the mould problem. Black mould can be dangerous, especially to children. Also your house should have an energy performance certificate, which takes into account heat loss and how effective the heating and lighting is. I'm sure someone will have more info if you post on the House Buying, Renting and Selling board. Hope that helps

lm07

dreaming wrote: »

Thankyou for the idea. Wonder if I could attach the wire to the ceiling of the bay as I don't want to make holes in the shutters. Will look at that possibility. I could perhaps just put in a couple of hooks (I have some in the shed) and do the bamboo cane idea someone mentioned. So many good ideas on this thread - have converted everyone I know to wind up torches after having loads of power cuts last year and all the torches had dead batteries.

I've had the same problem. In the end I've used the telescopic rods and then brought the self adehsive tabs that have a little hook. I folded a small section of each fleece blanket and did a mini sew to make a space for the rod to go through. I put the tabs on the top bar of the wooden shutters (didn't want to mark the wall plus it wouldn't be in line with the shutters). The tricky part was holding a telescopic pole with a weighed down fleece and then delicately hooking the ends of the pole onto the little hooks and then getting to do this for the other fleece. I had planned to use ribbons to hook the fleece curtains back so I could let more sunlight in during the day but as I had already used a cream colour I found the light still came in quite well through them. I did find a couple of time the adehsive tabs came upstuck and I'd find a curtain fallen down in the morning so I think I need some open hooks on suction caps. The only things with suction caps is that they're no good on walls or the top of my blinds!

SwipernoSwiping

Off to B&Q! Will have to raid the christmas toy fund but I want to get as much done while the sun is shining.
SDG31000 - thanks for your comments - I'll bob over to the other board and gather my facts on that one.

ginnyknit

Shelliehooly you need to get rid of any mould spores before you paint then with bleach and water - but if you check Kim and Aggies ' how clean is my house' site and see if theres a better way of doing it first. then paint when the wall has dries out. Sunshine kills off the last of the mould but it alwasy grows on the wall that gets no sun - duh that was obvious wasnt it

Athome1

annie123 wrote: »

I've just checked coal prices for here in London £11.05 for 25kg:eek:
Its cheaper for me to get them from the petrol station.


It might be worth your while doing an online search and buying them on line. The first year we had our stove I had no idea of prices and I found that buying them online wasn't that much different from the local coal merchant - but I prefer to support the local guy so that's who I now use. Here's one that sells 1/2 tonne pallets (sorry if you only wanted very small amounts) http://www.coaldelivery.co.uk/acatalog/housecoal_open_fires_multifuel_stoves.html