Preparing for Winter

NualaBuala

Aw, big hugs to both of you. Hope you can give yourselves a bit of TLC.
N x

ChocClare

We lit the stove on Saturday night as it was damp and horrid - and it was so hot after about half an hour that DH had to sit in the other room and I was sitting in just a strappy top! Weird weather here - not cold really - just damp and autumnal but still strangely muggy, even after we had the mother of all downpours yesterday.

Seafarers_wife, the idea of a box for power cuts etc is quite brilliant. We had a power cut not so long ago and were plunged into total blackness (it was the middle of the night admittedly but I was still up) and you do forget how TOTALLY black it is when every light for miles around goes out. We don't have streetlamps anyway, but there is an illuminated pub sign (usually) which we can see out of the window to creep up the stairs by. And although we have a million torches and an old-fashioned telephone for just such a situation, DO YOU THINK I COULD FIND ANY OF THEM????!!!!! The torch which normally hangs from my bedpost DH had taken into the garage earlier in the day; the old telephone was nowhere to be found - my (patience of a saint) husband ripped our only other old telephone off the wall of the bedroom upstairs so he could plug it into the only working phone socket downstairs. Just as well we're decorating. What I didn't realise is that you can't phone the electricity board on mobile phone because they can't then tell where you are to tell you how long the power cut is going to last. So I love the idea of a shoebox, which I shall put on the top of the piano (all of us should be able to find a piano in the dark after all) with the old phone in it and a selection of torches. Once we've got them, we can find all the other things we need. Chocolate and wine are never a problem in our house...;)

SwipernoSwiping

Can anyone recomend a good "Daylight" energy saver bulb. I too felt the effects of gloom and doom with the heavy clouds and rain the other day.

Ada3050 wrote: »

Next job is to have the storage rads apart and swap the non working elements over so they work as they should.

if your storage radiators are anything like mine,(appart from pretty useless) you have two dials one for the input and one for "boost"? The boost being supposedly the bit that decides when the most heat is let out from the storage bricks.

Having pulled a heater apart personally (or more being nosey when it was being repaired and asking too many questions) I learned that this boost function is controled by a metal plate that operates as a flap. - Sensible - really considering metal conducts heat :eek:. Needless to say the two people that have been out to our rads and some internet research on top all agree that the flap is pointless.
It is best to operate them on a no boost setting if you want the heat to last through the day as long as poss.
(in my case thats till about 11am...:mad:)

nicki_2

Well I'm about to go and dig out the winter door curtains so I can find the backdoor one...there's a minor hurricane blowing through it that I'm sure is making me cold :snow_grin I don't want to go packing it with paper or bubblewrap just yet as the workmen will need to get out there when they fit the central heating.

Sessie

Oh my goodness this thread is a GOLDMINE of information!!

Have recently started trying to live more frugally and to plan ahead and generally... just sort myself out (not particularly in a mess but you can always do to pull yourself up by the bootstraps eh??) and this thread is inspirational!! Consider yourselves ALL thanked - if I had to manually do it it would take me three days!!

Have made lists galore based on posts from here - next step, getting things in, storing them.... oh it's all so EXCITING!! As you can see, I have no life.

Thank you all again, will continue watching the thread with interest.

x

elisamoose

ChocClare wrote: »

We lit the stove on Saturday night as it was damp and horrid - and it was so hot after about half an hour that DH had to sit in the other room and I was sitting in just a strappy top! Weird weather here - not cold really - just damp and autumnal but still strangely muggy, even after we had the mother of all downpours yesterday.

Seafarers_wife, the idea of a box for power cuts etc is quite brilliant. We had a power cut not so long ago and were plunged into total blackness (it was the middle of the night admittedly but I was still up) and you do forget how TOTALLY black it is when every light for miles around goes out. We don't have streetlamps anyway, but there is an illuminated pub sign (usually) which we can see out of the window to creep up the stairs by. And although we have a million torches and an old-fashioned telephone for just such a situation, DO YOU THINK I COULD FIND ANY OF THEM????!!!!! The torch which normally hangs from my bedpost DH had taken into the garage earlier in the day; the old telephone was nowhere to be found - my (patience of a saint) husband ripped our only other old telephone off the wall of the bedroom upstairs so he could plug it into the only working phone socket downstairs. Just as well we're decorating. What I didn't realise is that you can't phone the electricity board on mobile phone because they can't then tell where you are to tell you how long the power cut is going to last. So I love the idea of a shoebox, which I shall put on the top of the piano (all of us should be able to find a piano in the dark after all) with the old phone in it and a selection of torches. Once we've got them, we can find all the other things we need. Chocolate and wine are never a problem in our house...;)

I have an old corded phone for power cuts.Cordless ones don't usually work and mobile batteries have to be conserved in case its a long one!

Confuzzled

shellieholly wrote: »

Needless to say the two people that have been out to our rads and some internet research on top all agree that the flap is pointless.
It is best to operate them on a no boost setting if you want the heat to last through the day as long as poss.
(in my case thats till about 11am...:mad:)

a HUGE thank you for that! i have been in the UK for 11 years and no one has ever been able to properly explain to me how storage heaters 'work'. i'd never seen any in the states so you can imagine my shock upon finding them in scotland

i have storage heaters now so after i post this i'm going to go around to all of them and turn the boost to zero... i have to say i always suspected it wasn't doing what it implied it does, now i know i was right! :rotfl:

Confuzzled

Oh dear, i just checked the storage heaters and two have output and input and the one in the hall has boost control and input.

from this i infer that output is boost... is that right?

*scratches her head*

jackieglasgow

yes. You shouldn't need it any higher than one, and if for example the house was chilly at 5pm, you should in theory be able to put it up to 3 or 4 and more heat should come out. I was also taught to leave the input at about 75%.

NualaBuala

I used to have storage heaters and left the output at the minimum setting as I didn't want them throwing out valuable heat while I was out at work. If it was cold I turned the output up to the max when I got home to release all the stored heat - I could actually hear that metal vent squeaking as it opened. Anyway, that worked ok so long as I remembered to turn the output dial back down before I went to bed and it started taking in more energy overnight. I hated them - hope I never have to have them again!