Preparing for Winter

mardatha

I think thick lined curtains would make a huge difference with single glazing and draughty old windows. No point if you have DG and good windows

Charis

richardc1983 wrote: »

Please take time to read this if you can this is all over the place at the moment yet the met office wont report it or the newspapers for fear it will cause mass panic: Read his blog it makes chilling reading.

Sorry, am I missing something? We've already agreed that winter will come as usual, and may be severe this year. Many of us posters on the Old Style forum prepared in advance last year and we will do so again.

I can't see a link among those in your posts that will actually help us to prepare for a really bad winter, nor have you shared any of your own experiences of coping with previous winters. I read through the first of your links and the blog is scattered with 'my view', 'my idea' 'I am currently predicting' yet he seems to be relying on data gathered from the internet. He tells us the scientists are wrong but nowhere can I find his own credentials.

When we get the winter we are all expecting no doubt he will claim to have predicted it first. :snow_laug
Forgive me for being frank but the last thing we need on this thread is scaremongering.

Charis
(Survivor of the 'Great Freeze' in 1963 )

richardc1983

Charis wrote: »

Sorry, am I missing something? We've already agreed that winter will come as usual, and may be severe this year. Many of us posters on the Old Style forum prepared in advance last year and we will do so again.

I can't see a link among those in your posts that will actually help us to prepare for a really bad winter, nor have you shared any of your own experiences of coping with previous winters. I read through the first of your links and the blog is scattered with 'my view', 'my idea' 'I am currently predicting' yet he seems to be relying on data gathered from the internet. He tells us the scientists are wrong but nowhere can I find his own credentials.

When we get the winter we are all expecting no doubt he will claim to have predicted it first. :snow_laug
Forgive me for being frank but the last thing we need on this thread is scaremongering.

Charis
(Survivor of the 'Great Freeze' in 1963 )

To be fair hes using the same information available to him that the other forecasters use...

last year the met office forecast a mild winter whereas this guy clearly said in his posts that we was in for a bad winter... they had the same information and the met office will have had more tools to "get it wrong"

http://globalcoolingiceagesnowballearth.blogspot.com/

http://globalcoolingnewiceageuk.blogspot.com/2009/11/global-cooling-new-ice-age-uk.html

Charis

mardatha wrote: »

You get chaintype thingies to clamp over your shoes/wellies. And I know they say about berries and hard winters - but we did not have more than the usual berries last year- and yet we had 5 weeks of lying snow and at the deepest it was over 4ft. So I think the berries might come AFTER a hard winter LOL and not before !

I agree with you Mardatha. I have masses of fruit on my apple tree this year because spring was so late that the frosts has gone before it blossomed. More blossom = more fruits... and maybe more berries?

flabadabado

Some fab ideas here, thanks to all - keep them coming! We're fairly lucky that the winters down here are mild compared to a lot of you posters (South coast) but last year really caught us out! DH, DD (only a couple of weeks old) and I popped into Tesco for about half an hour, sunny as we went in... A good few inches of snow as we came out!

The short drive home was the scariest of my life, don't get me wrong I've driven in snow to get to work etc but with the added resposibility of having a newborn in the back it was truely terrfiying! We always carry what I call my 'traffic jam' bag, spare nappies, food, bottles, cartons of milk, blankets etc etc for little one but never thought about us before. Can just see it now, DD will be snug as a bug, we'll be fozen with icicles hanging from our noses:rotfl:

Note to self.. get adult emergency supplies sorted asap!

richardc1983

Charis wrote: »

I can't see a link among those in your posts that will actually help us to prepare for a really bad winter, nor have you shared any of your own experiences of coping with previous winters.

)

Of course it is relevant to this thread people are allready talking of getting camping stoves that sort of thing.

I have shared experiences in the past of dealing with the winter.

I am fortunate that I can have plenty of heating on if I need to... so am always warm... and I usually follow other peoples tips.

I am active in many of the heating forums as apposed to this forum so my advice is given out in other ways.

So just because I dont participate with old style tips etc I do participate in many other areas of the forum.

tcr_3

We found that insulating the loft properly gave us the greatest saving on our gas bills, plus it was comparatively cheap to buy ... and we did it ourselves. A new jacket on the hot water tank saved quite a bit too. Double glazing, we found, didn't appear to save very much at all considering the expense involved. So I'd recommend heavy, lined curtains even if you've got double glazing installed ... check out the charity shops like my BELOVED OH did !

Re the heating one room only thing, one downside in severely cold weather is the risk of frozen pipes. We lost our mains water due to a frozen pipe on Christmas Eve, OH's brother is a plumber, he discovered the mains water comes in from the back of our house & the pipe had frozen behind the plasterboard in the spare bedroom (one we hadn't bothered to heat). Luckily he got it sorted, cutting a hole in the plasterboard & shoving a hairdryer through it to thaw the pipe out. It worked, fortunately, took nearly two hours though. I hate to think what a plumber would've cost on Christmas Eve.

I think in severely low temperatures you gotta consider the risk of a frozen pipe versus the gas/electric bill. And last year taught us a lesson.

smileyt_2

Hi folks

Would this be of any use to any of you? It's an ice carpet. Might be a bit pricey for some but ok for others. It's an interesting concept anyway:

http://www.greenfingers.com/superstore/product.asp?dept_id=191&pf_id=DD5660D

ETA you put it down on your path and it grips on the ice, it's about 3m long.

richardc1983

tcr wrote: »

We found that insulating the loft properly gave us the greatest saving on our gas bills, plus it was comparatively cheap to buy ... and we did it ourselves. A new jacket on the hot water tank saved quite a bit too. Double glazing, we found, didn't appear to save very much at all considering the expense involved. So I'd recommend heavy, lined curtains even if you've got double glazing installed ... check out the charity shops like my BELOVED OH did !

Re the heating one room only thing, one downside in severely cold weather is the risk of frozen pipes. We lost our mains water due to a frozen pipe on Christmas Eve, OH's brother is a plumber, he discovered the mains water comes in from the back of our house & the pipe had frozen behind the plasterboard in the spare bedroom (one we hadn't bothered to heat). Luckily he got it sorted, cutting a hole in the plasterboard & shoving a hairdryer through it to thaw the pipe out. It worked, fortunately, took nearly two hours though. I hate to think what a plumber would've cost on Christmas Eve.

I think in severely low temperatures you gotta consider the risk of a frozen pipe versus the gas/electric bill. And last year taught us a lesson.

Good post... In rooms your not using you need to put your thermostats on the frost guard or on the 1* setting.

welshcamper

with all this talk of snow today i phoned an industrial supply shop to see if they had any snow shovels..the receptionist thought it was funny and said "but it sunny outside"...but they did have some...phoned mother to see if she wanted one..then she phoned her friend who wanted one..then her friends friend wanted on lol..so on monday we are picking up 4!