Sneaky ways to save the pennies

Savvy_sewing

I am waiting for the representative to come to see how to draught proof etc my place. I am renting a cottage in a village with no gas. We have a couple of electric heaters, and a storage heater upstairs. The rest of the place is heated by an open fire in the sittingroom and a woodburning stove in the dining room. Which I havent tried to use yet as I moved in in May. But I am so aware of the fact that my money is reducing by the minute and the bills are going through the roof.!

Lesley_Gaye

Mooloo wrote: »

I am waiting for the representative to come to see how to draught proof etc my place. I am renting a cottage in a village with no gas. We have a couple of electric heaters, and a storage heater upstairs. The rest of the place is heated by an open fire in the sittingroom and a woodburning stove in the dining room. Which I havent tried to use yet as I moved in in May. But I am so aware of the fact that my money is reducing by the minute and the bills are going through the roof.!

Mooloo - we got what I think may be enough wood to last us the winter from Freecycle. Our local groups often have bits and pieces of wood that can be burned, and then we were lucky enough to find a farmer who does some kind of trade in timber and had a lot of, what was to us, very valuable big lumps of tree trunk that cut up into brilliant logs.

You might be able to get enough timber to make a big contribution to your fuel bills. Other sources that we used before the farmer were local businesses that had pallets that they had no further use for. Industrial estates would be a good trawling ground for those.

[Deleted User]

Mooloo wrote: »

Weird, I was just looking at wallpaper in the £shop yesterday and thinking about the same thing. (Except it was to cover my diaries- or journals,). Although I didnt buy it in the end as I wanted it, not needed it!. So resistance actually won!.

Find a local bootsale you can often get an odd roll for about 30p, I get them for the little ones to use to paint pictures on the back on rainy days in the summer holidays

Confuzzled

Mooloo wrote: »

heated by an open fire in the sittingroom and a woodburning stove in the dining room. Which I havent tried to use yet as I moved in in May. But I am so aware of the fact that my money is reducing by the minute and the bills are going through the roof.!

having once lived in an old croft house with only two open fireplaces and a few electric blankets (at least there was a back boiler on one of the fireplaces, free hotwater in cold months!) i feel for you there.

i would suggest that you do some googling and find out how you can make 'bricks' /logs to burn using cardboard/newspaper/junk mail. i searched for 'making fire logs' and came up with quite a few hits. it CAN be done without the brick makers however the 20 quid odd you'd pay for one would probably be worth it as they squeeze out more water than you can do by hand and therefore you'd have more of a supply before winter. however, by all means start now by hand if need be and you'll still have some for free. this would also be a good time to get your neighbours to promise you their junkmail and used newspapers if you want to start making fire logs. EDITED TO ADD: i found this link selling a log maker that doesn't require you to soak the materials http://www.greenstamp.co.uk/product_info.php/products_id/122 to the right you'll see the briquetter log maker (i used to have one of these) and they do require it to be wet, or mine did. i'm not sure how well the dry makers logs work but it's worth googling around to find out. if you could get a dry paper log maker then you could def make a huge batch of logs before winter!

i thought that stuffing toilet rolls and paper towel rolls would produce some small but useful logs. also if you stuffed food boxes these would provide odd shaped bricks but still quite burnable!

i'd also recommend taking this time to aquire as many pinecones, large branches and pallets as possible. invest in a hatchet and an axe/log splitter at least and get past the fear of using them ( i prefer the hatchet myself , little less likely to hack of a limb ) there is sooo much deadfall wood in many areas so if you make a habit of walking with a bag you can collect it as you go along.

if you keep your eyes open you'll find free wood in the most unlikely of places (we certainly did) also if you have forestry commission available anywhere near you call them and see if they will allow you to buy and/or come cut your own wood. some places do allow that and it's a lot better deal than buying from someone else usually

you might also put out offers on freecycle to come cut up and take away any unwanted trees (preferably already felled unless you have this skill yourself) make offers to places that have stacks of pallets to take those too. ASK if you see unused wood, most people are happy to let you take it away, who cares if they think you're a nutter, at least you'll be a WARM nutter!

i'd also suggest a back up supply of coal if you can't get enough wood. in the depths of winter sometimes the mixture of coal and wood is what you really need to get the heat to make the place comfortable. i prefer to use as much wood as possible but we had to be practicle and so we used coal too.

if you do decide to use some coal ask around your village and find out who does the best deals and is the most reliable for deliveries. then call the companies and find out who will give you a deal for larger orders. you could make a point of ordering as much as you think you'll need for the whole season (work out what percentage of your heat you think will come from coal vs wood) and then you're done with it and that expense is out fo the way. you might also ask about getting some dross (coal dust) as this is very good for dampening down the fire over night to allow for a quick restart in the morning.

if you're using ONLY wood on the fire save some of the ashes they're great in the garden. also you can use ash to dampen it down overnight though this is a skill i never learned (i was 28 first time i built a fire! i'm only knowledgeable out of sheer necessity and haven't learned it all yet!) a quick google search and/or a nice pot of tea and a natter with an older neighbour should help you get the info you need.

you may wish to consider using your dining room as your living room during the winter as you will get a much better heat from a wood burner than an open fire. if your dining room has a door then i'd def recomend that if you're having a hard time keeping the house warm. also the stove will require much less tending which means you can watch a movie without having to keep messing about with the fire during it. think small and cozy vs small and cramped

anyway, hope i've given you a few ideas to gnaw on. we lived in houses without proper heat for 2.5 years so i learned some hard lessons fast.

oh and my number one lesson of living in a place heated by fires.. ALWAYS get your fire going at least 30 minutes before the sunsets. i don't know what it was but i found that whenever i didn't manage to get the fire going well before the sun went down it didn't matter how much coal or wood i put on, the house never felt very warm that night. but if i managed to get some heat into the house before losing the heat (weak as it might be) from the sun then the house was easier to keep warm...

best of luck!

Savvy_sewing

Thankyou confuzzled. Although brilliant ideas, I will definately have to down scale, as I am unable to use my left arm very well, and carrying is a bit of a no no. Due to spondylosis of the spine. However I will be taking on board as much of this as I can, and will have to get family to pitch in and help me.
I have a few empty loo rolls lurking in the bathroom, (while I was away DS never changed them, typical teenager). I will also ask the BF to collect from his house. Perhaps I will chat to his kids and ask thier help. But I know that they are not much of a recylcing family. They already think that I am nuts.
And I hardly do much recycling compared to many on here.
I will have to be brave and start to chat to the neighbours. I have been here nearly 3 months already, and still only on nodding aquaintence with one of them.
Will have to try to increase my fitness levels and go for a walk around the village. Will also have to think about the garden, and what I have in it. Not that its that big. There are a lot of woody roots, Perhaps I could dry them out.
I will bring the cones back from BF's place next time I go there. Have started, but I will have to get him to keep the ones he clears when I am not over there.
There is a place I have passed that seems to be some sort of wood/saw mill with pallets, so I suppose I better get brave and find out more about them, and see if they are able to help.
Thanks for so much information. It makes me realise how I must start thinking out of the box to solve my problems.

suziewuzie

I like the idea of the briquette log maker (one that uses junk mail & card as well as newspaper/mags). There are a few on amazon. Are they all good or is there one that any of you recommend? Ta. suze

Taadaa

I am going to make a curtain to pull across our front door this winter. It's got four glass panels in it and the front hall was freezing in the morning during the winter just gone.

I am also going to get into the habit of drawing the curtains when I get in from work when the clock goes back, we have a south facing house so there is an opportunity to keep the solar heat gain in!

things like draft excluders and those brush thingies in your letter box will all help too. No point in having the former in my house, I will be the only one that ever puts it in place!

Taadaa

Can I just add though is anyone else feeling a tad down that our thoughts are having to turn to keeping warm in winter already? Just six weeks of warm weather left.. and last winter seemed so long!!

Savvy_sewing

I will certainly have to do something about the external doors, you can see daylight between them and the frames. (I am hoping the people from the Warmfront grant will do this for me>) But I will be looking for the fabric to make the curtains, as heavy fabrics are often very expensive. Charity shop searches on the cards. But I need to check my budget first to see how much I have.
I still need to make some extra money some how. Back to Up your income thread.
I used to do some surveys etc, but I never really earned much. Seem to have points for things somewhere but never enough for anything.!

Savvy_sewing

We need to be prepared. Living on a low income it is more important to think ahead then when your not. It just makes sense.