Likely extreme cold polar vortex impact.

Heavy Pierre

So what needs to be added to stores for possible bad winter weather? We could be snowed in for a month with roads and shops inaccessible. Gas, electric and water are all at risk. Food fuel water and rubbish disposal is key to survival.

Stovepipe

Depends on your heating in your house. Spare kero? Spare gas bottle for cooking.......a sled for dragging supplies on.....extra bin bags

Tabnabs

No different to any emergency situation where you have to bug in. Swap 'cold' for pandemic, civil unrest, natural disaster, financial crisis. If you are prepared for one, chances are you're preprepared for many.

Water, food, shelter, hygiene, cooking, electricity, communications, entertainment, all the basic groups to cover.

my3cents

Stovepipe wrote: »

Depends on your heating in your house. Spare kero? Spare gas bottle for cooking.......a sled for dragging supplies on.....extra bin bags

Good idea that, don't actually have one but will put some thought into what I could use. As a kid one of the things we used as a really cool high speed down hill sled was an old car bonnet - just very dangerous if you hit anyone

Cork boy 55

I assume your referring to the front page story on independent
about an incoming polar vortex
I believe its been debunked in The weather forum and by Met eire
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057069794&page=43

Interesting comment

And who are among the fuel suppliers of Ireland?
Denis O'Brien owns Topaz Oil which supplies home heating oil and, oh wait, he also owns The Irish Independent as part of Irish Independent Media Group...
I only remembered that today. Suddenly a lot of things made sense.

Keep on eye on threads there for a heads up on weather events

touts

I'm not sure I buy the whole "It'll be the coldest winter in 50 years" stuff that's going around. A hell of a lot of things have to align for a repeat of what we saw a couple of years ago let alone the sort of mini-ice age that the tabloids are salivating over. BUT the bad weather a couple of years ago highlight that bad weather CAN hit Ireland and you should plan for short issues over a couple of weeks.

Biggest one: Water. As we saw a couple of years ago our pipes are hopelessly poorly protected from cold weather. Even if you can lag all the pipes in your house it is likely that the pipe running in under your garden is only a few inches below the surface and will freeze. People seemed to be able to get most other things like food and heating BUT frozen water pipes was the big issue. Therefore it's not a bad idea to have a few 5lt bottles of water in the house for drinking and cooking. I have 5 of those and if the forecast is bad I'll get a couple more and fill up any empty bottles I have around the house. I also have a water butt that, if the reliable forecasts show bad weather, I can disconnect from the downpipe empty, move into the Garage and refill again using a hose (no water meter yet for me). That's water I can bring in with a bucket and use to flush a toilet thus saving the tank water for quick showers (turn off the valve on the pipe leading into the cistern to prevent "accidental" flushes). It's not much but it should keep us going for 99.99% of the cold weather events we are likely to have.

Beyond that you should look at the usual ones of food, heat, cooking etc, but most of these are easier to get around and in many ways are more robust than water. It's water that caused the biggest problems last time and it's water that is likely to cause the biggest problems this time.

ShadowFox

I agree with touts water is the main thing . I have 2 1000 litre ICB tanks that I use as butt barrels I've one attached to the downstairs toilet use it all the time and I've a couple of litres of anti freeze for it just in case . As for drinking water that's the 2nd ICB tank if it gets really bad but first off I have enough bottled water in to last a week it just takes up so much room . If I have to use the water in the tank I've a few water filters and water purification tablets.

Cooking and heating is covered with the range wood burning stove if that craps out I've camping stoves and a home made fire pit I'm hoping to finish tomorrow

Food wise I've enough in for 4 weeks normal meals 1 week of MREs with a generator and enough fuel for 2 weeks to keep the chest freezer running

Lots of books and board games if you have kids

Wind up radio and torches as well as battery torches and spare batterys

Don't forget your security preps if even something like bad weather hits for more than a week and shops can't fill the shelves people will start looking elsewhere to get food and water

madmaxi

If you have a pet(s). Extra supplies for them too.

my3cents

madmaxi wrote: »

If you have a pet(s). Extra supplies for them too.

Just sat here thinking just the same thing. Normally have a (lean) months worth in store for them but to keep within BBD I used that supply up at the end of the Summer and haven't yet replaced it yet

madmaxi

my3cents wrote: »

Just sat here thinking just the same thing. Normally have a (lean) months worth in store for them but to keep within BBD I used that supply up at the end of the Summer and haven't yet replaced it yet

If it's the BBD on kibble you are worried about, you can bag it into portions, vacuum seal them & then freeze it.

More details here

Heavy Pierre

I have a store of 25 disposable BBQs for daily cooking purposes

my3cents

madmaxi wrote: »

If it's the BBD on kibble you are worried about, you can bag it into portions, vacuum seal them & then freeze it.

More details here

Thanks, I know I could keep it much longer than I do but I try and get into the habit of rotating stored stuff every 12 months. iirc there was still another 9 months on the BBD. Now I have to get into the habit of replacing it.