getting ready for winter

Kevhog1988

well guys. just wondering what are you all doing to gear up for winter??.

Markcheese

Just started lighting the stove today - discovered I've gotta fix my central heating pump -

my3cents

I've spent a good part of the summer sorting out our old static 30ft static caravan. Its just spare living room but my son also uses it for his art work and its useful storage. The subframe was rusted out, it had no support for the floors but the roof is still good so I've built a wall either side and put 16 2x7' between the walls and under the caravan then jacked everything up to the same level. With the walls I can now box in the bottom of the caravan and help keep it from freezing up in the winter. Under the caravan might make more handy storage. Then next plan is to add solar panels PV panels and see if I can make it totally off grid.

Also just got rid of a big fallen willow tree that was blocking the river which reduces the chances of being flooded this winter.

Kevhog1988

my3cents wrote: »

I've spent a good part of the summer sorting out our old static 30ft static caravan. Its just spare living room but my son also uses it for his art work and its useful storage. The subframe was rusted out, it had no support for the floors but the roof is still good so I've built a wall either side and put 16 2x7' between the walls and under the caravan then jacked everything up to the same level. With the walls I can now box in the bottom of the caravan and help keep it from freezing up in the winter. Under the caravan might make more handy storage. Then next plan is to add solar panels PV panels and see if I can make it totally off grid.

Also just got rid of a big fallen willow tree that was blocking the river which reduces the chances of being flooded this winter.

are you living off grid??

my3cents

No, we have a massive electricity bill (too many computers). Its just that the caravan seems to be a suitable size project for experimenting with off grid technologies.

If the power goes to the house its no real problem as no electric is used in the heating, one multifuel cooker and one wood burning stove and its good for me to do without the computers for a bit.

ShadowFox

Over the summer I've been collecting scrap wood for the fire. Logs and coal are stocked up. Checked the ice cleats as they have been lying up a while. Need to pick up batteries and rock salt. In general I've a checklist that I go through every 3 months which comes in handy for picking up end of season specials.

Similar to my3cents I'm experimenting with alternative power but living in a built up area restricts me a lot

Kevhog1988

more timber

aaakev

Continuing with my wood cutting, reckon I nearly have enough for the winter now and I ordered a ton of coal that came the other day and is stacked out the back.

I lit the fire the last 2 nights but it was too hot so will probably leave it for another while unless asked! Will have hot water for the next 2 days as a result of last night's fire anyway.

Chimney is in my to do list, it will be swept next weekend before we get into using it every day

my3cents

Chimneys are on the to do list but I make quite a big job of one of them and take the stove out so I can get the rods in easily and I've not been that well recently so it will be on next weekends list.

Topped up with calor gas bottles refills. We use one for the caravan one in the house and another occasionally in a gas heater. Somehow we've picked up 10 bottles over the years, I've found empties washed up on the beach, dumped on the side of the road, in skips and even been given them. They are good steel and even if I don't use them as gas bottles they could come in useful to make up some stoves. Anyway I have upped the full backups to 5 full plus 2 currently in use. If we just used them for cooking that would last us at least a year.

my3cents

We didn't do much in the veg garden this year so it was a weedy mess and today I remembered that I had 4 raised beds that many months ago I'd filled with onion sets. In normal years they'd have started to have gone rotten by now as they should have been harvested at the end of August but when I found the first bed of them they were near perfect. Nothing huge and prize winning but for next to no effort a wire shopping basket full from one bed with the potential of 3 more baskets full can't be bad.

One of my raised beds is only four bits of two by four 44 inches long screwed to make an exact square. I use them as the ground can be very wet. That size takes a bag of onions sets (500g?) with a few left over if you space them quite tightly.

Kevhog1988

coated the boots in dubbin & beeswax for the winter.