Winterizing the home.

[Woody girl]

Yorkshire?

Much further south than that. Think cider, (zyder), pasties, and cream teas, moorland, Lorna Doone, and a rough and rugged coast..below Wales.

I was going to try typing that with an accent, but my phone's predictive text had a nervous breakdown!

 

[Pattree]

What is the feminine of “boi”? I know a couple of guys with Boi or Boy in their nicknames but never a girl’s equivalent.

Edited to add:
I’ve been called Boy in Norfolk but I’ve never been asked for a light!

 

[Woody girl]

What is the feminine of “boi”? I know a couple of guys with Boi or Boy in their nicknames but never a girl’s equivalent.

Edited to add:
I’ve been called Boy in Norfolk but I’ve never been asked for a light!

Maid is the female equivalent.
Boi (often pronounced Buy,) and Maid are both unmarried in its origional context.

 

[Paul_B]

Zyder? Zummerzet? that's where I were born but left at 3 before the zyder rotted my teeth!!

At the time my Dad (from hampshire) worked with locals who took a liquid lunch at the nearest farm. There were a lot of farms to go at back then, not quite so many of late.

 

[Chris]

There was a farm near where I grew up where you could take any container and fill it with scrumpy for £5, as long as you could carry it. My mate once sat supping at his wellington boot full of cider as I drove us home.

 

[Paul_B]

I think my dad oncee told me about this old guy he worked with who drove to the farm at lunch, got out one of those ancient pottery containers, filled it up, drained it then drove back to work. They are not small containers for a lunch when it is your whole lunch!!

 

[Woody girl]

Just had the monthly electric bill today. £68. So today the heating goes on low. See what that does to my pocket! I'm beginning to feel the damp and cold seeping in to my bones the last few days. It will be so nice to be warmer when I get up in the mornings. The woodstove is great, but a lot of work to keep in when your joints are cold, stiff and achey.

 

[Laurentius]

Four poster bed, draw the curtains to keep the draughts out and an old fashioned stone water bottle. The worst here is being in the top flat with a flat roof there is not a lot above me to keep the heat from escaping. They are supposed to be putting a new roof on soon (whenever that happens) with some insulation, but winter will be gone by the time they get round to it. I have been thinking of putting a couple of panels around my chair with that foil covered bubble wrap, or maybe I might be able to find a tidy wench to keep me warm, who knows

 

[Herman30]

This would be a cozy bed.

 

[Woody girl]

Four poster bed, draw the curtains to keep the draughts out and an old fashioned stone water bottle. The worst here is being in the top flat with a flat roof there is not a lot above me to keep the heat from escaping. They are supposed to be putting a new roof on soon (whenever that happens) with some insulation, but winter will be gone by the time they get round to it. I have been thinking of putting a couple of panels around my chair with that foil covered bubble wrap, or maybe I might be able to find a tidy wench to keep me warm, who knows

Been in a similar place myself. I had one of those portable gas fires as my only heating. Hell of a slog getting the full gas cylinder from the garage to my flat (had to carry it over 1 mile each way, coming home with a full one was excruciating for a little lass!) Then up 3 flights of stairs to the attic flat.
Saved my butt from freezing though. Couldn't possibly do that now, I was young and fit in those days! No wonder I've got a b☆☆☆☆☆d spine!

 

[Paul_B]

Economy 7 storage heaters in IIRC 2010 when the winter was the worst for some time. Despite shutting the vents down during the day and only open them up partially when I got home the heat was gone by 9pm every evening and on the coldest evenings / days they had run out of heat within an hour and a half of me getting home. I then had to run a dodgy gas stove instead. I had to turn it on for half an hour to warm the room up then off until it cooled too much then back on to save the bills.

I also sat wearing several layers of my warmest jumpers, one or two scarves, hat and gloves. I also put a coat over my legs on one evening.

I lived in a mid terraced house with high ceilings which were great when youre tall but not for keeping the room warm. I had rubber strips on all outside doors. The back door was not great and the front too. They leaked hot air and the front inner door was so distorted that the gap was fist sized at the bottom. Doors were kept shut with quick open and close for the warm room. I had a 13 tog plus duvet and even wore my dressing gown on cold nights as the heating was not worth bothering with in the bedrooms being useless, old economy 7 storage heaters. In fact I think I got more heat through the thick brick walls between us and next door than from my heating. The front of the house was solid stone with no cavity but the rear has a cavity wall (which meant damp creeping up one wall in winter / autumn).

Things got better for other winters but eventually I got the money for an efficient central heating system. Then I met my partner who moved in and invested in high energy efficiency double glazing throughout. It actually meant that the heating came on and the whole house became warm in 10 ir 15 minutes then the radiators kind of became cold for the whole evening due to the new doors and windows stopping a lot of heat loss. Plus the radiators got warm and cooled quickly. The central heating system was A+ back then and the windows were A+10 or A+12 rated at the time (second most efficient rated windows available in the UK apparently back then).

We moved after about 6 years after all that to a house with better insulation (or it was after we added about 300mm extra insulation on one third of the loft that did not have the extra and we added foiled 2mm thick foam panels behind radiators). We got a new boiler and radiators throughout the house last year in September / October which really did cut our gas bills a lot. When you have been cold in your house I think you do invest in improvements to stop the cold when you can. When you feel warmer outside your house then you really do know something has to be done, right?

 

[bearbait]

This would be a cozy bed.

That looks like the campervan-version of the Tardis!

 

[TLM]

Just as random info, the present building code in Finland requires 250mm equivalent mineral wool insulation on the walls, triple glass selective windows.

 

[Herman30]

That looks like the campervan-version of the Tardis!

Yeah, it´s most likely made by AI (stairs and the door don´t add up) but you get the idea.
I would not mind have a sleeping cabinet of that sort with wall and lockable door.

 

[Pattree]

It may be AI but one of the points in having cabinet beds and four posters is that in early big houses in England all the bedrooms connected together so you’d have people tramping through your room to get to theirs. That’s as well as living in horribly draughty piles of stones. Winterising your ancestral home consisted of more clothes, screens around the fire place, bigger logs on the fire and all the chilblain cure you could get hold of!

 

[Falstaff]

I've seen in the old Scottish cottages they had a raised enclosed bed, with 3 sides wood panelling and double doors onto the rest of the room. That way it reduced the volume of the sleeping area. There's a name for this but unable to recall it - anyone?

 

[Falstaff]

Just seen loads of different designs on Pinterest who just call them Bed Boxes.
Ikea do a 2 and 3 sided half-height day bed with a pull out 2nd bed under that. I've been considering that, and it might be a potential "conversion".

 

[Pattree]

Is the pull out bed a “truckle bed”?

 

[Paul_B]

Well we're thinking about the one winterizing we do need. On very cold days we get condensation under the lined roof in the loft.

It had a third with a lot of extra insulation laid on top of the loft flooring. The central third was just insulation within the loft floor space. Then the final third is above the bedrooms. We added the same amount of insulation as the first third. After that the house was a lot warmer but the loft started with condensation. Unsurprisingly considering the loft will be colder now.

So we're looking at vents low down and high up. Trouble is the only reliable builders don't do just roofs and we're struggling to find anyone else round here.

There's no point putting the easy vents low down in the soffit/ facia boards without something higher up. Ideally ridge vents. Does anyone know about vent turbines? They're like spherical vanes on a small tube out of the roof. AIUI they actively spin getting better airflow through them. They're the ones you might see looking from a hillside overlooking places like Ambleside iirc they're glinting in the sun as they spin round. I think anyway.

Any advice on vents?

If vents are too difficult then perhaps a roof dehumidifier? A PIV might not be a great option neither. We might move out in a few years anyway so ideally not too costly to get done.

 

[Stew]

Well we're thinking about the one winterizing we do need. On very cold days we get condensation under the lined roof in the loft.

It had a third with a lot of extra insulation laid on top of the loft flooring. The central third was just insulation within the loft floor space. Then the final third is above the bedrooms. We added the same amount of insulation as the first third. After that the house was a lot warmer but the loft started with condensation. Unsurprisingly considering the loft will be colder now.

So we're looking at vents low down and high up. Trouble is the only reliable builders don't do just roofs and we're struggling to find anyone else round here.

There's no point putting the easy vents low down in the soffit/ facia boards without something higher up. Ideally ridge vents. Does anyone know about vent turbines? They're like spherical vanes on a small tube out of the roof. AIUI they actively spin getting better airflow through them. They're the ones you might see looking from a hillside overlooking places like Ambleside iirc they're glinting in the sun as they spin round. I think anyway.

Any advice on vents?

If vents are too difficult then perhaps a roof dehumidifier? A PIV might not be a great option neither. We might move out in a few years anyway so ideally not too costly to get done.

Just get felt lap vents to start with. You can achieve the same with wood wedges if you don’t want to buy the actual product.

Wind hitting the side of the roof will go under the tiles and through the overlap of felt. Over time the layers of felt fuse together with the summer heat. The lap vents open this back up.