Winter 2011 ? Starting to prep now.

[Ogre]

My daughter is living at home and at 22 needs more privacy. So, I'm converting the spare bedroom which is now used as a study, into a sitting room for her.

Here's the physical attributes. The house was built in 1922. Solid (or rubble filled) external walls at least a foot thick. This room has 2 exterior walls and gets damned cold. Turning it into a sitting room means dear old dad has to put a good part of his 2000+ book collection into bags and into storage in the attic. Same with his RPG systems. So we're going to lose plenty of insulation.

The (Hoped For) Solution. I'm stripping the room tomorrow and painting it in a warmer colour (she doesn't like Jade Green. But I'm adding this to the paint.

http://www.doctorenergy.co.uk/acatalog/ ... PAINT.html

Saw it on line, liked the premise and the service is quite good. Hopefully 2 coats will give a psychological and physical boost to the insulating properties.

If the experiment works, I'm doing the rest of the buildings walls in the additive.

I'll let you know by Sunday if there's any difference to the rooms warmth.

On another note. Had permission off Mrs Ogre to use this room as an experiment to install home made interior thermal shutters. This will be a summer job. I'll put up some pics as I do it.

[preppingsu]

ooo, like that idea. Hope its works for you. Couldn't see it in the info but do you put it on over the paint or on the walls before you paint?

Also, be interested in your shutters - this is something I want to persuade my OH to do. Let us know and post photos if you can.
Thanks!

[Magz]

Love the shutters idea.

[Northern Raider]

A chap I worked with in Cornwall has a similar type of property, he created a DIY version of underfloor heating using some of that fancy plastic pipe plumbers use , to run a ziz zag series of pipes under the floor to and from the boiler.

[diamond lil]

We have it in the bathroom. It's fine but if you have double glazing and a draught - free room, I have heard you might get mould. My bog has more fresh air in it than the outside does, so its ok. It does stop condensation forming on the walls.

[Ogre]

Well, its on. And damn me for a Frenchmans love slave, but it does feel warmer in here.

I had enough in a £20 pack to treat a 5L tin of paint. Didn't want to use it all on one colour, so split the pack into 2 182g lots. If you do split a pack take care. The powder itself is very very fine and behaves almost like a liquid.

I slowly added one lot to a 2 1/2L pot of paint. This was a real potch, helped in no small part by the powder wanting to sit on top of the paint. I hand mixed it with a wide blade screwdriver to avoid a breeze from an electric mixer blowing the powder around. The paint itself at one point was the consistency of cake mix.

After a copious amount of stirring we applied the first coat to the inside walls, with brushes and left it to dry overnight.

Thinned the remaining paint out with a small amount of water and added the 2nd coat with a roller.

The paint was still thick enough to roller over metal shelving supports fixed to the wall.

It's dried to a nice matt finish with a slightly 'sandy' texture and as I say does feel warmer.

Still got enough powder for another 2 1/2L tin of Wilkinsons finest emulsion and have no qualms about buying another pack for the stairwell.

So that's one project that's worked

[smileyt]

Sounds good. Now, how do you feel about coming up to Manchester to decorate my house?

[Ogre]

First (and last) time I went to Manchester it was a nightmare. Left at 0600 for the train. The train was late because the driver slept in, got to Stoke (I think) to find my train had been cancelled because of the weather. Eventually got to Manchester to teach a class and discovered that instead of hiring a hall, the organisers had 'borrowed' their offices for the day, so I had to split the class into 2 conference rooms and run like buggery betwixt them. My lift back to the station got lost and I missed my train. Got the last train heading towards Cardiff that day. It was filled with MU fans going South, pissed, shouting, singing and throwing bottles at each other. The Guard hid in his cubbyhole and refused to come out. The train couldn't do more than 30mph because the heat had affected the rails. We got to Hereford and stopped for the driver to have a pee and a fag. Was told I'd missed my last connection from Cardiff.

I bailed at Abergavenny to hitch home and swore 'never again'. Sorry

[itsybitsy]

I've started thinking about the forthcoming winter months after checking out the long range weather forecast for this year. Haven't really got much further than thinking at the moment though. I reckon that I'm gonna need the following:

Bags of salt/gravel/cat litter
A good shovel
Winter car kit - water, snacks, thick coat, walking boots, wellies, wind up radio, torch - anything else?
LOTS of screen wash!

I was lucky this year in that my pipes didn't freeze, but I guess they could if it does end up being colder. Any tips for trying to stop that happening?

[Carrot Cruncher]

I was lucky this year in that my pipes didn't freeze, but I guess they could if it does end up being colder. Any tips for trying to stop that happening?

Gnole is the man for plumbing so might be able to help with some advice.

One thing that was a bit of a concern last year was my water butts both froze solid for a few weeks. They would have been useless if I needed the water, might be worth putting some sort of insulating jackets around them this year.

I still have a bag and a half of grit left but will keep my eyes open for some more over the summer.