a little winter heating advice please

[blue3]

this has been troubling me since last aug, which is when i moved into my current place is thats its only a small high up village in s wales is being able to heat or cook should tshtf or just a power cut damned electric cookers! sadly its a rental so i can't reopen the chimney. which is porous anyway. i do have a small chimenia but i can't bring it inside! plus it's quite a fuel hog. so i could cook outside but still no heat inside :s ideas? oh and the snow gets bad also so it's pretty high risk for me.

[preppingsu]

Cooking: consider a small camp stove, we have used ours indoors with the back door open - you need good ventilation. ( I'm sure someone will be along later to slap my wrists!) A BBQ is a possibility-upside of course!

Somewhere on the forum nickdutch has talked about using thermos for slow cooking.

Heating: ensure your curtains are thermal lined and your back/front door have heavy curtains. Hot water bottles are great. Lots of blankets, duvets etc. You could also consider a calor gas heater. Try to keep the cold out if you can and get used to less heating now, let your body adapt. We have done that and very, very rarely use the heating throughout the whole house, we use only the multi fuel stove in the lounge.

[Arzosah]

For extra insulation, you can use those window films over the whole window, and after you've followed the instructions, use the hairdryer to get it taut.

Use the window coverings of blinds and curtains etc before it gets fully dark, to keep in as much heat as possible.

Layers of clothes, of course.

Draught excluders!

What's the keyhole like? Stick a piece of blu tak over it if its a big one.

When you're sitting down in the evening or whenever, keep your feet off the floor if you can, thats where the majority of the draughts are.

Do you have a microwave? If you've got electric power, stick a wheat bag in there and hold it or wrap it across your shoulders.

HTH

[Ferricks]

Heating: ensure your curtains are thermal lined and your back/front door have heavy curtains. Hot water bottles are great. Lots of blankets, duvets etc. You could also consider a calor gas heater. Try to keep the cold out if you can and get used to less heating now, let your body adapt. We have done that and very, very rarely use the heating throughout the whole house, we use only the multi fuel stove in the lounge.

DEFINITELY get another heat source - we had a 36 hour power cut in dec 2010 durin the cold snap at minus 14 (day temp) and it was utterly miserable. Remember gas heating doesn't work if no elec either - I would second Su's suggestion of a calor heater (with spare bottles)! hot water bottles are amazing - use plastic / glass pop bottles if you have nothing else and simply reheat the water in them to save on using fresh every time. These types of bottles I find are BETTER than conventional because they have a bigger capacity and so a more efficient surface area to volume ratio, staying warm much longer than the flat rubber versions.

build a hay box for cooking soups / stews and use your calor heater to make toast!

[hobo]

Aye, I vote insulation and calor.
And for emergency hot food food what about some hotpack meals http://www.hotpackmeals.co.uk ?

[blue3]

great input as ways guys. never put heating on unless drying clothes. stick a jumper on i say! i've always got my feet on the oh anyway :p just had loft installation put in for free i might add. gov funding anyone can get so anyone might be worth looking a
into it front door is drafty as hell! former tenants have tried to use draft stopping tape stuff but it's a mess dread to think what it would be like without it! have a little gas camp stove with a few cans but like to keep them for a b/o possibility

[diamond lil]

I live in a high cold place and we get bad weather and frequent powercuts too but we have coal fired central heating off a stove.
Calor gas is brilliant for heating and for cooking - you can buy gorgeous LPG cookers, Cannon and Zanussi make them. Work from Propane outside, fed in by copper pipes through the wall, you need an LPG gas fitter but tis well worth it.
Failing this get a camping stove and a good supply of canisters, and stockpile food that's easy to heat & cook in one pot, like soups and stews and tinned potatoes/veg.
Live in one room for the worst weather, is a lot easer to heat. And never heat the bedrooms, just use an electric blanket or a hot water bottle. (buy these now! lol)
Have a windup or battery radio. Remember phones dont work in powercuts unless you have the old fashioned type.
Door curtains are great for draughts and stopping heat loss.
Good curtains are a must.
Good wellies and a snow shovel are a must.
Well lagged pipes are a must !

[blue3]

thanks for all the advice think heavy curtains is high up on my list mine are like muslin! i've got my dog and oh as a hot water bottle :p i've got good clothing so it's not to bad. about 4 great wooly jumpers i got in pitlochary a few years ago that are going strong last year i was wearing to most of the time! and my fleece lined trousers. you east or west coast d lil? if you don't mind me asking :p

[maddriver]

My gas was out for a couple weeks last winter. It took me a week to realise it wasn't because I had paid the bill late and then I took it as a challenge to see how long I could cope. It was another couple weeks before I called the supplier to resolve.

I was surprised how warm I felt without heating - I wore a jumper which normally I wouldn't have bothered with and bought an electric blanket to heat the bed at night and I was fine. Fortunately I still had electric so between my combination microwave (with convection oven) and electric shower I had alternatives for most things the gas provides.

Electric being down would have been harder to deal with, I haven't really devised a strategy for that yet. I may consider a battery back up system, which I think was described here a while back. I'd hope to integrate into some form of solar/wind or a generator setup like here http://www.powercubes.com/listers.html an old lister diesel running run waste vegetable oil, capable of providing all the houses electrical needs and all it's heat by passing the coolant water through a heat store. (Later converted to woodgas)

[nickdutch]

this has been troubling me since last aug, which is when i moved into my current place is thats its only a small high up village in s wales is being able to heat or cook should tshtf or just a power cut damned electric cookers! sadly its a rental so i can't reopen the chimney. which is porous anyway. i do have a small chimenia but i can't bring it inside! plus it's quite a fuel hog. so i could cook outside but still no heat inside :s ideas? oh and the snow gets bad also so it's pretty high risk for me.

Just a small cheap "briefcase" butane cooker will be fine for short term. i am planning on using my bioethanol for possible longer term issues.