Icy = Fail (by sarah)
So I have been desperatly trying to keep the house warm - the new fire that my brother got is great - as long as there is fuel and kindling for me to light it and keep it going at a the rate of about one descent log every half hour. This fuel and kindling also needs to be dry and in the house where I can reach it.
But things have turned colder so I burnt the wood faster than normal to get the house up to 10 degrees :/ I put the electric heater on that Mum got us as well even though Alaric always moans about this.
The warmest I got the house was 12 degrees.
I left a goodly amount of wood in the fire over night and it was still glowing this morning, but I still struggled to light the fire - mainly as Alaric hadn't had time to get dry kindling and so had broken up a load of wet twigs for me - he'd hoped they would dry out.
I think it would have been fine if we hadn't had a power outage but after getting Jean ready for school she found ice all over the inside of the door 🙁 And then we looked at the other windows and they all had ice too 🙁 - obviously I have the thermal curtian and stuff over the door, including the draft excluder but - my home is too cold >:( If mum and dad weren't almost here I would be looking at a day of either painfully bringing in logs one at a time or having no fire. I'm not sure how many logs I could bring in like this nor the fact that I would let all the heat I do have out in getting them inside 🙁
It's been working quiet well with Al getting logs in in the morning and me maintaining the fire why he works but I really can't do it on my own 🙁 Plus, he seems to be coding until like 3 am every morning and going straight to the computer in the mornings - making meals which he eats at the computer etc... So I'm struggling to do housework - even loading the dishwasher is a mammoth task at the moment 🙁
Now the ice is making it so that the lady who picks Jean up wont be able too for safty reasons - when it was like this last year we walked Jean up to school. But I can't 🙁 I can't walk that far on ice, on crutches, up a steep hill when I've already hurt myself getting her dress and maybe lighting the fire? It would take me at least 40 minutes to reach the school anyway and then there's no where to sit and have a coffee to recuporate - I'd have to turn round and come back and then do it all again for the 3 o'clock pick up. I know this would only be Thursday and Friday when Al's in London but if he continues going in then I can't think of away to get Jean to the school - I really can not do it.
Fri 26th Nov 2010 9:25 am 
Subscribe
By Maurice Snell, Mon 29th Nov 2010 @ 12:00 pm
Hi Sarah,
Very sorry to hear how miserably cold the Bakery is....
I vaguely remember that there were electric night storage heaters there, that should work on cheap overnight electricity. Do you still have those, and do they work? Do you have an economy 7 or economy 10 electricity supply which cheap overnight electricity? I know that these tend to charge more for your day-time electricity which may offset the benefit of cheaper overnight rates.
Lots of love,
Maurice
By Sarah, Mon 29th Nov 2010 @ 7:36 pm
Economy 7 cost more than it saves for people with home offices due to charging more for the day time units. The storage heaters were disconnected shortly after we moved in due to be being unsafe electrically and having asbestos bricks in. I had to pay for them to be taken away by special people during flood re-furb.
Storage heaters in general are worse than useless giving the heat at the wrong time and not being controllable. We were going to put central heating in but ran out of money. Double glazing - same issue.
Alaric has now put some bubble wrap up the windows which is helping alot. The house can be kept warm - if the fire is lite and the radiators are actually on.
We're on a nice tariff with Eco-tricity who have been very helpful with the result that they actually ended up owing us money when the we paid what we had been paying with our previous company (who we are still paying off).
Hope all is well in your parts 🙂
I'm just really grumpy at the moment due to the crutches and stuff.