Who was the coldest last night?

[JoceAndChris]

:lol: to the above, you all cheer me up. Xx

But grr to -11 tonight, and to no post for a week, and running out of oil today, and no heating or hot water from the Rayburn as a consequence, and no delivery possible until the 21st.

I just washed my hair in cold water!

And I'll have to shower in the gym. :evil: or not bother till the 21st.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Joce - see post on Another Place. Take container to oil supplier and get emergency supply. They should be able to knock it off your next delivery when they can get to you.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Thanks Robin. We'll see about this tomorrow, good idea.

 

[Flyfisher]

Joce, If you do find some containers to collect some emergency heating oil, take plenty of old rags with you to wipe off any spilages from the containers before putting them in the car. Also, try to put down some plastic sheeting if possible, and also ensure they can't tip over and/or spill.

It's not that the oil is particularly flammable, but if you get any on the upholstery you'll never get rid of the 'diesel' smell.

Good luck - this is not the weather to run out of oil.

 

[Feltwell]

Very good point - the smell of diesel is horrible. To be quite honest I think if you transport containers of diesel inside any vehicle it will smell for a bit afterwards - if you spill any it will reek for months.

 

[JoceAndChris]

The car is a foul smelling dump of a thing anyway, falling to pieces. So no problems, a little oil added to the mix of rubbish and chickens will perhaps improve things.

The local oil company have said they sell it by the barrel load if we go down.

 

[Moo]

-11 tonight, and to no post for a week, and running out of oil today, and no heating or hot water from the Rayburn as a consequence, and no delivery possible until the 21st. I just washed my hair in cold water! And I'll have to shower in the gym. :evil: or not bother till the 21st.

At home with the Georgians?

 

[worms]

The car is a foul smelling dump of a thing anyway, falling to pieces. So no problems, a little oil added to the mix of rubbish and chickens will perhaps improve things.

The local oil company have said they sell it by the barrel load if we go down.

Buying by the barrel is not for the faint-hearted. Handling a 40 gallon drum full of diesel is quite a task, and needs a trailer/pick-up or similar. You then need a suitable pump to transfer it to the domestic tank. I did this once, putting the drum in the back of the Land Rover, but to be honest any time I have run short in the last couple of years I have just taken jerry cans to the garage and used diesel.

Using road diesel is a pretty expensive way to heat the house (and suitable incentive to not run out!) but it is so much easier than getting a drum of heating oil (which is also more expensive than tanker delivery and likely to involve a deposit on the drum). Of course you would need to make sure that road diesel is OK for your particular heating system. It is also quite sobering to find out just how short a time the system will run on a jerry can of oil!

 

[Flyfisher]

If it will run on road diesel, try to locate a local garage that sells red diesel. Our village garage sells the stuff on the forecourt for 76.9p/litre. Still a lot more than heating oil, but much less than road diesel.

Good point about 40 gallon drums though. I think Joce would have problems carrying such a thing in her car and would certainly need a pump to transfer the contents.

 

[citizensmith]

http://www.locksgarage.co.uk/services.htm

Do you have any place like this in your neck of the woods?

We ran very low in last Januarys cold snap and i found i could buy home heating oil (not red diesel) on self service "draught" here for almost the same price as 1000l bulk! I had a car load of all the fuel cans i could find (about 100l total and made 2 trips)

I realose this one is no help, but it goes to show these places exist. They also sell, venison, fresh chillis and even durian fruit (its a crazy place!)

 

[Flyfisher]

(its a crazy place!)

On the contrary, it sounds like a great place.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Thanks for all the new posts, we'll see what happens when we go to the oil place - apparently they've been getting 1300 calls per day, mostly from people who have run out. They do the oil in 20 litre containers.

We were in London all day yesterday, which seemed positively tropical by comparison.

At least Chris is off all week so I have help. We have 5 fireplaces here, so I'm busy with fires, especially the music room one which connects to a back boiler for hot water.

And thank goodness I bought those thermals!

 

[Flyfisher]

20 litres is the size of a standard jerry can and you should have no trouble handling those. Goodness knows what they'll cost though. Do you know if you'll be able to get a tanker delivery before Christmas?

And thank goodness I bought those thermals!

Judging by those window photos you posted, I bet you are!

Sounds like you need a maid just to help keep the fires alight. Georgian living indeed. :wink:

 

[JohnB]

The sliding door in my period home freezes in this weather, and I can't always shut it at night. So I spent last night sleeping with a slight gap round the door!

Does a 1999 motorhome count as period?

 

[Flyfisher]

I received an email from an American friend last night asking how we were getting on with our weather, which is apparently being widely reported over there. He mentioned that Buffalo, NY, had four feet of snow, which was more than usual, although a couple of feet is, apparently, very common there at this time of year.

Anyway, that made me wonder about the deepest snowfall over here and I came across this report from January this year:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2797994/Britains-going-snowhere-fast.html

Now, I know it's The Sun, but I really don't remember things being that bad last winter. There I was, lapping up all the news coverage about how unusually bad the weather has been and it seems that it was just as bad (more-or-less) the same time last year, give or take a few weeks.

 

[JoceAndChris]

It always amazes me how the seasons erase the memories of the other extreme - in summer here, you can't imagine this, and vice versa! But I do remember that there wasn't any postal delivery through most of January, so it must have been bad.

We just got our oil, Chandlers are all set up for it. Tightly closed 20 l containers, no smell or spillage, priced at 87 p per litre, with a £2 deposit on each container. We bought 200 litres, which I hope will last until the 21st Dec, when they say they can deliver, depending on weather.

We bought 1000 litres in August so it seems we're consuming an average of 250 l per month - about £40 -£50 per week by my calculation, and the electricity bill normally £1000 over winter as well, and me in thermals, fingerless gloves, 3 jumpers, tweed and a fur hat.

It's all worth it to live in a nice period property though, isn't it? :?

Edit - yes it is worth it; I wouldn't swap my romantic, cold rural idyll for a cosy house on an estate, or back to a London flat - just imagine, they don't even have their own pheasants! No roaring fires, or fresh eggs, however do they manage?


Cheering up as the Rayburn is roaring into life.

 

[Alex]

I remember when we lived in a country cottage, it was rented and the landlord obviously wasn't going to spend any money on draught exclusion or loft insulation. We viewed it in July and moved in later that month, we spent many a happy evening watching the curtains blowing in the wind because none of the windows fitted properly, or putting a hand on the radiator to see if the heating was actually working. Do we miss the sound of the boiler drinking heating oil like it was going out of fashion ? Not really because now we moan about the price of gas instead.

Alex

 

[Penners]

Sounds like you need a maid just to help keep the fires alight.

I reckon a maid could help keep my fires alight.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :shock:

 

[FamilyWiggs]

87p a litre Joce?

Good god - it's almost cheaper to dig your own oil well! I'd look up your local OPEC nation on t'internet and see if they'll sell you a barrel; it's about $88 per barrel today.

I remember when I was but a lad in our first house (well 13 years or so ago), I shopped around for my first oil delivery and it varied between something like 13 and 17p!!

I hope the stuff never starts to run out - imagine what that'd do to the price of the stuff. :shock: