Winter warning - time to prepare.

Wetter summers? we just had 4 months without rain. 3 days with rain and back to tropical temperatures. I think they just make this stuff up.

Well............I hear that some people are saying that Dec 12th is doomsday ! so I wouldn't get too much stock in just yet! The may only be testing though if you think about it........... 12 12 12 !! S

Great list...must remember the snow shovel this year. I would add to it watch the forecast, listen to the neighbours and also stock up on all medications.....took me 3 weeks to get out and up to the village last winter.

Actually Spros it is 21st Dec not 12th (I know 'cos that's my Birthday so have been telling folks that I was now born on 20th to max out on my last Birthday before it all goes T's up). Something to do with an ancient Mayan calender that could only manage 5000 years, so they said 'Sod It the World will end then'....tying it all up nicely. Show me a Beeb weather forecaster that actually knows what he's doing and I'll show you a Lottery Winner .....

If you've read Fingerprints of the Gods (which I absolutely loved), then you'll know it's the 23rd December we should be more worried about ;) Good post Sagraiasolar - here's hoping 'colder' winters = more blue sunny days = more PV income ;)

There are a multitude of potential catastrophes predicted for December 21st,  2012. I will be in San Francisco... perhaps an earthquake? They have been announcing a "big one" for many years now. Personally, I am not worried. Regarding the cold winter, certainly it is a possibility. I would add warm socks and protective footwear and some good gloves.     

....and a hip flask with a good Grappa !!

Angie and Robert are certainly right about listening to your neighbours. I regularly check the official weather forecast websites, but many of the locals have spent a lifetime living here and they're generally pretty good at predicting very local changes and threats. I think they're not too great at predicting exceptional events like the long, very cold period we had last February, but that's where the official meteorolgists are good. I also generally agree with all the other supplies listed, although I'm not sure about the diesel additive. I thought that fuel companies changed their formulations in the winter these days? I've certainly not had any problems running our diesel car in the five winters I've spent here. Also, I don't recall seeing a petrol-fueled Coleman lamp in literally decades. Not since I lived in the States, actually. Are they sold in Italy? All three of our central heating sources - GPL boiler, pellet stuffa and cordwood stove - require mains electricity in order to function properly. Even the woodstove can't be used without electricty since the water jacket soon starts to boil if central heating water isn't circulating. While ENEL does an amazing job keeping the lights on during the worst winter weather, we are quite vulnerable since our house is rural and at the end of the line, as it were. If the wires supplying just our house were to go down in a storm, I'm sure fixing them would be low on ENEL's list of priorities since so few people are affected. For several years, we had a cheap, no-brand, Chinese-made petrol generator. It worked fairly well over a few fairly lengthy blackouts, but filling it up every couple hours was a nusiance and its voltage regulation was not good, so lights flickered and I was a bit worried about using it to power electronic equipment. As the bad weather of last February approached, I decided to make sure it was working. After an extremely annoying hour fighting with it, I decided that there was something fundamentally wrong -- either with the machine, of with my technique. In any case, I didn't want to have to face a similar hassle under pressure in a blizzard, so we went off and bought a new electric-start, GPL-powered generator which could be connected to our bombola. Fortunately, our power stayed on all through the three weeks that we had very deep snow and very cold temperatures here, but it was nice knowing that we could, since the gas tank was nearly full, have supplied all our electrical needs for several weeks if we had needed to. That definitely would not have been cheap, but it would certainly have been preferable to hypothermia. So, what I would add to your list is a generator and fuel and, if you already have one, a regular check to make sure it's still working. Our machine is an expensive monster and definitely not sutiable for someone living in, say, a city flat, but there are small, quiet machines which could be put on a balcony and are sufficient for powering a central heating boiler, mobile phone charger, a light or two and perhaps a television or laptop. If you visit a market, you'll often see these little machines purring away behind the stalls or vans. You can, if you want to do things properly, get in an electrician to wire up switches and circuits which connect the generator to the household electrics. My approach is a lot more rough and ready (and potentially dangerous, if you're not careful). We have a cord with male plugs on both ends which can reach from the generator's socket to one of the house's power sockets. When the power goes off, I flick off the circuit breaker for the outlets (not the lights), start up the generator and then connect the cord from the generator to the household socket, thus supplying power to everything on that circuit. Since the light circuit is still connected to the ENEL line, they will come on when power is restored. When that happens, the generator is switched off, the jumper cord removed and the circuit breaker put back to normal position. When I was young, blackouts were a bit exciting, but at my present age and in our current situation, they're an adventure I can do without. Al

We have our gas in Bottles and plenty of wood for the plain old  woodburner, so ENEL can bring on their worst. Also plenty of batteries for torches etc, plus plenty of layering clothes; we have a natural spring fountain in the village so no shortage of water either,and an ample supply of homemade Limoncello; quite looking forward to snuggling up wiyth a good book when the Kindle charge runs out !!

Using a hot water syphon (erm... I think that's the right term...) would be an excellent idea if it wasn't the case that the only room above our cordwood stove is the roof space! We already create quite enough spectacularly huge icicles as it is. However, the medium term plan is to move the wood-burner to the ground floor as part of restructuring, so I'll certainly keep your idea in mind. I can see how it might be very useful if we had a lengthy power cut in cold weather; running the generator constantly is not sensible if it's only to power a central heating pump. I have looked at the UPS idea and sort of got some way towards a solution, but it has slipped back down the list of priorities. Thanks for the tips about the diesel and the Coleman lanterns. When I was a kid, you had to buy cans of special fuel for the "White Gas" lamps, but I see from the Coleman website that at least some of their modern lanterns can use lead-free petrol. I'm sure that would be a lot cheaper to run that a light with Camping Gaz cylinders. Probably go some way towards keeping the house warm, too. Al

Have cleaned the heat pump filters, plenty of wood if needed. Just got to get the second 47kg gas bombola. 100 odd candles and back up batteries for the torch, plus led lights. Plenty of canned and dried foodstuffs as well. Wine etc to be stocked up soon. 1000 books for the kindle and hundreds of DVDs. Never had a problem with the diesel, but you may be a lot higher than us!!

Badger its September!...but we have the wood, gas, led lights, canned food and wine already......just in case.

Not too distant!, but too distant in snow..... Badger could send his dogs out with little barrels of brandy.

Can usually get out ok in the Pajero. Still going through the wood, 6 years on!! Dogs would drink the brandy!!!

  Oooer! All this manly talk of stoves & generators gravity circuits snow shovels & four wheel drives is really turning me on. Are you all 6 foot 5 bearded lumberjack types with a big shiny woodaxe tucked into your belts really big furry boots & a loyal pack of huskies in the yard?  Is it really such a war zone out there or is there just a little weeny bit of boys playing with toys?  

we wish ..... No Love, knowing our luck we'd get rescued by a 5'2'' overweight and balding, fag smoking wimp; with an old model Panda 4x4. 

Awwwww, You's men are always spoiling a girls dreams

No way Bella. Samoyeds that I used to have once, would pull a sled out of the snow, but now its a 4x4!!!

Just been watching a great program with Kev the shed, commonly known as Kevin Mcloud, another manly hulk making his own little den from scratch. Last weeks show he managed to produce "Urban gold" from fat bergs he'd been mining under Trafalgar Square. Urban Gold in this case being fuel oil for his pressure lamp & this week glue from boiled rabbit skins. Great stuff for a tomboy.  

Thank goodness I have a heat pump, such a simple set-up!!

Simple often comes at a price though no?  What's the current cost of a GSHP together with the trenching? To what extent do you need to upgrade the electricity supply and how much extra does that add to the ENEL bill each quarter?  I'm wondering if it's more affordable than several years ago when I looked at it whilst in the UK?

Depends on the pump size and therefore the trench length. 9Kw output IVT HT+ circa 14k Euro, with 137 mtr trench about 2k + iva @10%. Basic power for it is 2kwh, or 3kwh if the immersion heater is used. Anyway, once you get over 3kw supply, it is only the kw supply standing charge that increases, not the unit cost. You can opt now for the BTA3 Enel tariff, just for the pump ( seperate meter), which is lower than the normal rate, so even more saving. If resident and paying tax here, then you can recoup up to 50% of the costs over 5 years from your tax payments, for a retrofit. Was actually making some calculations today, as to how many hours the pump here has operated over the  last year. From 29/08/2011 to 27/08/2012, it has run for 1817 hrs. Multiply that by 2.2kwh (it is a 11kw output unit) and you get to 4000kwh of electricity used. From 02/04/2012 to 01/10/2012 it has run for 223hrs, so 490kwh used, basically for domestic hot water. (160 ltr water tank @ 48C, timed off from 20.00 until 07.00 daily. Disinfection cycle once per month to 65C.

Thanks for taking the time to write that - very interesting.  I think the prices have dropped significantly since I last looked.  Out of interest - what's the depth of the trenches required?

Depends on soil type. Usually between 1.3 to 1.5 mtrs deep x 1.2 mtrs wide.

What size is the large house? Just looking at a few calculations, a 100 sq mtr house could use 25000 kwh of heating if insulation levels are low? A GSHP of 10kw output would cover that amount. Sorry your site is not back up, as would have used your calculator.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I agree that a house of circa 240 - 280 sq mtrs should have a heating requirement of 14-17 kw. The main problem with a ASHP, is that it does have difficulty in coping with sub zero temps, so usually kicks in the immersion heater @ 3 - 6 kw, depending on the setup. It also has to defrost the fan coils to prevent icing up. Have just looked at the GSHP running hours for this Jan - Feb, ( I record these weekly with outside air temp as well), which were quite cold. Jan was between 90 - 100 hrs per week, whilst Feb came in at circa 140 wk. The electric heater did activate as well, for short periods, (4 hours over the 2 months). With regard to the electricity supply. A 7kw unit should need circa 2Kwh @ output of 35C, slightly higher @ 50C for rads. Those figures are based on external air temps of +7C. If the 3Kw heater is needed, then a 6Kw supply should be ok. Hope this helps

I'm glad you two know what your talking about I think you lost the rest of us about 6 posts back.

 S & I do tend to get a bit technical sometimes!!!

I work with an Italian company and also have had a heat pump for 7 years now.

So Snow chains. I would recommend a 3G/4G dongle and a suitable Netbook device, they can be quite cheap and seemingly more compatible with other technologies than iPad's - although I havent done much homework on this - see mobile phone thread of recent. You can buy this from MAplin -  http://www.maplin.co.uk/solar-powered-12v-1.5w-battery-trickle-charger-98358 or this http://www.maplin.co.uk/buy-car-and-sat-nav/jump-starters-and-compressors the 140W invertor means you can plug a mains plug into it, ok for low powered items - and the car starting side is more suitable for a smaller car. One of the best solutions I have found to warmer nights, if you have electricity, is an all night electric blanket - typically only 90 Watts, eg. from John Lewis/Dreamland. I can remember the nights of having to get dressed to go to bed, ie, extra layers, now, providing I have electricity, I am never cold.... This site may help, http://offgridsurvival.com/survivingcold/

... you'll need a Landrover with nice big nobbly tyres to get out in the snow of course - with snow chains.  If by some chance you are looking for a Defender for about €1,400 then I might be able to help.

Heating starting to cut in now, so temps are getting lower!!

It's 4 degrees here in Dorset and I see it's 21 in Rome!  Do you all live high up in the mountains or are you whinging ex-pats?????   Winter indeed -  brrrrrr.     NB that is humour above not being horrid! x 

16C here Joy as of 10 mins ago, but raining. We are at 400mtrs altitude, but close to the mountains. Cloud cover is low, so cannot see if there is snow on them!!!

... but just a little. From what I understand Dorset is warm compared to up North in UK where it is 1c and snow covered....  We have similar weather to Badger - showers, but not too cold...  :) 

400mtrs here but not as close to the mountains as Badger, did not see any snow on them this morning.....and its raining!

Raining in Bagni di Lucca, but the river is looking great and mighty with so much water. About 14C outside. I can see smoke coming out of most chimneys. Baked a "castagnaccio" and I have prepared a lovely lentil stew. It is nice to spend time at home, relaxing.

Just rain.....16c out, but cats have decided to stay at home today....a rain thing...Tomorrow forecast here says 10c mid-day and Monday 7C ! ....is this the start of it ?

 sagraiasolar Why would you need snow chains on a Landy? I live in the middle of a field and I rarely put mine in 4 wheel drive it was brill, (ex-military) as long as i made tracks thru the snow once a day it would have no trouble getting out. I miss it and would love another but don't have the dosh. It got thru deisel qucker than I get thru wine! Just out of interest is it lhd?