T-shirts in this weather; madness, absolute madness! having said that I did go outside in just my pyjamas to get the wood in this morning in a cool -13° - gives me more incentive to get the fire going asap :-O
thaw on it's way but snow forecast for tonight tomorrow so kids are chuffed as they still haven't been able to go sledging or make a snowman - it dissapeared in the valley micro-climates almost instantly as the cold hadn't set in. if it does snow now it'll stay for ages unless it really does warm up!
Took daughters to school. Sheet of thick ice outside entrance where children and adults alike were falling over. So they placed a teacher, my pal Antoine, outside. He stood there in his customary tee-shirt directing people around the ice. I remembered I once did that kind of thing BUT now I withdraw to the refuge of my car and turn up the heater!
Shirley, glad you're nice and warm, once walls are heated up they do retain the heat well but not nearly as well as if they were insulated from the exterior - wish we were having the relatively "mild" temperatures you have too, spare a though for those of us the other side of the Larzac ;-)
ps double glazing makes a huge difference even/especially in old places (unless you have tiny windows!)
I am from Chicago and I must say that, from the standpoint of sheer cold, this is relatively normal. You guys have not experienced REAL COLD, like, - 30.
That being said, this is the coldest winter I have yet experienced in 13 years total in France. Our pipes froze in the basement, depriving us of water for 4 days. With the oddly snaking pipes in our 18C farmhouse, we put heaters in each room to defrost the mysterious offending blockage, only to discover that it was the city's water meter that had frozen, when water erupted out of the dial when I removed a cover of ice.
I hope everyone else's story was resolved with less damage.
Insulation, yes indeed. You know it makes sense. We've got a big strong 20 degrees inside our straw bale walls. Not like the days when we lived next to stone. I think if I ever moved back to a stone-built house, I too would sacrifice a little living area and fit a second skin, or even build a straw wall using the slimmest side of the bales. Passive solar's another wonderful thing, but they always made such small windows in the days when all those beautiful stone farmhouses were built. Keep warm, one and all, and look after your beasts!
Another thing that helps us, like today, is two South facing bays 2.5m wide. The heating is not even coming on with those. And just as I say it, the sun is going down now. Time to light the fire.
I imported a Rayburn. It heats and cooks in the kitchen, delivers hot water to our boiler when the solar is not delivering and heats radiators throughout the house. We have a long way to go with this house though and lose a heck of a lot because our roof is not yet fully insulated and so on. This year guess what I shall be doing. Many of our neighbours have no double glazing or insulation as was the case for centuries in those houses. People have talked about previous cold winters especially one sometime in the 50s that reached -20s. From then until now little has been achieved. However, it is not beyond the ken of humanity and can be simple.
I had one winter, 1998, in a town called Mo i Rana. It is in Norway and the big sign on the road in calls it the Polar Circle City in several languages. Roughly half an hour drive on northward and one is at the Circle and there are perfectly habitable towns and villages above. The temperatures between October and April are horrendous. I think we had a -40 with wind chill during one blizzard. Yowee!
There are old houses, some built hundreds of years ago. They are double walled with all manner of filling, but then the single glazed windows have double shuttering. Inside them it is as snug as can be. In the summer the outside of those building gets as hot as hell with 24 hours of sun for several weeks at a time. They are pleasant inside. In fact, I believe the indoor temperature would be similar summer and winter if it was not for the big fires when it is cold.
OK, so summers here are hot and this winter was an exception. However, like Mark, I have paid attention and for years have heard that global warming will change air streams and affect ocean currents and thus the Gulf Stream may be affected by giving us more cold air and less rainfall if such and such happens. I am old enough not to concern myself too much, but we should think of future generations. Time, I think, to listen to ecologists before more 'unexpected' extreme winters become the norm and only plumbers and those who insulate hours will be smiling ear to ear.
Celeste, the French are just as barking mad; 90km training ride on the bike (read bicycle) yesterday and I was the only Englishman amongst 25 odd Frenchmen, same in the summer in over 30° too !
Hi All, This is our first winter here in the Charente, we are doing our place up and are living in a little studio, that we got ready to live in over summer last.Its only 36 sq m and thank heavens we are in here,as the rest of the pile is bloody freezing. Although I must say I am spending a bit of my time finding drafts. De-freezing frozen pipes and mending water leaks. It is very good to experience this level of chill and like Stuart I will be insulating every exterior wall to within an inch of it's life.
I think I would willingly sacrifice 20cm on each outside wall on an old house for insulation. Stud and insulate, I know, I know it's not charming old stone. But hey I've got a fake stone wall and it looks cool, or should I say warm?
as for cycling into the wind... yes did 90km yesterday with the club and as you say, how on earth did people do the same before modern clothing - we all managed to keep more or less warm in freezing temperatures but wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes in what was available only a couple of decades ago. And yes Stuart, the worst winters possible are in the UK, months of grey damp cold, not as cold as here but the bright cold dry sunny weather here is so much easier to live with - no SAD problems either ;-)
Insulation is sooo the way forward, not so easy on older places but modern bioclimatique houses don't even need heating, not even in this weather.
As for the ice-age theory, that's an old one and was banded about for a decade or so 1970s/1980s because that was what the computers were producing based on data back then. Global warming seems to be certain, the proof is there for all to see in overall temperature rises. This does of course mean more extreme weather - both hot and cold, more storms etc. it doesn't mean the same weather just warmer - not as simple as that!
things should be back to normal before long, but there again the current weather isn't too far off normal for a cold snap anyway, just the fact that it's lasting longer than normal.
keep yourselves warm where ever you are, spring will be along before you know it ;-)
With you on the insulation Stu - it has been -10 here and we have been toasty warm with just one wood-burner until this week when James installed a second one in the 'kitchen' - bearing in mind that there are still large areas of un-renovated house complete with drafty holes and gaps, this is pretty good going.
Hi Mark, once again a nicely written piece. However, for once I am in slight disagreement. It's only been cold for two and a half weeks. I agree it's harsh but so far short lived and apparently warming up from tomorrow. I think the worst kind are the long wet and cold winters, maybe not always sub zero but felt colder by the humidity. I do feel for people with older properties, but the first thing to be done before anything else, should be insulation. The upstairs of our house has been switched off when the boys are away at Uni, and the minimum temperature was about 10°C and that was in -16° outside temperatures, so, not too bad really.
