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Snow - freezing weather


WendyG
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It was -4 when I left the house for work this morning, and I doubt if it's increased much if any since.

Has been snowing all morning - car is covered over again now but it doesn't seem to be sticking too much on the pavements/roads.

I fear tomorrow morning will be worse once this lot has frozen solid overnight.

MeteoFrance (who are sometimes bang on and sometimes wildly inaccurate) suggest v cold for the next two days and then more snow on Sunday - don't care if it snows on Sunday as I can be at home snug in front of the woodburner!

Lou

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[quote user="WendyG"]Hi everyone, Hope everyone is ok.

We are freezing cold, ice on inside windows, frozen up doors and door locks, despite sunshine.  Thank goodness for woodburners.

Interested to hear other peoples experiences.

WendyG[/quote]

There isn't as much snow here (North Lot) as we've had in previous winters (see here and here for 2010), but it is drier and colder, though the record of -16°C overnight set 3 or 4 winters ago has not yet been broken!

It's around -7°C or -8°C when Mr Clair leaves for work at 7am and it hovers around -2°C during the day. Add the wind chill factor and it feels much much colder than that.

Inside the house is nowhere as bad as inside your house, thanks to the Jotul wood burner downstairs!

I am glad I insisted on double insulation when Mr Clair converted the attic, which means the temp in the bedroom stays on the acceptable side of fresh, despite the lack of heating upstairs.

The house cat refuses to go outside and I have to force her out twice a day to do her business; the newly adopted ginger tom seems happy enough to have made his bed on top of an old fleece at the far end of the garage.

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The biggest problem for us (by which I mean Mr C of course!) is the horses as the trough freezes over almost as fast as he puts water in.  Miserable.

The house is lovely though thanks to the heating.  As you say though, Clair, it does mean that the cats develop an aversion to going out but who can blame them?

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[quote user="Alex H"][quote user="pachapapa"]Phil predicts 6 more weeks of winter.[/quote]

But only in the USA :-)

or is his prediction worldwide?[/quote]

Generally accepted that Spring commences 21 March, therefore Winter continues for a further 7 weeks approximately.

No prediction involved.[:)]

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[quote user="Clair"]........, though the record of -16°C overnight set 3 or 4 winters ago has not yet been broken!
[/quote]

 

Call that cold?  The day our central heating boiler was commissioned it was bright and sunny - and the temperature rocketted up to -15° (day time high not low).  poor guy was worried that the bluish slush in the pipes (aka antifreze) was going to blow every joint in the system - but it didn't.

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[quote user="cooperlola"]The biggest problem for us (by which I mean Mr C of course!) is the horses as the trough freezes over almost as fast as he puts water in.

[/quote]

Yes, I have the same problem (though on a smaller scale!) with the wild cat's water.

As I type this, the temp is -6.5°C...

[IMG]http://smileys.on-my-web.com/repository/Others/winter-146.gif[/IMG]

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I don't suppose anyone knows how the Mayenne is faring? since my stroke in Oct I haven't managed over...

With regard to the horse trough get a couple of 'floats' for a cistern and use the threaded portion to attach a weight so that the float sits half way in the water. The horses soon learn to knock the float out of the way to get to the water underneath.

The chicken coop may benefit from an isulated sheet of Bac acier? on top  (assuming its a lean to and making sure the chooks cant peck the PU insulation) plus some bales of straw built up around the sides.

 

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Has anyone got any ideas on how to stop the hens water from freezing?    We change it a couple of times a day but they certainly don't have water always available which is what I would prefer.   OH breaks the ice in their pond daily and their drinking water is renewed first thing, 3 hours later and again part way through the afternoon.  Do hens actually need constant water?  With the temperatures as they are now and are forecast to be for the next week we would have to change it every 30 minutes or so......

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[quote user="BIG MAC"]I don't suppose anyone knows how the Mayenne is faring? [/quote]

"Cold" just about covers it; -9 overnight last night, daytime 'highs' below freezing for the last couple of days (plus a biting wind).

We had 4" of snow on Monday, with more predicted for Sunday. But even with these temperatures, bright sunshine has made a good job of thawing the snow on hard surfaces.

Sorry to hear about your stroke, btw.

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We had an inch or so of snow last weekend and most of it is still here. Meteo predicts that temp will go no higher than 0 until Thursday afternoon. Overnight temps not too bad, -10 for past couple of nights and likely to stay that way for a while. Lowest in recent years alleged to have been -17 in 2002/2003.

Worst part is frosts in England mean no proper horse racing to watch, only ferrets running on beaches.

Good luck to all and remember to keep delicate bits well wrapped up.

John

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My hardy dogs sleep in the garage but last night when I saw their water bowl frozen over, I took pity on them and brought them inside.

In the Bordelais we are normally spoilt weather wise but this is not nice. At least the days are getting longer and all SAD symptoms are disappearing it's only a question of time before we will all be having our aperos on the terracde[Www]

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Is it actually any colder this year than last year or perhaps the one a couple of years ago where all my pipes burts in the UK?

Perhaps its the windchill factor but it certainly feels much colder but then I have shed nearly 30kg of insulation this year so perhaps it is inevitable?

Also my heating (storage radiators) will not get the place above 14 degrees and I am sure that wasnt the case in previous years which i suspect were colder, can that also be attributed to the wind?

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Yesterday morning, we found two lost or abandoned dogs (mother and young pup) on the front steps. They were freezing and starving and had clearly been outside in the cold for several days. I contacted the mairie and the gendarmerie in case the owner was local and had reported them missing, and I also called the animal refuge in Figeac (pointless call; no call back to date).

I had secreted them in an absent neighbour's barn to keep them out of the wind in case they had to spend another night outside but all's well that ends well: after spreading the word through my neighbour (who knows everything about everybody in a 30km radius), their owner was located and he came to pick them up last night. It turns out he'd been looking for them since last Saturday morning. He thought they'd been unable to find their way back after the heavy snowfall.

Good thing too, as the thermometer dropped to

-14°C overnight. Add the wind factor and we discovered a blown radiator in the

gite this morning [:'(]. It's the only radiator in the property fixed on an outside wall and it's in a poorly insulated room built by a previous owner.

Thankfully Mr Clair had thought to turn the water off a few days ago and

there is no damage, apart from the blown cast-iron rad, and the potential damage caused by the frozen dirty water on the laminate floor.

I have mopped up what I could, but really there's nothing to be done about it now until the weather warms up...[:(]

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[quote user="Mr Ice-ni"]

We had an inch or so of snow last weekend and most of it is still here. Meteo predicts that temp will go no higher than 0 until Thursday afternoon. Overnight temps not too bad, -10 for past couple of nights and likely to stay that way for a while. Lowest in recent years alleged to have been -17 in 2002/2003.

Worst part is frosts in England mean no proper horse racing to watch, only ferrets running on beaches.

Good luck to all and remember to keep delicate bits well wrapped up.

John

[/quote]

"Delicate bits wrapped up " What sort of kids we are we breeding these days ... tough or just plain daft

Today outside my house minus 1.5 was a 14/15 year old girl in a tea shirt leggings and gloves bare arms of course chatting to two boys ..And the boys in these temperatures going to school never wear anything other than a school shirt their jackets are stuffed in their bags ..rain hail or snow . What is all that about ?
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