暗网禁区

Brrr! Glad I don't live in the mountains! Though I will be working on filling the wood shed for sure!

As usual we took advantage of the village mayors聽 supply which is slightly cheaper and delivered to our gate. Then the neighbour arranges for someone o cut it to manageable sizes and we store it in our wood shed. We can only buy it in five or ten cube amounts so we buy five cubes at a time each year.

@Kath948381

Just buy a chainsaw and an electric log splitter and you're all set up. I assume you keep the split logs for the following year - the "dry wood" you get is never anything like dry and needs a good year to be ready to burn with any efficiency..

Yes we now have two wood sheds more or less full but once it gets a bit cooler here I'll start splitting logs . I'll not be living here alone this winter but although I've got a large long handled axe I cannot lift it so I use a small axe and a lump hammer to hit it with. Works for me.

So the wood I'll be splitting this year is around two years old and has been stored inside.

Yes we now have two wood sheds more or less full but once it gets a bit cooler here I'll start splitting logs . I'll not be living here alone this winter but although I've got a large long handled axe I cannot lift it so I use a small axe and a lump hammer to hit it with. Works for me. - @Kath948381

A real glutton for punishment! I used to do the whole felling/cutting/splitting by hand malarkey in France but I'm not 30 anymore, and anyway A/C is cheaper and cleaner to run.

We have 15-20 cubes of split wood that's been drying for over 7 years now - it started out as oak and beech but it's more like balsa wood now.....馃榿

I have about three cubes worth of wood removed from the old roof in our woodshed, and a new electric chainsaw delivered since my last visit to play with!

We probably won't visit over the coldest months, the house still won't be ready for winter stays. So I just need enough for the cool mornings and evenings in autumn and spring.

@janemulberry

Don't forget to drain the pipes and turn off the main stopcock - and remember to insulate the water meter; you'll have to pay for it if it freezes and gets damaged,,

Right! I haven't done that properly yet.

The first winter after buying the house the builders were working over winter, redoing the inside plumbing. The house was kept warm enough to prevent a pipe freeze, but the garden tap burst.

Last year i had a list of exactly what I needed to do, but then my MiL had a fall a few days before my booked trip and lingered for a couple of months. My neighbour "winterised" for me -- turned off the water and covered the meter with bags of old straw. I'm not sure if he drained the pipes or not. Anyway, the meter and the indoor plumbing survived, hut when i opened the main stopcock it became clear that the garden tap had burst again!

As I'm not convinced of the insulation capacity of old straw, dark with age and damp, I've been saving all the styrofoam i can (not embarrassed to pull it out of the skip, as long as its clean) to break up and bag. I'll get some bean bag filling聽 (your suggestion, i think?) to add if i haven't got enough. And I'll be sure to drain the system. One of the reasons not to visit over winter -- having to do that every time.

@janemulberry

You can buy bags of expanded polystyrene beads - as used for filling those ginormous bean bag "sofas" that were so trendy in the '70s..