• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

F ing cold this morning!

I was just thinking how fed up I am of it being cold here. It's 3 Celcius today.
Now that I've seen your stats, I shan't moan.
 
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Dry cold does make a huge difference. When I spent a winter in Finland several years back, -25 and dry was actually quite pleasant for the few minutes before your eyeballs started freezing if you forgot to keep blinking. Either way much nicer than the damp +3 back home.
 
I agree with you guys. We only spent a few weeks in Finland above the arctic circle (though we did it twice including a pristine ice hotel experience) and the coldest we experienced was about minus 35 I think. This was at night on a trek through a forest to frozen lake to photograph the northern lights. (Carrying tripods and proper cameras, using snow shoes).

It was super crisp, not wet, and frankly amazing. You get a sense of air purity that I have never experienced anywhere else, and you realise what our planet could be like. The complete absence of light pollution is incredible too. Wondrous.
 
Well, we had -12C in the Borders last week. Coldest we have had for a sustained period was in Tyresö, at rather under -20C. Enchanting to go out with the wunderhund in the morning, and actually feeling your nasal hairs freeze and snap off.

Needless to say the air source heating pump didn’t do jack at that point. But funnily enough, burning wood still worked. You can possibly see why I insist on fires in my houses. Particularly when you are at the end of a supply in the Borders and they seem to think that cutting the power is a fun thing to do. Candles in every room, torches, cartridge supply cooking rings, and lots of logs. Fun in a way. But bathing in cold water ain’t my idea of jollity. Takes me back to boarding school. But I digress…
 
Tiresias said:
Well, we had -12C in the Borders last week. Coldest we have had for a sustained period was in Tyresö, at rather under -20C. Enchanting to go out with the wunderhund in the morning, and actually feeling your nasal hairs freeze and snap off.

Needless to say the air source heating pump didn’t do jack at that point. But funnily enough, burning wood still worked. You can possibly see why I insist on fires in my houses. Particularly when you are at the end of a supply in the Borders and they seem to think that cutting the power is a fun thing to do. Candles in every room, torches, cartridge supply cooking rings, and lots of logs. Fun in a way. But bathing in cold water ain’t my idea of jollity. Takes me back to boarding school. But I digress…
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Nothing like a wood fire, ground source heat pumps also have problems delivering good heat when cold outside.
Maybe the new technology is better today? Buddy had a ground source heat pump, One day I asked if he was running the AC.
 
The home farm (now nothing to do with us) has put in ground source for some rental flats in the old stables. I don’t know how it is working (nor have any right to), but judging by the number of contractors’ vans, and comments from the tenants I meet on the hill, it is not a marvellous success.
As you say, stick to wood.
 
If it's dry, as in the continental interior of North America, it's fine. Anywhere else, with even moderate humidity, = sensation of being wrapped in hot, damp, cotton wool. Yuk. Coastal resorts (where Derek was) bearable because they normally have off-shore winds.
 
derekcohen said:
Well it is hell here in Western Australia. My wife and I drove down to Esperance for a week, which is a 10 hour drive south. We spent a 40-degree C day at Lucky Bay. Shear hell ...





Regards from Perth

Derek
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Wow, that's almost 80 C between your weather and ours. The pics look very inviting!
 
duke said:
Wow, that's almost 80 C between your weather and ours. The pics look very inviting!
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I was in Ontario (visiting Lee Valley) in January 2014. It was 40 C below.

I always wanted to know what happens to a winter of dog pee and poop when spring thaws?

Regards from Perth

Derek
 
Pee, well it just gets watered down with rain but the poop is a disaster.
I usually collect three large seed bags worth. Mind you we had six dogs then.
We are down two so hopefully not as bad.
I'm sure you prefer the 40 plus over the 40 below. :)
 
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duke said:
I'm sure you prefer the 40 plus over the 40 below. :)
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I'm not so sure. I live in a house with heating but no air conditioning. –40°C might be bearable (if my central heating / house insulation coped and I stayed indoors). Also, there's always jumpers, down jackets, heated body-warmers etc to help make it bearable.

+40°C definitely wouldn't be bearable as there's nothing you can do about it (unless you have very powerful air conditioning).
 
I do see your point Dr.Al.
My wife likes the winter inside temperature to be 23 C but in summer she wants the AC set at 21 C. So I say keep the AC at 23 C, no way she says it's too warm. It is a losing battle for me and one I will never win. :)
 
duke said:
It is a nice dry cold. Probably more tolerable than your damp cold, just me trying to make it more enjoyable 😉
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I was working in Germany (Hamburg) a few years back and it was -7 degC back home was -1 DegC so I thought it would be nice to be back home until I arrived in Suffolk England, still 1- DegC but because of the North sea wind chill factor and of course we have the dampness of sea air to creep into your bones too so it felt a lot colder than Hamburgs -7 degc.

We have a saying in suffolk that... the cold wind does not go around you it would rather cut through you!
 
duke said:
Curious, for you what is the duration of your winter?
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It varies from year to year. Could be anything between three weeks and six months. Summer is similar and can be anything from three non-consecutive days up to a solid four months.

As the saying goes, if you don't like the British weather, just wait ten minutes.
 
duke said:
I do see your point Dr.Al.
My wife likes the winter inside temperature to be 23 C but in summer she wants the AC set at 21 C. So I say keep the AC at 23 C, no way she says it's too warm. It is a losing battle for me and one I will never win. :)
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Haha, yes I know all about that, the other thing that gets to me here in the US is when we are out for a meal in the summer , you need to take a woolly or a coat as the AC is set so low!
Called a lazy wind in Lincolnshire, too lazy to go around you so it cuts right through you.
 
The only time of year remotely close to the cold damp for me is late fall when it rains every couple of days for a few weeks and the temperature is around 0 C to 6 C.
 
duke said:
Curious, for you what is the duration of your winter?
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I would say it depends upon where you live in the UK and a lot depends upon if East, West, North or south. I live on the East Coast in the UK (Lowestoft, the most easterly point in the UK). January and February are the coldest months of winter when you can often feel the cold biting, summer for me is July August and September when it can be quite warm (for the UK). On the coast it is generally a few degrees cooler than inland due to the sea breeze.

The location can make a big difference to the climate, during the summer the Peak District (Central England) often has Blue skys with clouds and in suffolk we will have clear skys that look washed out in comparison (not all the time but very often in comparison). We might be in T shirts in Suffolk and have to wear a jumper in the Peak District (We holiday there every year).

In Suffolk the land is generally uniform (flatish) and closer to sea level than the Peak District which is very hilly with a far greater altitude. The cotton industry used to be mailny based in the North West areas of England because the climeate if often damper which was better suited to cottom production. I think it may be to damer climate that contibutes to the blue skyes but I could be wrong.
 
duke said:
I do see your point Dr.Al.
My wife likes the winter inside temperature to be 23 C but in summer she wants the AC set at 21 C. So I say keep the AC at 23 C, no way she says it's too warm. It is a losing battle for me and one I will never win. :)
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Sounds like your wife is feeling the effects of a draft in the winter.
 
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