Get ready for winter / zombie apocalypse etc - the GET PREPPED THREAD!

[FunnyRunner]

Just a place to share some general ideas and tips for getting ready for a severe winter. Fingers crossed this will be a mild one but we've had a few bad ones recently so looking for ideas.

What do people think are the basic essentials to have in the house?

Online lists seem to suggest the absolute basics are:

• Food
• Bottled water
• Wind up torch and radio OR battery op plus lots of batteries
• Adequate medication for the family plus first aid kit
• Baby milk / food and pet food (if needed)
• Shovel and grit / salt for clearing paths
• Plenty of fuel and / or blankets

What foods will you be keeping in your emergency box? Ideally I want stuff that can lie down in the basement for a couple of years in a box.

If you have found any good gadgets please share links :)

Just to add a recent purchase ive made is an omnia camping oven. You can find videos of it on youtube. Seem to be able to make allsorts of things with it including bread. The great thing is you can use it on a gas camping stove. I ordered it from compass24.com and am awaiting delivery so will keep you posted.

Lisaloolibell you sound like a woman in the know!

Yukonho I've just seen they do a lifesaver bottle too. I might be able to sneak that one into the store!

Ok, which one of you vipers bought my box of sea biscuits?? :o

Approve of sneaking squirrel!! :) I would like a bottle too, but hanker, hanker I tell you for the jerrycan!!

here's a link to the omnia oven

this is where ive purchased mine from www.compass24.com/product/14568018/omnia-camping-oven tinned butter here shop.conserva.de/en/18-canned-butter full cream milk powder www.amazon.co.uk/Nestle-Nido-Milk-Powder-Pack/dp/B0051UCEK8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383728235&sr=8-1&keywords=nido+milk+powder

Other things we have been doing to prepare for winter are
going round the house and adding strips of draught proofing tape where we find a cold blast. Also adding thermal linings to curtains in our living room. Looking at getting some foil radiator reflectors to try and increase the heat thats going back into the room. One thing I am concerned about is the fact that our carbon monoxide alarm doesnt have a backup battery in it so I intend to buy a battery operated one so that if the power should go off and we're using the portable gas fire, camping stove and candles I want to make sure we dont get a build up carbon monoxide. Have started keeping some spare 9volt batteries for the smoke alarm too.

As well as that we've been making sure that our cars are winter ready, trying to persuade dh to get winter tyres as he has an hour n half commute to work to no avail. In the past Ive bought him a couple of car emergency kits one here www.sportsdirect.com/winter-emergency-kit-900080 and the other here www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GONE-OUTDOORS-WINTER-ESSENTIALS-Outdoor-Winter-Emergency-Kit-BOYZ-TOYS-/370818963731?pt=UK_Toys_Games_Outdoor_Toys_ET&hash=item5656885913

Starfish - what model of wind up phone charger do you have? Sounds like a really good idea!

For short term use I bought a battery pack in sainsburys on the weekend of the storm. It was about a tenner and you charge it up in advance and it stores about 8 hours of charge (usb connection) for laptop/phone etc

That sounds good too, Little.

YukonHo they have your biscuits on ebay £4.99 for a box which contains rations for 72 hours (sounds fairly reasonable actually!). Box lasts until 2018!

Thank you Starfish.

Thanks squirrel, but I wanted the big mahoosive box...which says rations for 2 months, but not when you have 6 mouths to feed! Will last two weeks. The 72 hours pack is for one person. Just think it'd be a good boost to our stores to have a couple of weeks worth of these, ESP as they keep for so long.

Lisaloo, we have winter tyres and they make such an enormous difference, we were able to drive out of a drift in a normal car that our friends in their 4x4 struggled with (they had normal tyres). Course some of that could just have been my good driving! :o

Good idea about the carbon monoxide alarm, just bought a spare batt operated one.

Stupid question but With winter tyres do you have to take them on and off as the weather changes or can you drive around with them even when there isn't snow and ice?

evaq8.co.uk/24-Seven-Oceans-Long-Life-Survival-Biscuit-Rations-60-000-calories.html

Can anyone tell I'm procrastinating. I do have work to do but am not in the mood.

evaq8.co.uk/Box-of-24-NRG-5-Emergency-Food-Ration-Biscuits.html

This one has a ten year shelf life

Right, got off my ass and ordered a lot of stuff this morning - wind up torch, wind up torch-radio, water storage bottles (food grade), fire striker, wind up lantern, water purifying tabs.

Next up: order spare gas bottle and big delivery of wood.

After that: get some clear storage boxes and start buying some emergency food supplies, just tinned stuff although I have looked at the biscuit things before.

Squrrel think you are supposed to take them off as they slow the car down a bit, have quite a drag from what I understand. We've never had them as we rarely get big snowfalls here (until recently) but used to live somewhere very cold and people just put them on routinely for snow season, then took them off and stored them for the following winter.

LRS - winter tyres are meant for all of winter - they are good in wet muddy conditions as well as snow. They get taken off in spring as they wear faster. (or so I understand)

my friends dh is a roofer and drives all over the place and swears by winter tyres. Apparently they're good for wet and cold conditions as well as snow. I've read that its better to have them once the temperatures are down to 7 degrees or below. Anyway friends dh puts them on in October and just lets them wear down right through until the summer. They're not like the snow tyres you see with the studs on they've just got a different tread and better grip and are made from a different compound.

Right I think I'm going to get some winter tyres then. We live in the middle of the woods in the grounds of a stately home. Our driveway is a third of a mile long and on a slope. Even with two four wheel drive cars we have been snowed in for each of the past three years.

Funnyrunner you do realise we are now all going to descend on you as well as YukonHo in the event of an emergency. you guys are seriously prepped!

I would love my very own woods. We nearly bought some amenity woodland nearby once but I dithered and it sold really quickly.

I've put some foil radiator covers behind our radiators today. Bugger to get them to stay fixed to the wall. I got a bit

The woods are great fun OYBBK but expensive to maintain. Its protected woodland and so every tree has a TPO on it. That means you have to get planning permission to do anything at all, even cut back a branch. Then when trees need work everything has to be certified. I hadn't realised how much woodland needs maintaining, I naively thought it sort of looked after itself.

We have five acres of our own surrounding us and a further 11 acres which only we have access to, then the rest of the estate (belonging to others) is hundreds of acres of woodland. My DSs are six and eight and are feral children. I think they have built a second home somewhere in the woods because they're never in the house!

We're always ok for wood though!

I know a little about woodland maintenance - but not where you cant do any work without permission.
Very

updated winter non-forecast!

Does anyone know the best way to insulate a bay window? I opened the curtains earlier and felt like someone had taken the front of the house off.

The curtains are now closed again