The Beast From The East continues to bite!

Food, Nutrition and Agriculture
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ukpreppergrrl
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Joined: Tue Aug 12, 2014 9:03 am
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The Beast From The East continues to bite!

Post by ukpreppergrrl »

So it's been rather unseasonably warm down here in the south east for the last couple of days. The Beast From The East a dim, distant memory leaving nothing more than a vague mental note to lag my boiler's condenser pipe. Or so I thought...

Having been a busy bee in the garden this week planting potatoes, onion sets etc. and generally mulching and tidying I noticed this afternoon that the top couple of inches of my still rather bare beds are completely bone dry. Mostly in an attempt to stop the local moggies from using them as their new favourite latrine system and digging up my little onions (already had to replant quite a few!) I thought I'd get the hosepipes out and wet the beds down. I say get them out but in reality they're already out. I have a complex system of hosepipes proliferating through from the one outside tap to the front and rear of the house. Has been working blinding for a couple of years and saves a great deal of effort. Unfortunately when I switched the tap on I got liberally sprayed with cold water from head to toe :shock: Looking around I could see water spurting from the system all over, giving one particular local moggy, whom I had failed to notice in the shrubbery, even more of a shock! It turns out that most of my plastic fittings have split - presumably the effects of ice from The Beast! The only ones that haven't are the brass fittings. The hosepipes themselves seem ok, other than where a fox started gnawing on one of them :evil: So...lesson learned: don't skimp on plastic fittings if they're outside over winter with water in the system! Being south of Watford Gap doesn't mean that you're safe from freezing damage! :roll:
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التَكْرَارُ يُعَلِّمُ الحِمارَ "Repetition teaches the donkey" Arabic proverb
"A year from now you may wish you had started today" Karen Lamb
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Brambles
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Re: The Beast From The East continues to bite!

Post by Brambles »

It's something you don't think about isn't it? (Well I wouldn't have either!)
Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain~anon
Arzosah
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Re: The Beast From The East continues to bite!

Post by Arzosah »

I wouldn't either. Great post!
pseudonym
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Re: The Beast From The East continues to bite!

Post by pseudonym »

Timely reminder, also effects water butts who retain 100 litres plus of frozen water for quite a while.
Two is one and one is none, but three is even better.
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peejay
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Re: The Beast From The East continues to bite!

Post by peejay »

I guess one option is to consider "winterising" the water system at the appropriate time, similar to what some folks (including myself) do with caravans over winter. They're prone to freezing pockets of water in the pipework which can then split.

Last year I bought a widget that you can connect into the water system via an adaptor, then plug in a car tyre compressor (set to max 15psi) to basically blow the water out. I've got almost a litre out in the past so I'm definitely happy i bought it although some folks diy with their own selection of parts.

This is what I use but you'd need less bits to do a basic garden hose-based system: http://www.keepfloeing.com/products-touring.html