Come on I am a woman of 65 living alone in the countryside. I have been through a lot of these problems. You’ll get used to it. And you will learn a lot which will make you stronger. You aleady made such progress so keep going. You will fix this as well. ❤️💚❤️💚

Salt will melt the ice and then it will refresh. Use sand !

Hi. Huge fan of Hamish's from his days as a community manager in Division 1. It's been fun watching you guys try out the country life in Sweden. Hope you find the same happiness as our family did from leaving the city. This one is a bit late to the party (just found your channel), but I hope it helps. I've run into a lot of the same problems. You may want to look into investing in new windows and exterior doors no matter what. Almost all of the doors and windows are from the 70s or 80s from what I can see. They are a mix of double glazed and triple glazed, but all of the rubber bindings are now so old that they have lost their elasticity. Which means you're bleeding energy through the areas between the glazing and the wood in the window pane itself. As for your external piping... You bought what appears to be a summer cabin. The previous owners most likely emptied the pipes and toilets during late autumn and turned down the heat to around 5 degrees Celcius. Which is why they never had any problems with frozen pipes etc. Because you've decided to use it as a primary home you run into problems during winter. Filling dirt over the pipes won't work as insulation when the ground below the pipes is bedrock. You'd need more than a meter of dirt on top of, and below, the pipes. The cold will seep through no matter what and create problems in winter. If you put some piping insulation on them and then bury them it MIGHT work, but I doubt it. Even in a temperate area like around Stockholm. You should talk to your plumber about the following temporary solution for your pipes (Norwegian website, but the products are available in Sweden as well and you seem to be fluent in Swedish so it shouldn't be a problem. Just grab the produktnummer from the page and use it on a Swedish byggvaruhus website): Wrap all pipes in a product like this. www.glava.no/losninger/isolering-av-ror Then wrap them in this thing. Fasten them with large zip-ties for the time being. www.glava.no/produkter/glava-vintermatte If you can you want to then wrap it in something tear resistant as the "vintermatta" isn't very robust. You should, when spring comes along, build a proper seating (think of it like a house with a roof going all the way along the pipes length) for the entire plumbing setup which goes down the hill to protect it from the weather permanently. Talk to the people at the place where you buy wooden planks and materials (byggvaruhus). Most of them give you lots of free advice and some of them have dedicated consultants who can help you plan all your renovation work. You should also, due to the rising energy costs, consider looking into getting a windmill system (as you live on top of a rock) and putting proper insulating material into the walls. There are a lot of really good products you can use. The one I used reduced my energy costs by almost 40% (old house from right after WW2 with timber walls). It completely covers the walls with no gaps if you use the plastic retainers. www.glava.no/produkter/glava-veggplate-31-7381872017564018025#losninger I had a carpenter do the work though. It was expensive, but already paying off due to the rise in energy costs. Oh... And never buy the cheapest insulating material you can get. It's one of the areas of your house you never want to skimp on cost. Cheap insulating material contracts over time, leaving gaps. They also deteriorate faster. Both lead to you having to redo everything again. Most importantly. Talk to a carpenter about insulation. Talk to the plumber about insulating your pipes. See if you can find a byggvaruhus with consultants who can help you with everything. Hope this gave you some ideas.

re: window insulation. depending on how your air circulates in your house, you might get some condensation on the windows. It's okayish when temperature changes suddenly, but should not be permanent. If it seems to be permanent, then you will need to cut air holes into the strips you put on, not much, like 5cm or so. That will allow some air through the windows (which is *dry* when it's coming from cold); this loses some energy but saves you from mold and dank

Bummer! That was unforeseen :(

Sweep it with a broom never salt - because its gonna freeze again and ou drag the salt in - use sand or gravel .

walking around in rainboots on frozen decking is like begging to slide around :P hehe

Hi. On our decking in the winter we lay some pathways on top by fixing down some Artificial Turf. It is completely non slip.

It's still a really nice place, keep it up soldiers!

I've heard (and don't quote me bc maybe it's not true) that snow salt is bad for wood. You can always put cooled fireplace ash down to help with the slippery wood though. Bonus- it's free!

We recently had to pay $10,000+ USD due to a sewer line that had been busted by tree roots... home ownership is really rewarding but equally frustrating/expensive as well. Good luck!

Sorry about the pipes. But at Biltema you can buy Varmgalvaniserat nät that you can cut and nail to each step to make it less sliperi. Its cold now but think that its only one week till the 21st december which is the darkest day of the year. Then it will be lighter and lighter. At least something to look forward to =)

The ice salts need to be put down before the snow (if its not going to rain) so that the ice can't stick together. However, this passed winter I actually used table salt to melt ice because heavy rain moved the course ice salt.

This is why you need sauna that you have 😂!

Good to see U get things solved. We have -12 and humidity at 80% so it's crazy cold.

You can buy longer rolls of adhesive backed sanding paper that's pretty much the same as that anti-slip stuff but way cheaper and in bigger sizes.

Avoid the salt go with sand

Salt

Wow what action, hope you are safe and well, -5 will be the warm times :)

Winter sure is bringing a lot of new challenges. D: This video reminded me to change my own window seals haha

wow!!! Man you guys are really going thru it. I never know what to expect in this season!

Hi guys1 Sorry for your tough week. I`ve had similar problems so I think I know what you´r going through. And two months ago a took down 5 trees that the former owner took the opportunity plant right over the new drain pipe he had dug down. Not very wise of him! Haha, -minus 4-5 celcius is not cold! You will for sure get at least minus 15 celcius in januari/ february. I live a good distance south of Gothenburg a bit inland and Ive all ready´ had -minus 14 degrees. Plese hang in there! millions of people live and thrive in the countryside! You will too. Ones you learn how to tackle things! Please don´t put out salt! It hurts cats and dogs paws! And it stains the deck! Why not save money, effort and environment and just buy "skobroddar"/ the rubber thingys with spikes you put on your boots! Sand is not enough. When you get just a little snow you put out sand. More snow more sand. That will be a looot of sand before spring! You need more like gravel. It´s a bit rougher and lasts longer. Take care and don´t freeze to death ;D.

Put sand on the frost🤠

There are rubber stair treads that you could try, that are more hardy than the strips. I don't have outdoor stairs, so I can't really attest to how well they work, but they seem to be a more permanent solution than always applying sand, kitty litter, etc.

wow guys! That's a lot to deal with. I'd have been running back to city life sooo hard! Hope you're still having some fun time as well :)

Oh boy. 🥴 Well, good job on taking care of business. And you’re right…no tears for me this time. Haha

Put sand or gravel on the decking and the stairs.

I am so sorry your pipes froze we have our pipes underground so they don’t freeze in winter. We use kitty litter on our wood and cement areas outside when frost or ice forms

The guy spoke swedish and you english, that was funny, how fluent in swedish are you guys?

Try to survive until summer, put the property on sale and get back to the city. A friendly advice. All my best!

Frozen poop in the pipes... run for your lives!

Why are you staying in a summer cabin in the wintertime? It is clearly not built for winter use. I have not seen any of your videos before, but you sound very unprepared? Sand or crushed leca will help against the slippery decks and stairs. Make sure you take off your boots, or you will get the sand everywhere inside. It will stick to your boots. You need insulation, and electrical heating cables on your pipes.