[Closed] Mosquitos…in February…in Scotland?

Keep your house warm?

Not really?, i do have an air source heat pump unit for hot water and radiators but i only have it switched to hot water as it has been since it was fitted two years ago, never used it to heat the radiators.
I do have an inset stove fitted in the living room but that's all i have for heating and that's not lit till 7pm at night, there's bare floorboards in the living room and hallway so it's not exactly warm, the thermostat on the hallway wall says it's 14 degrees?, not that warm as when i feel cold i tend to wear my Rab gilet or a hat, And i usually sleep with an open window as i can't abide a stuffy room to sleep in.

I guess the mosquitos are hardening up….bugger!.

I do have an inset stove fitted in the living room

At a glance I read 'insect'.

That's a damn good idea martin, my next question is " What is the Kj/kg conversion ratio for Mosquitos?, i've currently got 12 of them lined up on a paper towel so how many do i need to equal the 13 Kj/kg of seasoned oak that i'm currently burning?.

14 degrees...spot the Scotch bacheoler!

Sure the bite's not a midge? They're out in the Lakes - though this breeze should take them to Holland.

Have you tried drowning them?

Busted by cynic-al…….. 😀

Definitely not a midge, i used to live in a forest in Argyll as a kid (midge central - every house had a co2 midge trap that needed a bucket emptied each day) and i can quite happily get changed out of my cycling kit in the Galloway forest in August so midge's don't bother me that much, until they crawl into my ears/nose or mouth that is but more importantly i don't come out in raised red itchy blotches when they bite me.

100% certain they are Mosquitos - i need more spiders in the house.

There's approx 130 calories in 100g of mosquitos (according to my extensive googling) and a mosquito weighs 2mg, so by my reckoning that's 500,000 mosquito's per KG which works out at 1300kcal/kg.

So if i've done my sums right (seriously doubt it after a bottle of verdot) along with the relevant conversions i should be able to generate 5.5kj/kg of heat energy by burning 1kg of mosquito's in my new insect stove as invented by martinxyz above (i'll share the profits when we move to production), i've only collected 12 so far 🙁 , i may need to put a request in the "wanted" forum…….only another 499,988 to collect before i can luxuriate in cosseted warmth by the glow of burning Mosquito's.

EDIT : [i]Have you tried drowning them [/i]

Why would i want to get them wet?, they'll be far to hard to light if i do that and i want a roaring mosquito fire, not a smouldering pile of Mosquito corpses.

Check that you haven't got a pool of warm stagnant water somewhere under or inside the house where they are breeding.

My agent in ****stan had a crappy little car with a blocked drain on the AC condensate tray and every morning we used to open the car to find it full of vigorous newly-hatched mozzies. He used to go nuts at his brother for using the car and leaving the window open and the poor brother used to insist that he closed them all carefully but in the end my agent had to agree that they were coming from inside the car. The fact that, when he went round corners, condensate gushed out of the collector and soaked my feet eventually convinced him to get it looked at.

Nope, theres no standing water as such, i raised a few lifter boards and stuck my head under the floor and the concrete base is bone dry - obviously there is water outside but it's 4? and i doubt that's warm enough for the larvae to develop, I've checked around the Air source heat exchanger unit and that is clean with no standing water in the drain units - i guess we just need a very hard frost to kill them off, failing that i'm gonna try the [i]nuke from orbit[/i] approach

Still, it's very strange that they should be in your house in such numbers. What happens if you keep all the doors closed - are they only in one room? They can breed in as little as a cupful of water or an old car tyre. What about the HW or CH systems? Have you got a CH header tank sitting nice and warm above your cylinder? If you have a pressurised system, is it losing pressure, indicating a leak and possible pooling? What about behind the kickboards in the kitchen? Any puddles?

It's a totally sealed and pressurised Daikin Altherma air pump system so no tanks of water in the attic, there's no noticeable leaks in the heating or radiator pipes under the floor as i can lift the boards and with my solar storm light see all the way under the house - i do tend to have the windows open (fresh air junkie) so perhaps they are breeding outside and coming in to warm themselves up.

We've had quite a few at my workplace this week so i guess we need a spell of cold weather to kill them all off, this area of scotland is known as the Scottish Riviera what with our lovely climate as brought in by the gulf stream- Ha bloody ha 🙄