Cutting energy bills has become an obsession in the UK and no doubt elsewhere.
Hurrah if you live off-grid or have log burning stoves and even a log-fired boiler, especially if you have a forest on your doorstep. Tough cheese if you live in flats where the energy bill is part of the service charge and all your neighbours have the heating on full blast and keep the windows open.
We have a gas-fired combi boiler so I listened when an expert offered advice on the wireless. The most important thing is to turn the thermostat (for the flow temperature) down from 80 C to 60 C. Gosh, the highest ours has ever been is 75 C over its nine year life. Right now it’s 62 C.
I now realise how frugal we are; depressing, as there are not many ways to economise. We only run the dishwasher when it’s chocker, on a twenty-nine minute, 45 C, programme. The clothes washer is used twice a week at most. But back to the combi boiler. It has a time switch and the heating comes on twice a day: 06.40 – 09.30 and 16.00 – 21.40. The hot water is on all day but between 21.40 and 06.40 the whole boiler shuts down, greatly extending its life I hope. They are supposed to last up to fifteen years and I hope I can do better. Of course on a cold winter afternoon it’s easy to override the timer and put the heating on or sit upstairs where it’s warmer.
Coffee with Hitler
I hope you will read Coffee with Hitler; the British Amateurs Who Tried to Civilise the Nazis, by Charles Spicer; it is recommended. But be sure you get the right book. The similar Chocolate Cake with Hitler by Emma Craigie is something very different. If I may digress, the author is Jacob Rees-Mogg’s sister. I have not read it but it is fiction about the closing weeks of the war seen through the eyes of Goebbels’ eldest (aged 12) daughter; I imagine in the same genre as The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne, which I have read.
Well done for your combi boiler, but why have hot water on all day? Mine is on for half an hour for the morning shower and ten minutes in the evening. Try it and see if you miss the extra 14 hours plus…….
With the utmost pain and regret I have had to turn off my life support machine this week: the Aga. With the oil price more than double what it was a year ago, It was costing close to 100 euros per week to keep it operational.
I have realised that wool is a much cheaper alternative, and have invested in all manner of garments and blankets to insulate myself against the perils of an Irish winter.
Those of us who live in large, draughty old houses now have no prospect of being able to heat such a large volume of space, I think I might pitch a tent in the drawing room and encase myself in a sleeping bag for the next six months.
Your good brother Bru perhaps will fare better. He had the foresight to construct a small ‘wing’ discretely at Barmeath. This was planned and executed with great sensitivity and sympathy, but fulfilled a very practical need for a manageable space . He can now find his toes warmed by currents of tropical air from the underfloor heating, rather than sit in the library or drawing room and suffer from chilblains. Bravo Bru!
An AGA is Victorian technology in the 21st century like driving a vintage car. It may give pleasure but it is a discretionary spend.