Life's A Gas

I've dithered over whether to actually blog about this, as I don't want everyone to think P and I are dyed-in-the-wool, knit-your-own-lentils, eco-warrior weirdos!!  Because I promise you we're not, we really are nice, ordinary people - really!!

Anyway, during the summer our aim is to have zero gas bills.  This entails having no running hot water, and no central heating on (not that we would want the central heating on even in this miserable summer).  We did manage to achieve a gas bill of £0.00 two years ago, and I really wish we had framed it.  I was so pleased with our achievement.  Not sure what went wrong last summer but I think we had a gas bill of about £10.00.  This year we're aiming for zero again.

It all came about because we have a really crappy old heating system which still heats the upstairs radiators even if you have it on 'hot water' only.  Two summers ago we found it was just impossible to have warm radiators in the bedrooms in the summer heat so we stopped putting the gas on altogether.  If this was our own house (as opposed to a rental property) we would rip the whole system out and start again.  We'd have something much more eco-friendly installed, probably including solar panels, but as it is we just make do and mend.

It's not as spartan as it sounds as we do have an electric shower so we always have hot water to shower in, and I heat kettles of water to do the washing up, and for any hand-washing of clothes that I want to do.  And we don't stint ourselves if the weather is truly cold in the evening - I think we last had the central heating on sometime in early June.  But we are hoping not to have to put the heating back on again until, hopefully, the end of September.  Oddly enough the water that comes from the 'hot' tap is still noticeably warmer than that from the 'cold' tap, I can only assume that somehow the tank benefits from the sun shining on the roof tiles and heats up the water a little.

I know when I'm staying with my mum next week it will be quite a novelty for me to have hot water on tap again, and I shall enjoy it, but I also enjoy having one quarter a year when we don't have to pay anything to British Gas.  I'm suprised they haven't sent an engineer to check we're not fiddling our gas meter because our winter bills are truly astronomical.

So there we are - confessions from the house with no running hot water - and we truly are sane, normal people - really we are.

And just because a post without at least one picture is utterly boring, here is a photo of one of the lovely roses that dance and sway in the breeze outside our living room window.

Comments

[Gill]

Well you've never come across as a weirdo! But I admire your will-power. Our heating has been off for a couple of months now, but not having an electric shower I do heat the water twice a day for baths, plus my hob is gas. The smaller gas bill is always welcome though!