Snave

Too right. Any "moisture" in the air fell to the ground last night. There's about half a meter of it on my drive right now.

Daedra

OK I admit I'm not in the industry myself and not making blatant claims of knowing more then I do. So I will correct that previous statement to say that in my experience most of the homes/flats and businesses I have worked at during my 16 years in Montreal were heated by Electric baseboards which I *thought* meant it was Hydro.
Upon further investigation though, I see that it is not necesarily so. Regardless of that though, I maintain that I have not known any person (or myself recieved) any other fuel bill other then Hydro Quebec. And I have lived in 5 different apartment/flat complexes and a detached house during those 16 years. However, it's not something you usually ask people about in general conversation so I may very well just been ignorant of the fact *lol*

In any case, for a long and boring read (trust me, I skimmed through it and now my head hurts ) see the published report of the survey across Canada done in 2003 on energy consumption link.

Here

P.S to skip right to the relevant bit, its on page 20 of 40 with household heating breakdowns (chart 26)

iaink

Looks like Hydro preference is only a quebec thing...something to do with that dirt cheap 1969 priced hydro they signed up for from Churchill Falls maybe?. (That deal is still good until 2041!)

from page 21 of the same report:
"For Canada as a whole, more households used natural gas to run their main heating system (46 percent) than any other energy source (see Chart 29). Other sources used by households fortheir main heating system were electricity, used by 33 percent of households; oil, used by 9 percent; and wood, used by 3 percent. Additionally, 6 percent of households used a combination of two sources of energy to power their main heating system. Over 50 percent of these dual-heating-source households used a combination of electricity and natural gas."

stats canada says something similar

http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/prim72.htm

Note the residential final demand at the bottom, and factor in that all houses use hydro, but not necessarily for heating.

I agree though that in Apartment complexes etc Baseboards are the norm (cheaper to install and arrange individual metering), but detached houses are another thing across the rest of canada.

Not that it matters, heat source has very little if anything to do with static build up.

Steve_P

Any apartment complex we lived in prior to moving into a house was heated by baseboard heaters but they were not electric they were hot water. Heat is usually included in the rent for most apartment dwellers so it would be not unusual to receive only a hydro bill.

A large number of homes on Vancouver Island are heated using electric baseboard heaters. These numbers are dropping in newer homes as natural gas becomes more readily available on the island.

Cheers
Steve

Daedra

What can I say to Iain & Steve except... I find it all very SHOCKING

Couldnt resist sorry!!

Steve_P

Good one.

If I remember correctly an easy way to tell if you had electric baseboard heaters versus hot water radiators.

Electric have a thermostat control either in each room or on the heater itself. Hot water radiator heat usually has only one thermostat for the apartment.

Cheers
Steve

Colsgirl

Interesting you say that because last winter we go so many electric shocks that we were scared to touch anyone/anything. Some of the shocks were so large, they were painful.

This winter we have only had one or two very small ones (no longer see the blue spark jump across the gap!). I had assumed that this was because we got a lot more snow than last year. But we could be getting used to them (I hope!!).

Alberta_Rose

Just to throw a spanner in your workings out ..... we had "hot water radiator heaters" in our UK home, along with most people, I think.

We had one central thermostat in our hallway, then each radiator had its own temperature control actually on the heater.
This made it very easy to turn the heat up or down in any given room, which of course we cannot do here as it's warm air heating.

This is a pain actually, as if we put our lovely log effect gas fire on to cosy up the living room, (or if I do a lot of oven-cooking), it effects the thermostat which is in the dining area, and the heating turns off, so every other room in the house, including our nice new basement, turns rapidly fridge-like!

YYZlover

The previous place I lived at here in UK - I'd agree. This place is dry and dusty regardless if the heating is on or not. (And very cold when it's not). Sure bathroom and kitchen steam up when cooking/showering bu the rest - not a good house for anyone with asthma.

Ferry between Finland and Sweden used to be a nightmare for me. Little bolts of lightning between finger and button. Blame it on all the carpets.

I still have an issue with cars. I generate static as it is naturally.

YYZlover

I used to zapp a horse of mine. Once so badly that she jumped straight in to a wall and looked at me as if I was a 6k volt electric fence. This happens still but I have learnt that certain clothes and material has a greater chance of turning me in to an electrical generator than others.

I generate an enormous amount of static, for some reason. To the point that my pager /back in those days) would simply short-cut and turn itself off! I had to take the battery out and put it back in to reboot it. Eventually gave it to my sis who never had a problem with it.

The studio I mentioned earlier had an issue with static. But it was more apparent when I touched anything as all the speakers in the room would have a loud crack if I had moved around and then touched my laptop, which was only connected to the mains. It got to the point that the engineers asked me to stop typing as every touch of every key generated static noise on the recording.

Steve_P

Spanner what's that? Don't you mean a wrench? You're in Canada now remember it's not a spanner anymore.

I do agree that a central thermostat is a major pain at times. Our house is a four level split and the thermostat is on the bedroom or uppermost level. The upstairs is toasty warm during the day and the thermostat doesn't call for heat so the family room and basement are as you say very fridge like.

We're thinking of replacing the furnace this year and when it's done I'm going to ask if it's possible to separate the house into heat zones. I've heard of it in new builds but never in a retrofit, but there's always hope.

Cheers
Steve

kellydrew

static!!!!
We`ve only been here since 19th January and already I`m totally fed up of frizzzzzzzzy hair my hair is normally straight as an arrow, but thanks for the tip of Pantene winter, will have to try it tomorrow.
Cheers
Kelly

kellydrew

Sorry not been on here for a while and have just noticed our signature hasn`t been changed
Cheers
Kelly

tallperson

We had a similar problem in that the thermostat was in the living room practically next to the fireplace. Any time we lit the fire the rest of the house would slowly get colder and colder. Moved the thermostat to the other side of the wall in the dining room and it's been much better since