Pulaski

Maybe he's just making sure it is Santa accessible?

Yorkieabroad

How does that work then - you can only heat when they tell you you can?
Or is it a whole building system, all or none sort of arrangement? Is that common here? I thought that only happened in Soviet Bloc and University Halls!!

Pulaski

The only hall I ever lived in had the large "trunk" heating pipe running through my room. I don't think I ever turned the radiator on, but for much of the winter my window was open, or at least cracked, as scalding hot water passed through my room.

BTW, Yorkie, do you know they still have a steam pipe system in New York?

Yorkieabroad

Sounds a bit like the older halls at our place. The more modern ones were slightly more controllable, but I seem to recall it was all based around kitchen/common room blocks - all the bedrooms round one set could be on, or off. A biking buddy is married to a lady from Sakhalin, who he met when he was working out there. He said the heat in his town came on in September and went off in March (or whenever) - cant remember the exact date, but it was the same dates every year, whether they needed it or not! That was all steam based as well.

Pulaski

Sounds like high school I attended back in the UK. We'd start back in September and the heat would be on, despite temperates often still being in the 70's. .... Then come January they'd run out of money and some times the school would send the non-exam grades home because the school was too cold.

Yorkieabroad

Your school had heat?

Didn't know you were posh

Jonion

When I were a lad.....



UK Midlands it's cold and wet. Heating has been engaged today for the first time since last winter.
I have been trained by the GF in Minneapolis. She likes it below freezing almost always. And will help this along by having cooling fans running during the night. Windows open if cold enough outside. And if not, the AC on about 55F.

She actually mentioned that she'd like to move to Alaska one day.
I wasn't surprised but luckily she binned this desire when I suggested that it may just mean I don't need to apply for a Visa after all.

WEBlue

This is exactly the way we do it in the cold weather. When guests come we may raise the at-home daytime temperature up to 68, but the husband & I are used to UK weather and the balky boiler we used to have. Hubby has an American relative (in PA) who prides himself in leaving the temperature set to 56 all day all year round, even in the winter!

The last house we lived in the US had old steam radiators, which provided maddenly erratic heat. Once the furnace kicked on, the radiators would become boiling-hot, so when it got cold I'd have to nudge the thermostat up to just get the heat to come on, then immediately nudge it back down again so it would go off in a few minutes. We were always wasting time fooling with the thermostat.

Our present house has baseboard hot-water system that is blissfully easy by comparison--you can set the thermostat & forget it.

Rete

It is a building system; no individual heating. It is New York City area and the norm.

Yorkieabroad

Yikes! So can you turn it off if you don't want it, or you just have to take what is given?

Rete

Just have to take what is given and then listen to the co-op owners bi*ch about the high fuel heating costs. Duh! Lower the heat. Just because you have a few over age 80 people who are cold on a 90 degree day, doesn't mean you have to heat the entire building just to make them warm.

Karrie72

I just read about a free survey you can take on wattz.com where you are asked questions about your house and based on what you say it comes up with money saving solutions. I'm definitely going to try it. Between oil and snow plowing I feel broke in the winter.

Bob

It's about $300-400 for seasoned, hard wood. Unseasoned stuff is pretty cheap but that's kind of rubbish for heat out put.

The folks get the stump off cuts from the woods, as FIL trims and loads the trucks up, so gets some massive stumps of hard wood. Those things way a ton though

Bob

http://www.masssave.com/residential/...gy-assessments

Do you have anything like that up your way?

It's paid for in one of the taxes down our way, the one that's something like 25c a month. You get a free thermostat, energy efficient shower heads, light bulbs and a massive discount on insulating your home walls/roof. Friend got his whole house re-insulated for a couple hundred.

Yorkieabroad

You need to buy them all a blanket and a pair of those tartan fur lined booties that zip up the front