| It's often said that simple things please simple minds, usually with reference to me.
I'm not yet an expert at living in my own house. With three months' practice under my belt, there are only a few basics I can say, with some certainty, I have conquered.
- Locking the door. I can do this. I can even remember to lock the windows. Security has not, to date, been an issue. I say that while touching enough wood to replenish the Amazon basin.
- Cooking. No, really! I can cook a wide enough variety of stuff that coming home in the evening is not the exercise in gastronomic pessimism you might expect. Meat, fish, er... meat... fish... meat! And fish! And occasionally a little rocket with some mushrooms. Yeah.
- Washing. I type this with mild trepidation since, while my washer/dryer has proved itself a worthy accessory, it has recently been threatening armageddon. There is a point, two-thirds of the way through the cycle, where it lobs a flame into its little Bosch afterburner and all hell breaks loose. The machine itself is the only thing yet to break loose, but it's close. Up till now, however, washing has been a triumph.
None of these modest successes - things you've been doing without much thought for a long time - compares to this morning's discovery.
I have found a tiny box with a dial on it which controls all the heating in the entire flat.
I think people call them a thermostat.
This is a leap forward not seen since the day, aged 12, I drew a map of a made-up place which I decided to call "Aylesbury" - only to be informed Aylesbury already existed.
In the spirit of adventure I have turned the dial up to 24 degrees and, would you credit it, my living room is now moderately toastier than previously. So is my kitchen, so is my bathroom, so is my bedroom. They are all wired up to this thing!
I don't care how much you're laughing right now - I've never lived in a house with this kind of technology. Or if I have, people have kept it very quiet and not let me remotely near it, which on reflection was wise of them.
My previous battles with heating have involved tightening and loosening those little knobbly things on the edge of radiators, to absolutely no effect, then settling down in a fleece for a long, cold winter.
Not this time, baby. I'm cooking in here. Northolt has its first sauna and I'm the proud proprietor.
I'm off on holiday for the week now (no more of this nonsense till Saturday). What are the odds I remember to turn the heating off again? |
Comments so far: 1
The ideal room temperature for humans is between 18°C and 21°C. The ideal temperature for a freezer is -18°C to -21°C; a fridge 4-5°C, but that’s another story!
Elderly people should edge towards 21°C due to their typical inability to keep warm. Humans generally need to sleep to sleep around 15°C, slightly below room temperature.
If your heating system is gas, the need for the thermostat to be at 24°C may be due to the radiators needing to be ‘bled’ to allow air to escape. The air in the radiators reduces performance. However, your rather high room temperature preferences, Ollie, for 24°C might not be quite so ‘extravagant’ after all. The reason for this is simple, as explained to us by engineers (ones who are friends, thankfully!):
* A thermostat, even a digital one, is not necessarily accurate to within a degree or so. It could be as much as four degrees out either way, so your thermostat set to 24°C may actually be 20°C. This is not a fault, and it applies to digital as well as traditional dial ones.
Now, do not attempt to ‘bleed’ your radiators if you haven’t done so before, as although it can be easy for a home owner or tenant to do, if the radiators are opened up too far, water will spray everywhere! This will make it virtually impossible to stop, so don’t do it, Ollie! If you cannot operate your thermostat, I don’t want you to touch the radiators themselves! ;) Yes, that’s an order! ;)
If, however, you are electric, the above concerning ‘bleeding’ is irrelevant.
The little dials on gas central heating radiators are called radiator valves. You will have more than one type – one that simply controls the amount of water going into the radiator; another will actually have a local thermostat in it that will make adjustments to the radiator based on the temperature in the room the radiator is in. A central thermostat will only monitor the temperature in the room in which it’s located, which isn’t always ideal. Radiator valves allow you to make little adjustments based on individual rooms.
And speaking of heating, ours has literally just come on! The digital timer/programmer has just switched the boiler on (5.40am) to heat the radiators and water for when Dad gets up in ten minutes or so for work. The thermostat is set to around 23°C, and I shall explain why it is so high in a moment. The boiler is working to heat the water to fill the radiators so the thermostat, along with the few radiator valves we have, will detect the correct temperature has been reached and then shut the boiler off. We have a very old boiler, but the timer/programmer and thermostat are new digital ones.
Yay! And I get some breakfast, too! Yum!
The boiler has just shut off, as the correct temperature has been reached.
Ollie, if you’d like any help with your heating controls and how to use the heating system, just ask me. :)
And… oh wait a minute… Dad’s not at work today! Oh, wait! I’ve been left some food!
*Scoffs food* ;)
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