General Chat

I have neither a fire nor central heating, which I have declined.

We are so lucky in having had our house well insulated that I use one radiator on wheels to do the whole upper storey and a convector downstairs.

Fred was never cold.

Maggie .........

....... we have an open fire as well, and it is very efficient, puts out a tremendous amount of heat :-)


Unfortunately, the thermostat that controls the heating in the main part of the house is in the dining room, which is separated from the living room by a big archway.

The fire is in the living room ................... hence the thermostat thinks the house is too hot and turns off the heating



so leaving most of the house cold :-)



In the event of winter power cuts ............... it is nice to have the open wood burning fireplace though :-)



I too can understand Sharron's new view of power cuts :-)

Gosh, I'm so lucky - have an open fire to :-D
I'm bl**dy lucky!

Sharron, I can quite understand your new 'view' on power cuts - a mere inconvenience rather than a potential major disaster!!!

We have gas everything - it's bottled gas, so never run out - but unfortunately the central heating also needs electricity to run.

Our worst power cut was a few years ago in the winter storms when we were without power for about 3 days.

We lived in the kitchen with the gas cooker on!! It reminded me of childhood when there was only one warm room and the rest of the house was like a fridge!

The power went out yesterday afternoon!

We still had power, but those living in the north of town and across the highway were cut off. I had to go to two places yesterday, both in the dark! No power, no tills open, no eftpos etc......... one person knows me and trusts me to pay him next time, but the other wanted cash (for a change, I had more than $5 cash on me).

:-)

Our worst one here was about 8 or 10 years ago, when I was without power for about 24 hours.

The annoying thing was that the houses across the street are on a different grid .................. and they had power.

Same thing with the houses across the other street, apart from the Baptist Church and manse which are right across from us, which were built before the houses south of them were built but after our house.................. obviously those 2 buildings were added onto the grid that served us.

It is soooooooooooo annoying to look out from your darkened house and see others going about life as normal!


OH was out of town .................. as usual when anything goes wrong in our house :-)

None of us have gas cookers, but one of my neighbours put their camping stove to good use ................. boiling kettles and filling thermos flasks with hot water for others.

Those neighbours ended up being without power for a total of 48 hours, because the transformer on a pole at the end of their lot had been blown by the power surge, and they had to wait until that could be repaired.

So, their neighbours returned the favour for them.


It was October-ish .................. so had to find the candles out, and wrap myself in blankets during the evening and early morning. I was able to go out during the day, and eat out.

Our worst was the flood of 2007 when the power was off 24 hours. Gas was on but we don't have a gas cooker. couldn't make a cup of tea anyway because the water also was off!!!

We get regular power cuts. Yesterday's were short intermittent cuts during the early morning, and after about 9am we didn't get power back until lunch time. Damned inconvenient in 38C with no a/c :-(

We also get water cuts, not as frequent as the electricity cuts, but nevertheless annoying when you're standing under the shower with your hair full of shampoo!

I suppose I ought to think myself lucky to have any running water and mains electricity at all, with living in the back of beyond on the edge of the desert! :-0

Fine for you city folks Maggie.

Here we get something if they have a bit left over from doing a job somewhere else.

There is a gas main going down the main road to a bigger village but it doesn't come up here

Strangely, we only had mains drainage when Fred, last of the mighty turd-hearse drivers, retired. We still have no television cable and had to all sign on to a site before we even had broadband.

We were on some sort of priority list .with the power company where I had to call them if our power went off and they would route the supply in such a way that that it came to me as quickly as possible.

What I was doing really was rejoicing in the fact that a power cut is, again, just an inconvenience and not a major production.

Ah - the glories of a gas cooker!! :-D

.......as long as I have water.......

We had a power cut here on sat afternoon. it took out the whole of the west coast of scotland, islands and highlands.it was off for 2 hours and really was a pain in the neck.

i was in the middle of preparing food, about to then hoover and had the washing machine and tumble drier going!

We got it back on around 4pm but Skye and the highlands were off stil on Sun pm. They say they dont know what caused it....hmmm well they jolly well should as it affected 50,000 homes.

Thankfully it was still daylight and not cold.

but sharron truly i was just about to make a cuppa when it went off, it always happens.

hope this isnt the start of winter already as we have just had a gale and there is another heading this way on thurs/fri.

florence
in the hebrides:

Our power often goes off for a few seconds, and we have to reset all the clocks.... then there's another power cut five minutes later!

A few years ago there was a bad accident on the highway, which took out some power poles & lines. We had no power for over three days. Fun! All the shops were closed, and so was the pub. We cooked everything on the bbq and played scrabble by candle-light. Thank goodness it was early summer, so we didn't need heating or air-con... but the showers were getting colder every day.

We have a little camping stove for such emergencies! A hot drink is definitely needed when the heating goes off :-D

Not here there isn't!

I only use wine to cook because I don't like it.

It has to be tea and it has to be tea most of all when there is not a way to make any.

Sharron - there's always a glass of wine! :-D ;-)

You always want a cup of tea when there is no power though don't you?

We often get mini power cuts lasting about 10 seconds. They are a blooming nuisance, as lots of things have to be reset :-|

There's something quite calming about a longer power cut I find. Sitting having a proper conversation by candlelight, or snuggling under a duvet to keep warm . :-D :-D

I am pleased to say that we have just had a power cut.

It is the first one we have had since April when Fred died.

The thing I feared most for seven years was power cuts, especially in the night. They were one of the reasons I did not sleep properly for seven years. A long one would have put out the bed and air mattress and the hoist. Fred would have needed to be moved very quickly into alternative accommodation which would have been hard enough to organize during the day.

Anyway, this little power cut was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

It was great!