plumbing / heater

While I was away my landlord had a radiator fitted to my room.

I’m pretty sure I mentioned this before I went, but if not, basically he’s increasing my rent by £5 a month and for that I’m getting a radiator in my bedsit area.  It’s plumbed into my landlord’s heating, so I don’t have any control over it (well, I can turn it on/off and I can adjust the “balance” - whatever that is) but it’s better than an increase and getting nothing in return.

Last week was therefore the first week I’ve been experiencing it and the results are mixed, if I’m honest.

The weather has been quite mild, so it's difficult to know just how much they have their radiators on, but there’s a bit of an “all or nothing” effect.  When the radiator is on, it’s very effective, but it doesn’t really come on when I would have it on.

It’s been okay in the morning (a little later than I get up) but it soon warms the place up when it’s on.  In the evening, it’s on before I come back, so I get back to a somewhat warm flat.  However, it’s a bit unpredictable if it’ll stay on all evening or just for an hour or so.

So some days it turns off and I have to put my own radiator on, other nights it’s stayed on right until I go to bed.

The effectiveness of the radiator is partly a function of its size.  It’s a lot bigger than I was expecting, which means it really pumps it out when it’s on, but it also takes up a heck of a lot of wall space, which I wasn’t expecting.  Indeed, I’ve ended up re-arranging everything and moving my bed across to the other side of the room.

I’ve still got the other radiator of course, and so my bed is up against that, as it’s on the other side of the room.  It’s long winded to explain, but fairly simple in practice.

So yeah, mixed result really - it’s saved me a few quid, but it’d be nice if it was more consistent.

It did also have a weird effect in that it caused me to strain my knee.  Basically my bed is very low down (it’s sort of a futon thing) so I have to get in/out in a specific way.  Well, moving to the other side means I’ve had to do all that in a different way, and I made a mess of it and strained my knee.

The timing of that wasn’t brilliant, as I was off to Liverpool in a couple of days, which I’ll talk more about on Thursday.