I'm joining the Me Too brigade, we had one in our bathroom. Ours was a 1930s semi and there was a 3 bar electric fire from that era set into the chimney breast in the main bedroom. On cold winter mornings we were allowed to get dressed for school in front of it.
Wendyf wrote: ↑07 Feb 2023, 15:33
I'm joining the Me Too brigade, we had one in our bathroom. Ours was a 1930s semi and there was a 3 bar electric fire from that era set into the chimney breast in the main bedroom. On cold winter mornings we were allowed to get dressed for school in front of it.
Mine was the same age but ours was a disconnected gas fire in each bedroom ….Dad put a convector radiator at the bottom of the stairs that was in all the time to try and heat upstairs. It didn’t work !
I can remember getting up in the middle of the night, venturing to the downstairs toilet, to find the house full of smoke. Something had gone weird with the wick in the paraffin heater, I was probably around 10 years old but I still remember the smell. Didn't take me long to wake my parents.
A very popular heating accessory used to be the paraffin sump heater which was actually a version of the paraffin heater used in brooders for chicks. You put them under your car on a frosty night to aid early morning starting. They were needed because many cars were only 6V systems and the starters weren't up to much.
I know where there was one garage on a garage site that had a wonderful heating system. It had a gas pipe straight into the gas main and a gas heater permanently on. If it snowed the roof was always black, a dead give away!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
I had such a paraffin heater in the first bacteriology lab I worked in indeed, I set it up and ran it. It was a research lab built in the middle of a cold warehouse almost as an afterthought I always though. The firm made agricultural disinfectants, antiseptics and industrial cleaners and one of my roles was to test the various formulae the chemists came up with for their bacteriocidal action and to test against the equivalent ones of our competitors. Although I had incubators and autoclaves in general it was a pretty cold place to work most of the time so I was provided with the paraffin heaters. The whole lab streamed with condensation as the walls were only plasterboard in the cold warehouse and both paraffin heater and the autoclaves generated a lot of water vapour. Not a pleasant environment. The company is now based in Bamber Bridge and I believe has a purpose built lab.
As a kid I would watch my Uncle Fred light his coal fire with a gas flame using a rubber tube running from the kitchen cooker through the hallway and living room to the fireplace. As a child I thought it was great fun!
Nullius in verba: On the word of no one (Motto of the Royal Society)
We had plug in gas points next to all the fireplaces so that a gas poker could be used to light the fire. I still have one in my front room but have never used it and suspect it was disconnected when the CH was installed.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
Tizer wrote: ↑09 Feb 2023, 10:33
As a kid I would watch my Uncle Fred light his coal fire with a gas flame using a rubber tube running from the kitchen cooker through the hallway and living room to the fireplace. As a child I thought it was great fun!
The smell of paraffin still transports me back to my childhood. One of my parents' friends had an ironmonger's shop and they sold paraffin from a tank in the back yard. We used to take our can, they'd fill it and we'd walk home with a trail of the vapour left behind us. You just couldn't get rid of the smell!
Nullius in verba: On the word of no one (Motto of the Royal Society)
Gas prices are on their way down but not according to Octopus Energy. At the start of the energy fiasco my monthly payments were £180 which put me in the average bracket with a slight surplus at the end of the year. Now they are RECOMMENDING £390.71 a month depending on which side of the bed Jeremy Hunt gets out of. It doesn't need a genius to see that the proposed increase is £210 more a month more than 2 years ago. See Stanley's joke.
As things stand I will owe them money which is what I prefer. April is going to push a lot of people into fuel poverty.
From Octopus. We recommend typical monthly payments of £390.71, reduced to £323.71 for the Energy Bill Support Scheme (more details below)
At the moment, we recommend typical monthly payments of £390.71, reduced to £323.71 by the Energy Bill Support Scheme. Your typical payment includes:
£323.71 per month for your future energy use at current prices for the next 12 months
From April, we expect the Government’s Energy Bill Support Scheme — monthly credits of £67 — to come to an end, and for energy prices to change again.
We’ll automatically revert your payments to £390.71 — if they need a further change, we’ll get in touch closer to the time with a recommendation.