Ireland vs USA, Part 3

Today’s installment of Ireland vs USA is about heat and hot water.

In most homes in the US that I am familiar with, there is a furnace that is controlled by a thermostat on a wall somewhere in the house. Of course, the kind of furnace can vary, as can the thermostat. Some people can program their thermostat to vary according to the time of day.

Here in the house we are renting, as well as the one we had to go to for a night when our electricity was out here, each room has its own radiator and each radiator has a dial to control the heat. The dial goes from off to 4, with 4 being the hottest. There is a main thermostat in the laundry room that is programmed to make the heat come on at 6 am for a few hours, and again at 6 pm for a few hours. The rest of the day, the heat is off unless we “boost” it. This means that we go to the thermostat and push the button that says “boost” to turn the heat on in any zone in the house for one hour. The owners have it set up this way because the house uses propane gas for heat and it is very expensive. However, the system is very efficient. When on, it warms the rooms quickly, and we have the ability to adjust each room as needed. For example, in the bedroom that no one is using right now, the radiators are turned off and the door is closed. The radiator in my bedroom is also off because I’m only in there to sleep and I like the room cold. When we are home in the middle of the day we sometimes need to “boost” the heat in the living room and kitchen.

Now for the hot water. I’m not too familiar with the various kinds of hot water heaters in the US. I only know the kind that our homes have had, which was gas-heated. Unless several people took long, hot showers (thank you, teenagers), there was always hot water. I could run the dishwasher and washing machine and still take a hot shower. In the unlikely event of running out of hot water, if we simply waited 10 or 15 minutes, the hot water heater could heat the tank in that amount of time.

Not here! I can’t see the hot water heater because the utility room is locked, but I would guess that it is heated by propane like the furnace. It runs on a timer which is set to heat the water at 6 am, 12 noon, and 6 pm. On the one hand, the water gets very hot and also heats these great towel warmers in each bathroom. Your towel is so toasty when you get out of the shower!

On the other hand, if you have a few people take showers in the morning, and then try to wash the breakfast dishes…let’s just say that mom’s hands are often cold after doing the dishes. No hot water until after 12 noon! The same is true at dinner time. Do the dishes, or maybe run the dishwasher, give the little kids a bath, and then no hot water until the morning! There is also a “boost” option for the hot water heater, and we have used it twice, but it makes a terrible noise that makes it not worth the trouble.

Now for something totally new, at least for me! Something called a “power shower.” We spent one night this week at a different house while the power company was trying to restore our electricity (a wire was brought down in a storm). This house had 2 bathrooms with power showers. We had a few laughs as we tried to figure out how the heck to work them. I wish I had gotten a picture of them! There was a switch outside the bathroom door that said “shower” and turned red when you turned it on. Then inside the shower there was a rectangular white box with a switch and a dial, attached to the shower head. The switch turned on the water and the dial controlled the temperature. This white box somehow was heating the water directly for the shower. It was very loud! But no worries about running out of hot water 🙂

That’s it for today! We’ll have lots more to share tomorrow because the sun finally came out this afternoon and we got some great pictures!