The heating at work is 2 x 250Kw natural gas boilers for the radiators & heating pipes & 2 x 50Kw forced hot air blowers for the open assembly areas.
These can eat their way through the best part of £300 a day in gas if the weather is cold!
Anyone left electric heater, oven, etc.. on while abroad?
- Thread starter eveares
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The heating at work is 2 x 250Kw natural gas boilers for the radiators & heating pipes & 2 x 50Kw forced hot air blowers for the open assembly areas.
These can eat their way through the best part of £300 a day in gas if the weather is cold!
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And my Dad also used to leave the landing light on and the loft hatch slightly ajar to stop the pipes freezing
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Sorry to reply to such an old thread.
At school as part of a project we measured a building and drew plans, we had several attempts at measuring one area as we seemed to end up with an unexpected void adjacent to the deputy headmasters office.
Loads of banging on walls (lathe & plaster) found an area the size of a door sounding different, coinciding with a length of different skirting board. Outside there was a small window, maybe only a little over one foot square.
It took a while but eventually it was agreed the skirting could be removed and a hole could be cut. The maintenance man did the deed and passed a wandering lead lamp through and looked with the aid of a mirror. The headmaster had a look and instructed to cut out the plywood board to reveal a room something like 12ft square... the light was on, albeit totally blacked by dirt, and had therefore been on longer any member of staff employed there, something like 30 years.
At school as part of a project we measured a building and drew plans, we had several attempts at measuring one area as we seemed to end up with an unexpected void adjacent to the deputy headmasters office.
Loads of banging on walls (lathe & plaster) found an area the size of a door sounding different, coinciding with a length of different skirting board. Outside there was a small window, maybe only a little over one foot square.
It took a while but eventually it was agreed the skirting could be removed and a hole could be cut. The maintenance man did the deed and passed a wandering lead lamp through and looked with the aid of a mirror. The headmaster had a look and instructed to cut out the plywood board to reveal a room something like 12ft square... the light was on, albeit totally blacked by dirt, and had therefore been on longer any member of staff employed there, something like 30 years.
I may well have told this similar story before ...
... many moons (decades) ago, a year or two into the life of a brand new (large) hospital, the nurse in charge of the Operating Theatres suddenly realised that 'her Theatres' were not numbered logically - it was something like ... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8. Not long before one of the maintenance staff was scheduled "to renumber them sensibly", someone started thinking more laterally. Discussions were had, builders were located and interrogated and, eventually plans were found and studied.
This led to some men with tape measures and heavy tools being summoned. Under a couple of inches or so of plaster, they found a door beyond which was the 'missing' operating theatre, fully tiled (walls and floor), with all services installed (and still functional), even an operating table and light, and all the expected 'furniture'.
One really has 'to wonder' about the person who did the plastering (deliberately or otherwise)
Kind Regards, John
and at our local hospital the radio service was allocated a storage area of; xx ft². The actual space was some 25% smaller as brick built air duct risers were built into two corners. going up into the loft one duct was there but there was no sign of the predicted second duct. Sadly the space couldn't be reclaimed as there are no floors.I may well have told this similar story before ...
... many moons (decades) ago, a year or two into the life of a brand new (large) hospital, the nurse in charge of the Operating Theatres suddenly realised that 'her Theatres' were not numbered logically - it was something like ... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8. Not long before one of the maintenance staff was scheduled "to renumber them sensibly", someone started thinking more laterally. Discussions were had, builders were located and interrogated and, eventually plans were found and studied.
This led to some men with tape measures and heavy tools being summoned. Under a couple of inches or so of plaster, they found a door beyond which was the 'missing' operating theatre, fully tiled (walls and floor), with all services installed (and still functional), even an operating table and light, and all the expected 'furniture'.
One really has 'to wonder' about the person who did the plastering (deliberately or otherwise)
Kind Regards, John
In another area the opposite happened with a completely missing electrical riser.
Not left anything on in my home while on holiday but once left the 'fast freeze' button on in our fridge for 16 years. https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/is-it-worth-repairing-a-fridge-freezer.534879/
Another time, we were on holiday once - 4 couples in a rented villa in South of France. One of the girls wondered if the pool lit up at night. Ever happy to please her, her boyfriend went round the place turning switches on here and there in the pump room (it was a decent size infinity pool) but had no luck. At the end of the holiday they came in and read the meter as the first €100 of electric was included in the rental. They worked out that around €1200 of electricity had been used. They assumed there must have been a mistake in the reading of the meter at the beginning of the rental and let us off but we now realised that the fool, in his quest to please his girlfriend, had switched on the pool heaters. No wonder we could see steam coming off at night!
Another time, we were on holiday once - 4 couples in a rented villa in South of France. One of the girls wondered if the pool lit up at night. Ever happy to please her, her boyfriend went round the place turning switches on here and there in the pump room (it was a decent size infinity pool) but had no luck. At the end of the holiday they came in and read the meter as the first €100 of electric was included in the rental. They worked out that around €1200 of electricity had been used. They assumed there must have been a mistake in the reading of the meter at the beginning of the rental and let us off but we now realised that the fool, in his quest to please his girlfriend, had switched on the pool heaters. No wonder we could see steam coming off at night!
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Local school asked me to investigate a mystery electricity bill, eventually got into an old disused lodge building which had three storage heaters & immersion, been running for last ten years
I have a habit of turning the compressor on in my garage, to inflate tyres and forgetting to turn it off - it goes silent when it gets to pressure. I only tend to notice it, when in the middle of the night it strikes up to make up for slight leakages. I installed a 20 minute timer, when powered up, it can run for 20 minutes then turns off.
I put the switches for the loft lighting, below the hatch, so you turn them on or off when going up/down the ladder - easy to confirm they are off in passing.
Caravan is always on 'shore power', but it's battery is normally disconnected. Every couple of months I open the external battery compartment door, to reconnect the battery, to give it boost charge for a couple of days. To remind me it is on charge, I leave the key in the locker door.
We went to the coast for the day a few years ago and the CW pipe to the electric shower in the bathroom developed a leak whilst we were out. Directly below that part of the bathroom is the downstairs toilet, which was well soaked when we got home. We were lucky, it all dried out without any damage apart from needing repainting.
I put the switches for the loft lighting, below the hatch, so you turn them on or off when going up/down the ladder - easy to confirm they are off in passing.
Caravan is always on 'shore power', but it's battery is normally disconnected. Every couple of months I open the external battery compartment door, to reconnect the battery, to give it boost charge for a couple of days. To remind me it is on charge, I leave the key in the locker door.
We went to the coast for the day a few years ago and the CW pipe to the electric shower in the bathroom developed a leak whilst we were out. Directly below that part of the bathroom is the downstairs toilet, which was well soaked when we got home. We were lucky, it all dried out without any damage apart from needing repainting.
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Did similar - intended to switch the immersion heater off - instead switched the Kitchen ring off - that had the freezer on it... but lots of hot water.
Mate left his flats electric heating on for 8 days when he was away - temp was just over 30degrees C on his return, fridge running flat out, all his house plants dead.
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